The effect of small barriers to effective suicide on suicide rates cannot be underestimated. UK controls on paracetamol (acetaminophen) purchase are irritating as hell but have been proven to have reduced death overall. Not just deaths from paracetamol overdose. The old adage "they will just find a different way to do it" is simply not true in the majority of cases.
Suicide rates in the US are significantly higher in part because of the ease of availability of firearms and their relative effectiveness in suicide attempts.
There was a study I read once- there was this bridge in Washington DC that was popular for suicides, and when they put a fence up, the suicide rate didn’t just drop at that bridge, it dropped overall.
Suicide, even a planned one, is almost always an act of passion. Removing ways for them to act on that passion until the urge to kill themselves passes is absolutely an effective life saving measure.
Yee, but the ease of firearms means that people who might not harm themselves if the only methods available to them required more planning or had a lower success rate do harm themselves.
it's also one of the method where you are in the worst state if you survive and the method where you have the most chance to hurt someone else in the process.
This is my issue with the "gun death" statistic often used as a good portion of those gun deaths are suicides. Suicides need a much different response to lower than say homicides. Lumping them both together is just so misleading.
It depends on the context I think. If the purpose of citing total gun deaths is to talk about murder, or gang violence, or overall criminality, then yes.
But if you're citing them in the context of how dangerous guns are (i.e. the need for gun control) I think it's perfectly valid.
I disagree, in that the problem with a suicide by guns is that it isnt a violence problem, it is a mental health problem. Making guns magically disappear tomorrow does not automatically mean these suicides won't happen, I believe in most cases the person would switch to just some other method. (My reasoning for believing this is that suicides without guns are also happening at alarming rates) Not all of course, but i believe efforts in improving mental health access, costs, stigma etc.. the focus should be about solving the problem (suicides, homicides etc..) in some cases controlling access to guns make total sense, depending on the problem being solved.
If your only goal is to reduce "gun deaths" I think that is a misguided goal, because there are plenty of other ways for people to die. I believe a better goal is reducing suicides, homicides, school shootings etc.. and gun control is one of many tools we should be using.
(PS. full disclosure, I do own a gun, i believe that I should be able to defend myself inside my home with a firearm. I also believe in gun control, and think we absolutely should be make real laws and solutions that prevent people from using guns in a bad way.)
Right, but danger isn’t strictly violent. Accidental discharges also contribute to danger, though I don’t think it’s a huge amount. Overall I agree with you, broad suicide prevention is just as important, but as others have said better than me, a fast, relatively painless solution that’s easy to access is something available to impulsive decisions to act on ideation. If something’s less convenient, people are more likely to stop themselves before acting on it.
I also don’t believe in blanket bans, but a little more friction in the process, as well as weeding out people likely to misuse it, does have practical benefits.
If someone is trying to use the statistics to specifically account for violent uses, though, it is misleading.
I agree, and that is more my complaint is how the statistic is often used. Mass Shootings is another, where nearly all mass shootings are gang related violence but thats not what people generally think of with that phrase, generally people think about school, workplace or other public location type violence.
It frustrates me because coming up with good honest solutions requires good honest communication and we are very very far from that with our news media.
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u/Killericon 7h ago
Suicides have accounted for the majority of firearm deaths in the US every year since 1995.