[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] As I understand it, this is a popular misconception.
[/QUOTE]
As per the link in the OP
The article in question agreed that there was a ten percent chance that persons that tried to commit suicide but failed, did eventually go on to complete the suicide process. But that removing the availability or ease of the method would reduce signifigantly the amount of persons who would commit suicide.
In short , the percentage has decreased so the original premise must have been wrong.
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Then explain to me how it makes any difference whether guns facilitate murder or not such that you feel the need to point out that this is somehow “different” enough to warrant a discussion and that Airman Doors and myself and the other “don’t cares” are somehow missing some sort of vital point in our responses.
If you don’t care, don’t argue against statements of non-caringness.
[/QUOTE]
I only addressed you after you asked me a question. I did not say your uncaring was nonresponsive. I did not reply in any way to your first post as I did not have anything to say in reply. You came back (strange when you don’t think it warranted a discussion) and challenged me. I replied with my opinion.
In my post you linked to, I was addressing the point, again, that potential suicides will just choose another way to end their lives. I did not address the poster not caring. I addressed the factual basis of the opinion which appears to be flawed.
The reason to care, presumably, is that other methods of suicide have a higher failure rate and thus the person may live.
Many suicides are impulsive and cries for attention and thus better if they fail.
Others the person really, really wants to kill themself and if they fail will want to try again.
Suicide is a supremely selfish act but my opinion is it is your life do with it as you please. I just hope you (generic “you”) are super clear on not wanting to live another day because this can be one of those irrevocable choices and in my experience most dark moments pass and things get better.
One of my best friends sucked on a pistol. No one, and I do mean NO one, saw it coming. He was in his late 30’s, good job, had girlfriends, immensely funny and fun to hang around, plenty of friends (good friends too). Too hard to explain the catalyst for what made him do it but it was not all that much in the scheme of things by anyone’s measure I know (and blood tests showed he was sober and no drugs).
Oddly though, per the OP, I do not blame guns nor would I use this as a justification to ban them. I often think of my friend and wish he had made it to morning and gotten past those dark, late night demons but alas was not so and was his choice in the end.
On the other hand, US suicide rates are not too far off the norm. So it would seem guns are not really the problem. Suicidal people are the problem. It is easier to do something (probably ineffectual) about guns than to do something about suicidal people.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
The reason to care, presumably, is that other methods of suicide have a higher failure rate and thus the person may live.
Many suicides are impulsive and cries for attention and thus better if they fail.
Others the person really, really wants to kill themself and if they fail will want to try again.
Suicide is a supremely selfish act but my opinion is it is your life do with it as you please. I just hope you (generic “you”) are super clear on not wanting to live another day because this can be one of those irrevocable choices and in my experience most dark moments pass and things get better.
One of my best friends sucked on a pistol. No one, and I do mean NO one, saw it coming. He was in his late 30’s, good job, had girlfriends, immensely funny and fun to hang around, plenty of friends (good friends too). Too hard to explain the catalyst for what made him do it but it was not all that much in the scheme of things by anyone’s measure I know (and blood tests showed he was sober and no drugs).
Oddly though, per the OP, I do not blame guns nor would I use this as a justification to ban them. I often think of my friend and wish he had made it to morning and gotten past those dark, late night demons but alas was not so and was his choice in the end.
So no, I don’t care.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, touching and well said. I personally don’t know anyone that intentionally committed suicide.
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
On the other hand, US suicide rates are not too far off the norm. So it would seem guns are not really the problem. Suicidal people are the problem. It is easier to do something (probably ineffectual) about guns than to do something about suicidal people.
[/QUOTE]
I feel the article in question is a primer. Used to generate debate where the ultimate aim is to get around the supremes recent ruling on the right to keep and bear arms.
[QUOTE=Declan]
Then either contain yourself or recuse yourself from the conversation if you cant handle it.
In a word , no
Declan
[/QUOTE]
I am containing myself. I have not insulted you. I have not used a single vulgarity. I have not issued any commands. I have made an attempt to communicate how offensive your language is in a civilized manner.
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
I am containing myself. I have not insulted you. I have not used a single vulgarity. I have not issued any commands. I have made an attempt to communicate how offensive your language is in a civilized manner.
[/QUOTE]
Skald , your offended by my term. Fine , I get it.
