5 ms·

gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/science/988-youth-suicides-decline.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c1A.WCQi.QT0BEMS00Ujw&smid=url-share https://www.n

gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/science/988-youth-suicides-decline.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c1A.WCQi.QT0BEMS00Ujw&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/science/988-youth-suicide... I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides, which are a massively big problem. I wish we paid as much attention to suicide as we do to very rare mass shootings, which kill a tiny fraction of the people.

bombcar 6mo ago
It's important to remember that the majority of gun deaths are suicides. It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates.
- rolph 6mo ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html the data from CDC agrees with you, and agrees that a firearm is most common method. but also indicates age correlate with freq of suicde by firearm. guess who the least frequent group is, kids. now that might fly in the face of stats, but suicide is an "intentional" thing. [that rides on the idea that you are competent to form intent when suicidal] so yes if you keep your guns secure, and gun proof your kids to mitigate accidents that should improve things, for kids. however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    The point of the second part is that grandpa locking up his gun reduces his risk of suicide. Anything that adds a "checkpoint" that activates even some small other part of the brain seems to help.
    - rolph 6mo ago
      yeah you got it, the reasons why it seems to be the better choice are somewhat glum. terminal illness with no quick relief in sight, an estate now the best contribution to be made vs impending medical expenses. it might work for spur of the moment almost reflex decisions, but its a different story when the choice is made over a few years, reinforced by physical reasons.
  - hirvi74 6mo ago
    > however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa. What if allowing suicide is taking care of one's grandparents? After all, if I was diagnosed with a awful condition like Alzheimer's, ALS, etc.. I am absolutely going out that way once I start having more bad days than good days.
    - dlev_pika 6mo ago
      That’s why we have laws protecting end of life rights in Oregon - which are much preferred over millions of firearms in the hands of ‘rEsPoNsIbLe gun oWnErS’, impulsive and impaired decision making, and someone walking into a traumatic mess coming back home.
      - mystraline 6mo ago
        Most of the rest of states use hospice as a way to kill people with morphine. Basically they give the patient as much as they want, and usually stops their heart. Naturally, medically assisted suicide is illegal in most states. But its wink wink nudge nudge "pain management".
        dlev_pika 6mo ago
        I hear you - as usual, people will do what they need to do in the way they can. Personally, I wish we collectively recognized that this ‘pain management’ is a disservice to all dealing with those situations, much like handing out medical marihuana cards to recreational users was for actual patients, or women addressing family planning issues in some less than acceptable settings. Alas…
    - LorenPechtel 6mo ago
      Yeah. We focus so much on suicide without sorting out whether it's temporary despair or declining health where there is no good answer. We should be trying to help/prevent the former, for the latter I think we should only be trying to be sure they're not the former. But the data always lumps them and I get very suspicious when data lumps two very different cases.
- Barrin92 6mo ago
  the Israeli military did a study about ~15 years ago where they looked at soldier suicide rates after they had enacted a policy of leaving the weapons at base over the weekend and if I recall correctly it cut the rate of suicides by 40-50%.
  - ajb 6mo ago
    The US Veteran's Affairs agency makes a free app to help with insomnia; it has all the usual advice that would apply to anyone - plus advising veterans not to keep a loaded gun by the bed, even if it makes them feel safer going to sleep.
  - alistairSH 6mo ago
