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We know for a fact access to firearms increases the chance of a successful suicide. That suggests a clear change that could help save lives and limits to the 2n

• dymk 7y ago
  Access to bridges also increases the chances of successful suicide. The clear change that should be suggested is more proactive identification of mental illness and increased guaranteed access to mental health services. If that reads to you as nothing but "thoughts and prayers", I don't know what to say.
  • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    50% of suicide in the USA are via firearms, 2.4% are by falling (off bridges or other structures). Focusing on lowering the 2.4% number is not going to be as effective as focusing on the 50% one. https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment will work around it, but for those just teetering on the edge guns are very very effective.
    • umvi 7y ago
      Yeah, but lowering the 50% one will increase usage of the other methods significantly. The US isn't magically going to have insanely low suicide rates if you make guns illegal. Sad/depressed/broken people are still sad/depressed/broken (nothing has changed on that front). There will be a slight drop in overall suicides and a very large increase in non-firearm suicide attempts (re: Japan). Here's an idea that doesn't infringe on any rights: Mandate each handgun sale come with a free suicide prevention pamphlet. That would definitely lower suicide rates measurably at a low cost that everyone can agree on.
      • jdietrich 7y ago
        >Yeah, but lowering the 50% one will increase usage of the other methods significantly. The evidence says otherwise. Most suicidal ideation is brief and impulsive, so making it harder to access effective means of suicide doesn't just lead to a substitution. Multiple studies have found a lasting reduction in the overall suicide rate after a highly lethal means of suicide became less easily available. The majority of people who survive a suicide attempt say that they decided to attempt suicide less than an hour beforehand; simply increasing the delay between impulse and action can be life-saving. 90% of people who attempt suicide do not go on to make a further attempt, so merely inducing people to choose a less lethal method is a net win. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/
        • umvi 7y ago
          Unless you can show a country's (i.e. Australia's) suicide rate plummeting shortly after banning guns, I'm going to have a hard time believing it has a big an impact as you claim. There are lots of first world countries in EU and Asia where guns are banned that have suicide rates comparible to or higher than the US's (and I have a hard time believing guns are the only thing standing between the US being comparible to its peers and having insanely low suicide rates) Even still, there are other ways of increasing suicide friction than outright bans. Firearm waiting periods (to prevent same-day purchase suicides) would increase friction, suicide pamphlets with every sale would increase friction, etc
          • Analemma_ 7y ago
            - After the UK phased out coal gas for central heating, which provided a quick and easy death, overall suicides dropped markedly: [0]. - When Sri Lanka replaced a common pesticide which made it easy for farmers to commit suicide with another one that was not as toxic to humans, suicide rates fell by half: [1] - Many different bridges which were popular suicide sites installed bridges and found that overall suicides decreased and did not relocate to nearby bridges without nets. Here is one example from Montreal, there are many others: [2] It is very well-established in the literature that eliminating easy means to suicide does reduce total suicides and causes only a minor a displacement effect to other methods. Your obstinance on this fact is only making you look like a flat-earther. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/ [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154644/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154644/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682603/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682603/
    • Spivak 7y ago
      Because suicide via firearms is the painless route. If you were going to kill yourself why wouldn't you do it with a gun. You have to be prepared for legislation like this only slightly decrease the number of suicides but drastically increase the suffering of the people that do.
      • dole 7y ago
        Compared to other methods, it leaves a relative mess, you can easily screw it up, you're conscious for it...
        • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
          And, as I remember from high school, when they put their skull back together for an open casket, they don’t look the same at all (that will forever haunt me).
      • DoctorOetker 7y ago
        I thought liquid nitrogen was the painless (and cheaper) route
        • smegger001 7y ago
          Bullets move faster than nerve impulses. Ergo the brain is destroyed before it has the chance to feel pain. nitrogen gas is slower.
          • DoctorOetker 7y ago
            The cross section of a bullet is much smaller than the cross section of your brain. plenty of people have survived penetrations of the brain. Even if it is fatal, it is not necessarily instantaneous: check out "A Pure Formality", a magnificent movie that will horrify even the staunchest, unflinching atheist. From wikipedia's page on LN2: > the liquid-to-gas expansion ratio of nitrogen is 1:694 at 20 °C (68 °F) (so it can easily displace a lot of air in a small volume and) >As liquid nitrogen evaporates it reduces the oxygen concentration in the air and can act as an asphyxiant, especially in confined spaces. Nitrogen is odorless, colorless, and tasteless and may produce asphyxia without any sensation or prior warning
    • yellowapple 7y ago
      Focusing on any of those numbers misses the point: people are killing themselves for actual reasons, and addressing those reasons (namely: by actually maintaining a robust mental healthcare system, and by doing what we can to end or at least significantly reduce poverty) will cause all suicides to decrease in frequency. Also, you know what takes even less willpower than passing a background check (or stealing/borrowing/buying a gun + ammo from someone else illegally), paying hundreds of dollars for a gun + ammo, pointing it at the right spot on one's own head (to actually die instead of just maiming oneself) and pulling the trigger? Buying $20 worth of over-the-counter painkillers and chugging the bottle, or buying a $10 bottle of hard liquor and chugging that (with or without the painkillers), or running a $5 tube from the exhaust of a running car to the interior and taking a nap. And on that note, firearms are only more popular than other means of suicide among males; per your source, females typically prefer poisoning (though firearms are almost tied). Both males and females have an equally-high tendency (around 25%) to commit suicide via suffocation (and for females under 24, that skyrockets to almost an absolute majority). A "perfect" world where firearms don't exist won't make those go away, and the people who'd kill themselves with guns would almost certainly gravitate toward other means (as the multitude of suicidal young people without firearms access already tend to do). (Additionally: your source doesn't seem to specify whether or not those numbers are for actual deaths or attempts; lots of people survive their suicide attempts, whether because they didn't use an effective method or because someone intervened. It'd be interesting to see that distinction; I suspect the graphs are only recording actual deaths, which means that firearms are going to be skewed because they're more effective at actually ensuring death, while poisoning and suffocation might be far more popular but less effective.)
      • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        It’s pretty easy to get access to a gun in the states, it’s not like we have the lock box policy that Germany has (responsible gun ownership laws are ironically faught against by the NRA). Most kids use their parents’ gun, no background check required. Getting enough pills to do yourself in without a prescription is super hard and not very reliable. Most OTC drugs will cause you to vomit long before you die. Anyways, this is the route my terminally ill mom took with a doctor’s help, the best way to do it anyways. (I only knew two people who committed suicide, the other one was a girl who shot herself in the head in high school) Surviving a suicide by gun is kind of gruesome, it isn’t something I want to think about. There are plenty of great reasons to restrict firearms, making suicide more difficult is just one of them. Honestly, it’s only something you have to worry about if you have guns in the house in the first place (the girls’ dad was the heavily pro gun type, so she had easy access), so it’s easy to opt out of that problem for us anti gun types (unlike say mass school shootings).
  • kieranmaine 7y ago
    Committing suicide is a spur of the moment action. Every impediment that makes it harder to commit suicide gives an individual valuable seconds to reconsider, at which point they might decide to use whatever health services they have access too. Limiting easy ways to commit suicide AND having good mental health services seems a better idea than one or the other.
    • dundercoder 7y ago
      Maybe the actual final act is impulsive, but given personal experience, someone plans for a long time before they have that final impulsive moment. Lots of time to overcome blocks.
    • jki275 7y ago
      I’m sure that it might be for some. There’s certainly the cases where someone suddenly faces the loss of their entire life through arrest for some horrific crime and kills themself in the bathroom at the last moment. For many however - through personal experience - it is something planned for, hoped for, dreamed about - for as long as decades.
  • rhcom2 7y ago
    > Access to bridges also increases the chances of successful suicide. Which is why there has been a push to secure bridges and add crisis phone lines to these areas. We should be tackling the problem from every direction. I'd love for it to happen but it sure doesn't seem like the US is going to make any progress in guaranteed access to mental health services anytime soon.
  • diegoholiveira 7y ago
    > The clear change that should be suggested is more proactive identification of mental illness and increased guaranteed access to mental health services. Yes! One thing that help to increase mass shootings and suicide was the anti-asylum movement. many people who clearly are a danger to himself and others should be hospitalized. unfortunately asylum got a bad reputation for inhumane treatments, but modern psychiatric treatment is completely different that the past inhumane treatments.
    • beatgammit 7y ago
      The thing that worries me about mental hospitals that don't allow the patient to leave is that whether someone can be released is very subjective. Fixing mental health issues usually requires cooperation from the patient, and that can only really happen if the patient wants it to happen. I'm on board with increased access to mental health facilities, but I'm skeptical of using them for convicts unless the convict consents. Psychiatric treatment often involves medication, and I don't believe anyone should be forced to take medicine, especially mind-altering medication.
• kortilla 7y ago
  So does access to knives, chemicals and high places.
  • kazinator 7y ago
    Suicide by firearm is (or can be) certain and instant. People who would not be able to stick a knife into themselves fatally, or dare to jump off a high place, are nevertheless capable of shooting themselves.
    • dundercoder 7y ago
      I think the risk of failure being lower for firearms is exactly the draw. But failure is still a possibility. I had a friend who unsuccessfully attempted suicide by a pistol in the mouth. He ended up with a hole in his nose. Having only brought one bullet with him, was in enough pain to get treatment. He still wears a small bandaid on the side of his nose, but he’s in a stable place now.
      • kazinator 7y ago
        That's why I wrote (can be); and the horrific mutilations from failed firearm suicides also basically add to the argument against access to firearms.
• mieseratte 7y ago
  > and limits to the 2nd Amendment have already been settled as constitutional. What change(s) as relates to limiting the 2A would help to reduce suicide?
• throwaway_law 7y ago
  >We know for a fact access to firearms increases the chance of a successful suicide. We also know poverty and financial stress leads to increased suicide, in fact close to 20% are directly related. and yet, while the stock market is at record highs, companies are more profitable than ever, workers are more efficient than ever, inequality and debt has skyrocketed to historical highs. The real question is what would come first: gun regulation(s) or some reforms to our economy so people are not living hand to mouth, indebted their entire lives, and have access to healthcare which includes mental health. My guess is neither. People in the US will continue to offer hopes and prayers (over social media no less for the virtue signaling and likes) but the vast majority wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
• Rebelgecko 7y ago
  I think that's kind of their point. Access to a free and independent press also increases the chance of a successful suicide.
• mc32 7y ago
  There are countries where while they have high suicide rates, guns are largely rare. In Japan they are largely unattainable. On the other hand the 7-11 and Lawson’s has books about “100 ways to do it and not leave a mess for your family”.
• stjohnswarts 7y ago
  Limiting freedoms won't fix this, it just gives the government more incentive to keep the ball rolling and ban everything. Getting power begets the persons wanting more power after that, and on and on.