Declan
[QUOTE=Declan]
I feel the article in question is a primer. Used to generate debate where the ultimate aim is to get around the supremes recent ruling on the right to keep and bear arms.
[/QUOTE]
I feel that you are actually a giant beetle named Bloff and you like buffing your head with the skin of orangutans.
I feel that this board is made of gummi worms yet tastes of pickles.
[QUOTE=Declan]
I feel the article in question is a primer. Used to generate debate where the ultimate aim is to get around the supremes recent ruling on the right to keep and bear arms.
Darwins are just way to go about it.
Declan
[/QUOTE]
Eh…I don’t know that I have ever seen suicide by gun used as a serious attack on gun ownership.
I think the presumption is if you want to kill yourself you do not need a gun so using suicide as an anti-gun argument is moot.
The OP makes a case for their general effectiveness in this regard but used in and of itself to make an anti-gun point I am not seeing it.
It sounds to me like we need to have more effective suicide techniques made available to those in low-gun states.
To answer the question - No, I don’t care that guns facilitate suicide. I care that people who are dying slowly in agony are denied a way to legally end their own suffering. I care that teens are dying when they could be helped. I care that life sometimes sucks. But I don’t care what tool someone uses to take their own life.
[QUOTE=FoieGrasIsEvil]
Wow, touching and well said. I personally don’t know anyone that intentionally committed suicide.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks.
Till this neither had I. It is rattling in ways hard to describe. Grief at the loss of a friend. Anger he did it. Shame that you are angry. Perplexed he would not call a friend when in a dark moment. Worry you were not as good a friend as you thought that he would not think to call and let him down somehow. Profound sorrow seeing his parents trying to cope. And so on…weird mix to say the least.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Eh…I don’t know that I have ever seen suicide by gun used as a serious attack on gun ownership.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed , most of the previous attempts have added it as a side order , rather than the prime reason
Well according to the link in the OP, some people are trying to change that.
[QUOTE=NYTimes]
In a 2007 study that grouped the 15 states with the highest rate of gun ownership alongside the six states with the lowest (each group had a population of about 40 million), Hemenway and his associates found that when it came to all nonfirearm methods, the two populations committed suicide in nearly equal numbers.
[/QUOTE]
I think thats pretty black and white
[QUOTE=NYTimes]
The more than three-times-greater prevalence of firearms in the “high gun” states, however, translated into a more than three-times-greater incidence of firearm suicides, which in turn translated into an annual suicide rate nearly double that of the “low gun” states. In the same vein, their 2004 study of seven Northeastern states found that the 3.5 times greater rate of gun suicides in Vermont than in New Jersey exactly matched the difference in gun ownership between the two states (42 percent of all households in Vermont opposed to 12 percent in New Jersey).** From these and other such studies, the Injury Control Research Center has extrapolated that a 10 percent reduction in firearm ownership in the United States would translate into a 2.5 percent reduction in the overall suicide rate, or about 800 fewer deaths a year.**
[/QUOTE]
So the thrust here is that states with a higher availability of firearms, have a higher proportion of firearm related suicides. Reduce the availability of guns, you reduce the deaths.
I’d disagree
The OP posted the link that made the case , rather than making the case himself.
Till this neither had I. It is rattling in ways hard to describe. Grief at the loss of a friend. Anger he did it. Shame that you are angry. Perplexed he would not call a friend when in a dark moment. Worry you were not as good a friend as you thought that he would not think to call and let him down somehow. Profound sorrow seeing his parents trying to cope. And so on…weird mix to say the least.
[/QUOTE]
I can only imagine the ramifications. I personally have thought of suicide as a teenager (many moons ago), but was obviously too much of a girly-man to carry it out!
Anyway, sorry about your loss. I’ve lost friends/family due to car accidents, health conditions, old age, untimely death and combat, but never direct suicide.
Your post makes me imagine what my parents would think or whom my children would end up calling “Dad” later in life if I did such a thing.
[QUOTE=FoieGrasIsEvil]
I personally have thought of suicide as a teenager (many moons ago), but was obviously too much of a girly-man to carry it out!
[/QUOTE]
Me too…on both counts. I still cringe at needles in the doctor’s office. Intentionally harming myself is unthinkable for purely “I do not want to hurt myself” reasons.