    And on the flip side, the US Sec Def recently allowed US soldiers to carry loaded weapons on base (when not in a role that required it, which was previously disallowed). I expect this will increase suicides on US military bases. All for some "rah rah, 2A, mah rights!!!" bullshit political posturing.
    - lamasery 6mo ago
      That policy has long been a kinda funny "gee, why don't they allow it if more 'good guys with guns' make us safer?" example. I guess at least this removes that bit of rhetorical inconsistency... at, guaranteed, a notable cost in lives.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    I bet that has as much to do with where and when alcohol is consumed as it does guns.
- skylerwiernik 6mo ago
  Interesting. What causes this? Could it have to do with the type of person to keep a gun in a safe (has kids, is more cautious in general, etc) or have studies shown that this minor friction is actually enough?
  - ceejayoz 6mo ago
    Suicide tends to be impulsive. Any friction, even brief, can give an opportunity to think twice.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      That was the general conclusion as I recall it. Originally it was thought to be "someone else has the key" kind of things - which of course, does limit it - but even controlling for "I have to walk downstairs and find the key" reduces it.
- throw0101d 6mo ago
  > It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates. RAND found that minimum age requirements and child-access prevention laws reduced suicides and unintentional injuries/deaths and violent crime: * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-acce... * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-age.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-ag... * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html
dfxm12 6mo ago
It doesn't have to be a competition, and similar things, like making it harder to get a gun, introducing/enforcing laws around locking up your weapon, making mental healthcare more available (including a hotline), etc., will greatly reduce both.
mondomondo 6mo ago
[flagged]
- dmoy 6mo ago
  I mean... important by what metric? Active shootings in the US kill like 100 people a year (as of 2024 I guess: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications/2024-active-shooter-report/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications...) Suicides is more like 50,000/yr
  - fhdkweig 6mo ago
    That account has a -10 karma. It is just a gibberish bot.
  - shimman 6mo ago
    Yeah when you redefine the term to be "active shooter" I guess, something tells me that the American public still doesn't want to die in a mass shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... It's a sick society when you have one for nearly every single day of the year. But hey this is the result of neoliberal economics so why should we get too upset at the societal rot when corporatists are increasing shareholder value?
    - dmoy 6mo ago
      Ok sure, mass shooting (400) vs active shooting (100). It is still the same order of magnitude, and two orders of magnitude off of suicides (50,000). I'm not sure how that changes the point I was making, which is that suicides don't seem obviously less important.
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      The terminology was specifically to counter the slight of hand you just did. Over time the definition of "mass shooting" kept getting watered down to include a lot of "normal criminals with normal criminal goals they are trying to further by killing" shootings by people who wanted the number to be bigger to mislead the public into thinking indiscriminately targeted, killing for the sake of killing type shootings perpetrated by people who are mentally ill are much more common than they are in order to push various policies. So then the people concerned with studying the latter had to come up with a new term that only encompassed people going off the deep end and did not include normal crime hence "active shooting"
hirvi74 6mo ago
> I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides I am absolutely certain that is the case, however, society operates with such demands from individuals that a majority of necessary changes would be adamantly fought against by those which stand to benefit from the suffering. Having been through the whole mental health treatment gamut in the USA, I am convinced the only goal of the system is to patch people up just enough that they can be churned back into the capitalist machine. What makes things even sicker, is that one's health insurance is often tied to their employment, so in order to receive basically any treatment, one is typically required to be employed and working.
GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago
this is a really weird comparison to make given that the US has basically made no material progress on policy that could prevent mass shootings. they're both really really bad things. they both deserve as much attention as we can afford (which is more than they get). not to just jump down your throat -- i agree with you about more needing to be done to prevent suicides though. i think it's a good thing that hotlines are available but it's clear that putting the onus on people who are considering suicide to reach out for help is not enough. we gotta get better at reaching out and checking on our friends, loved ones, coworkers etc and help them carry the load more than we're culturally accustomed to.
- fhn 6mo ago
  in your opinion, what policy should be made because whatever policy you make won't do much as long as guns exist?
  - GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago
    are you asking me, a numbskull with an associate's degree, to propose public policy*? i think we're allowed to want qualified people to do better in the positions we've elected them to :) * if so, my policy is that all guns be vaporized overnight. also, my policy would include the end of lobbying entirely, including but not limited to the small arms industry and the NRA along with police guilds and other organizations supporting the small arms race in this country
  - array_key_first 6mo ago
    Policy still matters even if guns exist. After all, murder is still illegal even though murderers exist. Building a bomb is still illegal even though bombs exist. The tricky part with the US is the already vast supply of firearms circulating. Can't do much about that. But, I would think, stopping or reducing the sale of guns right now would still have an effect. We already somewhat regularly try to reduce the sale of guns via policy, mostly to people we think are potentially dangerous. But, I don't know exactly how much that has helped, or will help. What I do know is there is definitely variance in gun violence. Both across nations, but also across states in the US. So, something is behind it.
mystraline 6mo ago
So yeah, why not? Choosing to end thyself IS the penultimate "my body, my choice". We have immediate "no money, lost job, destitute" (insert temporary issue). And we have chronic, everpresent, or terminal problem. We could fix the first one, but socially we choose not to. Either way, we should have the right of bodily autonomy. I guess the american answer is, for a suicide help call, show up with pigs with guns, and shoot them for disorderly conduct?
- alistairSH 6mo ago
  The phrase "suicide by cop" didn't create itself out of thin air.
  - mystraline 6mo ago
    Well, thats usually relegated by someone who wants to die but is too scared to do it. So they find people who legally can, usually by waving an empty gun around. But what I'm seeing is 60% of the people here in the USA are not functionally sustainable economically wise. And that is completely a fixable problem. But given how corrupted our government is, its likely not going to be fixed in the reasonable future (say, 20y). Live in poverty, no medical, no vacation, scraping by every day on what amounts of hope? I can understand why people want out. HN people are in a massive bubble. Most of us are fine. Average folks? Nope. Rural? Nope. Inner city? Nope. Homeless? Obviously not. Underage LGBTQ people with hateful/christian families? One of the highest suicide rates. Sure, I would absolutely rather help people through what seems to be insurmountable problems. Most of them aren't. But seriously, this country doesnt give a fuck. I'm pretty sure this country only cares about suicide at all is because it reduces lifetime tax revenue (for, primarily blowing up brown and middle eastern people). Thankfully, 1FA is still in the USA, mostly. So sites like https://sanctionedsuicide.site https://sanctionedsuicide.site, even if theyre indexed to hell and back by Google and Bing. Id rather help people get past why they think suicide is the answer. But I also understand why someone is just tired and done.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]

