I know, I know, we’ve been here and done this a million times on the SDMB.
However, some new evidence has come to light which I think should allow for a re-examination of past arguments made.
Quite often, when discussing deaths by gun in the US, gun proponents have argued that suicide numbers skew the overall issue too much and should not be included. Afterall, if you want to kill yourself a gun is but one way, there are others if you can’t get a gun. Because those numbers are so substantial getting them out of consideration very much helps the case of gun rights.
A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, seems to cast some doubt here. Guns figure large in suicides and there is no avoiding their impact. What’s more, this study, while not exactly breaking new ground, seems to be the most thorough yet and puts a pin in the “can’t be sure” arguments (as far as that goes…it is still a study).
There is too much to quote from this article so I will put a few bits in but it is worth reading:
So, can we agree that suicide by gun statistics absolutely should be a part of any gun debate and not pushed aside?
Maybe society should be collectively taking up “the gun debate” in earnest in like, 5 years. Right now is like the absolute last time on earth that there is anything to be gained from talking about it. Between people on the left terrified of our authoritarian and increasingly militarized government flexing deadly force on people, people on the right terrified of riots and looting, and people in the center wondering if the whole thing is going to completely implode and we’re going to have armed Trump militias rolling around summarily executing people, I’d say we’ll leave the whole gun thing right where it is for the moment.
Yes. I don’t have a cite but I remember a study where most of those who’d attempted suicide didn’t try again some significant period of time later. People who try to kill themselves are often having a meltdown, a moment of temporary irrationality brought about by intense emotion. Once they’re past it, they can see that suicide isn’t a good idea. Pretty much all of us have had moments when we felt a strong emotion and then did something we later regretted. The problem is that, with guns, you have a means of suicide which is simple, quick, easy and definitive. It can take a few seconds to go from impulsive decision to death.
There are people for whom suicide was a careful considered decision. I guess those shouldn’t be included but I’d hazard it’s a minority.
Lamoral,
I agree that the gun issue isn’t one which is judicious to press at this point. If I understand correctly, the thread is more specific than that question.
I don’t know if it’s ever pushed aside entirely as when gun deaths are brought up suicide is included in the figures. In the last decade I’ve seen suicide become a part of the gun control debate more frequently than it was in the 1990s or most of the 2000s. I expect it’ll continue to be brought up when we once again begin the gun control debate in earnest.
I agree 100% with this proposition, but I wish that the linked article had reported more of the findings of the NEJM study. The numbers they chose to report were the ones that were most dramatic, but not the ones that actually addressed the objection of guns rights advocates when it comes to including suicides in the guns rights calculations. The standard reason for dismissing suicide by gun from the equation is that gun activists say that those people would have just killed themselves some other way. So they are unlikely to be convinced by an increase in suicide by the 8 or 35 fold increase of suicide by gun, since they will just say that among the non-gun owners there could be an 8 or 35 fold increase in other ways to commit suicide.
The statistic from the study they should have concentrated on was that among gun owners, there was an increase in the overall rate of death by suicide of 3.34 fold for males and 7.16 for females vs non gun owners. So while it is true that the number of people listed as gun death by suicide includes many who would have killed themselves anyway even if they didn’t have a gun, a rough calculation shows that about 73% of gun owners who kill themselves would still be alive if they hadn’t owned a gun.
Adults should have the right to commit suicide should they wish, body autonomy and all. There should be a way to legally and safely get meds to painlessly perform the act. No one should be forced to have to use a firearm to end their life.
If you want to kill yourself, using a gun is more likely to get it done, than any other means. Women are more likely to use a gun to commit suicide than men. Women tend to be more serious about committing suicide than men.
What do you mean by “part of” the debate? The quibbling over the total number of deaths (and whether to include or exclude suicides) seems to be about how to portray the “size” of the gun death “problem.” Once you move into serious discussions, you quickly discover that you have a variety of distinct (and partially overlapping) problems that likely demand different solutions.
For example, few (if any) of the conventional “gun control” proposals would seem likely have a meaningful effect on gun suicides. Other than a complete abolition of personally-owned handguns (which I frequently hear is not the aim or end goal of a significant part of the gun control movement), I have trouble imagining any policy that would be rationally aimed at both gun suicides and gun homicides (especially non-domestic gun homicides).
Men are far more likely to succeed in their attempt. Probably because they are more likely to use a firearm 6/1 than women do. About 86% of firearm suicides are men. I’ll post a cite when I am at an actual computer unless someone beats me to it.
Basically that article sez that males sometimes buy a gun in order to kill themselves. People also get poison to kill themselves or buy rope or hoard prescription medicines.
Should we ban rope or prescription medicines?
Women more often poison themselves.
It is no surprise that men sometimes buy a gun in order to commit suicide.
That study comes to a bogus conclusion and is a paid for hit piece - it sez right there:Funded by the Fund for a Safer Future
… Fund for a Safer Future: Homepagewww.fundforasaferfuture.org
More than 115,000 Americans will be shot this year. And 35,000 of them will die. It’s time to imagine a world free from gun violence. We all deserve a safer future.
Who We Are
FSF plays a strategic role in the gun violence prevention …
No, that is a false conclusion. It just means two things:
Men sometimes buy a gun just to commit suicide.
If you have a gun, that is your preferred method of suicide.
By no means does it show that just owning a gun make suicide more likely.
Look at Japan, with a much higher suicide rate than the USA- and virtually no guns at all. Same with South Korea , India, Belgium, and especially Russia. In fact there are some 30 nations with a higher suicide rate than America, and none have the gun ownership rate of the USA.
Which doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Laws designed to prevent the misuse of firearms by criminals, background checks, waiting periods, etc., etc., aren’t going to prevent suicides. The fact that some people commit suicide with firearms shouldn’t affect my right to purchase one.
I think the stat is that women are far less likely to use a gun-- but more likely to succeed if they do happen to. I know of two women (one I knew personally, and one was the cousin of a close friend) who failed at their first attempt, then later succeeded with a gun.
Actually, rather than trying to exclude suicide stats, gun rights advocates ought to take up the right-to-suicide cause.