Up next: the belt sander.
I thought about this alot. The best way I came up with was to get a canoe/rowboat and bomb. You go out to the middle of a big lake or something in the middle of the night, and hug the bomb. The boat sinks, you’re chummed, and no one else even knows.
I think a guy won a Darwin award for trying to rub one out with one. Time to Google…
ETA: to Darth
that’s exactly why i’m here!
I saw what you did there.
Interesting topic.
Long time ago I read somewhere that the best way was gun in the mouth with mouth full of water.
Sounds like it might work !
To answer the OP, i think it’s just a film cliche. Back in the day, they weren’t really that careful about reality, much like how phone calls go to the dial tone if one person hangs up, or all bombs use digital clocks as timers.
Regarding suicide, I don’t think it matters. If you want to bad enough you’ll find a way.
Also, in The Onion Field The Onion Field (film) - Wikipedia from 1979, there is the gun-to-the-mouth-thing.
Zombie thread. (and I’m on my way straight to hell).
The Washington, DC Metro (subway) now has “Suicide Hotline” numbers posted on platforms, apparently to reduce the number of people who decide to jump in front of a train. We don’t seem to get as many “jumpers” nowadays, but there has been a refocus on Suicide by cop and self-immolation.
Headshots, then. Definitely. Double tap.
Actually it turns out that a lot of suicide is opportunistic. You’re feeling low, and there’s the gun, or the train, or the coal gas oven. And this time you just go through with it.
If the gun, or the train, or the coal gas oven isn’t there, then the suicidal impulse doesn’t get completed might pass.
Yes, people who really want to commit suicide will find a way. Eventually. But lots of people think about suicide and attempt it and survive and then don’t go on to attempt suicide again. If the tool isn’t present a lot of times the suicide attempt doesn’t occur.
So there was a permanent reduction in suicides when they stopped using coal gas (which kills via carbon monoxide) in ovens and started using natural gas. With the quick and easy method of suicide removed from homes, people who had a momentary suicidal impulse didn’t complete the attempt, and the impulse passed. If you have lots of suicidal impulses that come and go, then if you have a method ready at hand you’re much more likely to use it.
Plus lots of people with depression have trouble taking actions. If they had a gun in the house they might use it, but they don’t have the strength to go out and get themselves a gun.
Or as Dorothy Parker put it:
Why? What is exactly why you’re here?
Since this zombie has already been brought back to life, I have a response to this .
I personally know someone that did exactly as you describe. She failed, and not only did she fail, the only obvious damage is a slight depression in the middle of her forehead where the 9mm JHP exited. :eek:
Until she had corrective surgery, she had to deal with having a hole in her upper palate. Other than the depressed spot in her forehead and a small scar, she seems to be perfectly normal. No loss of brain function or motor skills. The general consensus is that in the process of pulling the trigger, she inadverdantly tilted the gun barrel forward causing the bullet to angle toward the front of her head.
So it seems that the method used in the movie is not the best approach, if you’re seriously trying to off yourself. YMMV 
Jesus Christ. If putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger isn’t a sure-fire method of suicide, then I quit. That’s like ironic hell punishment division. Oh, you wanted to kill yourself? OK, now we send you back to life, only now with half your face blown off. Have fun!
To be fair, a self inflicted bullet wound to the head is a very effective way to kill yourself, it’s just not the 100% foolproof method people think that it is. There are dozens to hundreds of head-shot survivors every year (if my memory is correct), but for every survivor there are many, many more deaths.
Best way to kill yourself is almost certainly to jump off a tall building onto concrete. But even falling from a good great height is not 100% either.
There is one method that is 100% effective at committing suicide: just wait. You’ll be dead soon enough.
Stay away from Google. Yeugh!
I’m an EMT, I’ve seen a number of gun-based suicides; they ain’t pretty. However, the single most horrific thing I ever saw was a power tool based one. It was about 15 years ago & it’s still occasionally upsetting to me. I. Will. Not. Share. Specifics.
(bolding mine)
Spoil sport.