bombcar 6mo ago

It's important to remember that the majority of gun deaths are suicides. It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates.

rolph 6mo ago
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html the data from CDC agrees with you, and agrees that a firearm is most common method. but also indicates age correlate with freq of suicde by firearm. guess who the least frequent group is, kids. now that might fly in the face of stats, but suicide is an "intentional" thing. [that rides on the idea that you are competent to form intent when suicidal] so yes if you keep your guns secure, and gun proof your kids to mitigate accidents that should improve things, for kids. however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.
- bombcar 6mo ago
  The point of the second part is that grandpa locking up his gun reduces his risk of suicide. Anything that adds a "checkpoint" that activates even some small other part of the brain seems to help.
  - rolph 6mo ago
    yeah you got it, the reasons why it seems to be the better choice are somewhat glum. terminal illness with no quick relief in sight, an estate now the best contribution to be made vs impending medical expenses. it might work for spur of the moment almost reflex decisions, but its a different story when the choice is made over a few years, reinforced by physical reasons.
- hirvi74 6mo ago
  > however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa. What if allowing suicide is taking care of one's grandparents? After all, if I was diagnosed with a awful condition like Alzheimer's, ALS, etc.. I am absolutely going out that way once I start having more bad days than good days.
  - dlev_pika 6mo ago
    That’s why we have laws protecting end of life rights in Oregon - which are much preferred over millions of firearms in the hands of ‘rEsPoNsIbLe gun oWnErS’, impulsive and impaired decision making, and someone walking into a traumatic mess coming back home.
    - mystraline 6mo ago
      Most of the rest of states use hospice as a way to kill people with morphine. Basically they give the patient as much as they want, and usually stops their heart. Naturally, medically assisted suicide is illegal in most states. But its wink wink nudge nudge "pain management".
      - dlev_pika 6mo ago
        I hear you - as usual, people will do what they need to do in the way they can. Personally, I wish we collectively recognized that this ‘pain management’ is a disservice to all dealing with those situations, much like handing out medical marihuana cards to recreational users was for actual patients, or women addressing family planning issues in some less than acceptable settings. Alas…
  - LorenPechtel 6mo ago
    Yeah. We focus so much on suicide without sorting out whether it's temporary despair or declining health where there is no good answer. We should be trying to help/prevent the former, for the latter I think we should only be trying to be sure they're not the former. But the data always lumps them and I get very suspicious when data lumps two very different cases.
Barrin92 6mo ago
the Israeli military did a study about ~15 years ago where they looked at soldier suicide rates after they had enacted a policy of leaving the weapons at base over the weekend and if I recall correctly it cut the rate of suicides by 40-50%.
- ajb 6mo ago
  The US Veteran's Affairs agency makes a free app to help with insomnia; it has all the usual advice that would apply to anyone - plus advising veterans not to keep a loaded gun by the bed, even if it makes them feel safer going to sleep.
- alistairSH 6mo ago
  And on the flip side, the US Sec Def recently allowed US soldiers to carry loaded weapons on base (when not in a role that required it, which was previously disallowed). I expect this will increase suicides on US military bases. All for some "rah rah, 2A, mah rights!!!" bullshit political posturing.
  - lamasery 6mo ago
    That policy has long been a kinda funny "gee, why don't they allow it if more 'good guys with guns' make us safer?" example. I guess at least this removes that bit of rhetorical inconsistency... at, guaranteed, a notable cost in lives.
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  I bet that has as much to do with where and when alcohol is consumed as it does guns.
skylerwiernik 6mo ago
Interesting. What causes this? Could it have to do with the type of person to keep a gun in a safe (has kids, is more cautious in general, etc) or have studies shown that this minor friction is actually enough?
- ceejayoz 6mo ago
  Suicide tends to be impulsive. Any friction, even brief, can give an opportunity to think twice.
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    That was the general conclusion as I recall it. Originally it was thought to be "someone else has the key" kind of things - which of course, does limit it - but even controlling for "I have to walk downstairs and find the key" reduces it.
throw0101d 6mo ago
> It's also important to remember that any blocker between a potential suicide victim and the weapon of choice reduces rates greatly. A gun locked in a safe where the potential suicide knows the code - reduces rates. RAND found that minimum age requirements and child-access prevention laws reduced suicides and unintentional injuries/deaths and violent crime: * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-acce... * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-age.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/minimum-ag... * https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html

dfxm12 6mo ago

It doesn't have to be a competition, and similar things, like making it harder to get a gun, introducing/enforcing laws around locking up your weapon, making mental healthcare more available (including a hotline), etc., will greatly reduce both.

mondomondo 6mo ago

[flagged]

dmoy 6mo ago
I mean... important by what metric? Active shootings in the US kill like 100 people a year (as of 2024 I guess: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications/2024-active-shooter-report/view https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications...) Suicides is more like 50,000/yr
- fhdkweig 6mo ago
  That account has a -10 karma. It is just a gibberish bot.
- shimman 6mo ago
  Yeah when you redefine the term to be "active shooter" I guess, something tells me that the American public still doesn't want to die in a mass shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... It's a sick society when you have one for nearly every single day of the year. But hey this is the result of neoliberal economics so why should we get too upset at the societal rot when corporatists are increasing shareholder value?
  - dmoy 6mo ago
    Ok sure, mass shooting (400) vs active shooting (100). It is still the same order of magnitude, and two orders of magnitude off of suicides (50,000). I'm not sure how that changes the point I was making, which is that suicides don't seem obviously less important.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    The terminology was specifically to counter the slight of hand you just did. Over time the definition of "mass shooting" kept getting watered down to include a lot of "normal criminals with normal criminal goals they are trying to further by killing" shootings by people who wanted the number to be bigger to mislead the public into thinking indiscriminately targeted, killing for the sake of killing type shootings perpetrated by people who are mentally ill are much more common than they are in order to push various policies. So then the people concerned with studying the latter had to come up with a new term that only encompassed people going off the deep end and did not include normal crime hence "active shooting"