That said I too have had my dark moments and I too have had thoughts of suicide. I do not know but I would not be surprised if it hasn’t crossed most people’s minds and some point or another in their life. Like you it was when I was a teenager and things just seemed so much more awful somehow. I never got close to actually doing it but the thought was there (and it scared me after the fact…insidious little bastard it was).
Teens are even more impulsive than I am. I don’t think I would ever have a gun in a house where a teen lived.
[/QUOTE]
My house has an open pedway adjoining two wings that, were you to stand on its handy sturdy railing, would position you perfectly for a twenty-five foot swan dive straight down onto a ceramic tile floor. You don’t even need to take down the gun, find the key, find the ammo, load it, cock it, and pull the trigger. Just step right up and I guarantee a high rate of lethality.
I have a daughter going on 11. I suppose I should put my house on the market pronto if I mean to be a responsible parent.
[QUOTE=Gorgonzola]
My house has an open pedway adjoining two wings that, were you to stand on its handy sturdy railing, would position you perfectly for a twenty-five foot swan dive straight down onto a ceramic tile floor. You don’t even need to take down the gun, find the key, find the ammo, load it, cock it, and pull the trigger. Just step right up and I guarantee a high rate of lethality.
I have a daughter going on 11. I suppose I should put my house on the market pronto if I mean to be a responsible parent.
[/QUOTE]
How is that even relevant given that the OP and others have stated (and I believe) that shooting yourself is just so darned easy?
No offense or attack on you, but I would much rather shoot myself than jump to my (presupposed) death from a high place. There’s less fear in putting a gun in your mouth than jumping off the Empire State Building. Or jumping off a 25-foot balistrade only to discover that I’m very much alive except for being paralyzed for life.
Let me repeat the libertarian mantra: I am not my brother’s keeper. The proper role of government in society is to make sure people are not being coerced and that peace and stability is maintained.
It is not the job of government to protect me from risks I voluntarily take on. That includes the risk of owning something that might tempt me into killing myself one day. Do you know what’s far more dangerous than owning a gun? Driving to the gun store to buy it. SCUBA diving. Hang gliding. Base jumping. Mountain climbing. Eating cheetos every night. Not eating your vegetables.
Once your gun argument turns away from, “You might hurt other people” to 'You might hurt yourself", you’ve completely lost me. The statistics don’t matter one bit. Just like the fact that 30,000 Americans kill themselves on public roads every year doesn’t matter if you use it as an argument to restrict my liberty to travel.
My life is my own, and that includes my choosing to take risks that might end it. And that extends to my family. Just like we might make a family decision to fly a small airplane somewhere on vacation or take a motorcycle trip together or something, we might decide that we like owning guns. It’s really none of your business.
From a public health perspective, I absolutely believe that we should do everything we can to reduce gun ownership. I think that medical professionals and others in a position to deliver public health messages (teachers, etc.) ought to actively discourage gun ownership.
[/QUOTE]
I think that medical professionals should suck my cock. I’m sick of people saying “I know what’s best for YOU!” and justifying it because they have an MD after their name. There was a time when America was the land of the free, but public health advocates are doing everything they can to make it the land of the pussy. The endless pussification of society with regard to smoking - you can’t smoke cigarettes here, you can’t smoke cigarettes there, you can’t even smoke them outside - is enough. I don’t need to hear anti-gun babble from doctors who live their lives inside a bubble.
My best friend’s father - a guy who I spent a lot of time with and liked a lot - committed suicide when I was ten years old. This best friend was like a brother to me, totally inseparable, so this guy was like an uncle. He was a gun owner, but he used his car to kill himself. He turned his car on inside the garage and sat in it until he died.
The idea of someone using gas to kill himself was totally surreal, bizarre, and terrifying to me when I was a kid. I had always known about guns growing up, knew what they could do to someone, etc. and was familiar with the idea of someone shooting himself from movies and books. But the idea of someone doing it with gas just sent a chill down my spine. My friend had told me that his dad had stuffed a wet towel in the crack under the door to the garage so that the gas couldn’t get into the rest of the house. After it happened his mom put carbon monoxide detectors everywhere. The concept of an invisible force in the air that had the ability to kill people silently just absolutely terrified me, and it still does.