hirvi74 6mo ago

> I bet there is so much more we could do to reduce suicides I am absolutely certain that is the case, however, society operates with such demands from individuals that a majority of necessary changes would be adamantly fought against by those which stand to benefit from the suffering. Having been through the whole mental health treatment gamut in the USA, I am convinced the only goal of the system is to patch people up just enough that they can be churned back into the capitalist machine. What makes things even sicker, is that one's health insurance is often tied to their employment, so in order to receive basically any treatment, one is typically required to be employed and working.

GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago

this is a really weird comparison to make given that the US has basically made no material progress on policy that could prevent mass shootings. they're both really really bad things. they both deserve as much attention as we can afford (which is more than they get). not to just jump down your throat -- i agree with you about more needing to be done to prevent suicides though. i think it's a good thing that hotlines are available but it's clear that putting the onus on people who are considering suicide to reach out for help is not enough. we gotta get better at reaching out and checking on our friends, loved ones, coworkers etc and help them carry the load more than we're culturally accustomed to.

fhn 6mo ago
in your opinion, what policy should be made because whatever policy you make won't do much as long as guns exist?
- GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago
  are you asking me, a numbskull with an associate's degree, to propose public policy*? i think we're allowed to want qualified people to do better in the positions we've elected them to :) * if so, my policy is that all guns be vaporized overnight. also, my policy would include the end of lobbying entirely, including but not limited to the small arms industry and the NRA along with police guilds and other organizations supporting the small arms race in this country
- array_key_first 6mo ago
  Policy still matters even if guns exist. After all, murder is still illegal even though murderers exist. Building a bomb is still illegal even though bombs exist. The tricky part with the US is the already vast supply of firearms circulating. Can't do much about that. But, I would think, stopping or reducing the sale of guns right now would still have an effect. We already somewhat regularly try to reduce the sale of guns via policy, mostly to people we think are potentially dangerous. But, I don't know exactly how much that has helped, or will help. What I do know is there is definitely variance in gun violence. Both across nations, but also across states in the US. So, something is behind it.

mystraline 6mo ago

So yeah, why not? Choosing to end thyself IS the penultimate "my body, my choice". We have immediate "no money, lost job, destitute" (insert temporary issue). And we have chronic, everpresent, or terminal problem. We could fix the first one, but socially we choose not to. Either way, we should have the right of bodily autonomy. I guess the american answer is, for a suicide help call, show up with pigs with guns, and shoot them for disorderly conduct?

alistairSH 6mo ago
The phrase "suicide by cop" didn't create itself out of thin air.
- mystraline 6mo ago
  Well, thats usually relegated by someone who wants to die but is too scared to do it. So they find people who legally can, usually by waving an empty gun around. But what I'm seeing is 60% of the people here in the USA are not functionally sustainable economically wise. And that is completely a fixable problem. But given how corrupted our government is, its likely not going to be fixed in the reasonable future (say, 20y). Live in poverty, no medical, no vacation, scraping by every day on what amounts of hope? I can understand why people want out. HN people are in a massive bubble. Most of us are fine. Average folks? Nope. Rural? Nope. Inner city? Nope. Homeless? Obviously not. Underage LGBTQ people with hateful/christian families? One of the highest suicide rates. Sure, I would absolutely rather help people through what seems to be insurmountable problems. Most of them aren't. But seriously, this country doesnt give a fuck. I'm pretty sure this country only cares about suicide at all is because it reduces lifetime tax revenue (for, primarily blowing up brown and middle eastern people). Thankfully, 1FA is still in the USA, mostly. So sites like https://sanctionedsuicide.site https://sanctionedsuicide.site, even if theyre indexed to hell and back by Google and Bing. Id rather help people get past why they think suicide is the answer. But I also understand why someone is just tired and done.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]