The statistics from the paper seem to suggest the exact opposite. (at least in California). From this it looks like for both males and female gun owners around 88.5% who killed themselves used a gun, while for non-gun owners, 48% of men killed themselves with a gun vs 17.6% of women. When you also factor in the fact that many more men are gun owners than women, it is clear that more men use guns to kill themselves than women. Furthermore, even though 55% of the non gun owners were women, only 30% of the successful suicides were women.
I am pretty sure you are right. Women are more likely to attempt suicide, yes.
Now as to how, i have seen numbers that show that for females guns and poisons are about even, with the edge going to poison on the cste I liked the best.
Obviously you didn’t read the link. Even after the initial period, those with guns were twice as likely to commit suicide as those without guns 12 years from the purchase. And a lot more in the months after the purchase.
From here:
and
So successful suicide is far more likely if you have a gun. In this country, not others.
For me, it always comes back to per capita deaths by suicide. The US, for all of the well known fact that we have a lot more guns than just about any other western nation or industrialized nation isn’t even close to the highest per capita for suicides. There are several nations with very strict gun control that are. Why? Sure, it’s complex, but if you are going to bring in gun deaths you need to answer this, IMHO…otherwise, I suspect that bringing in suicides is basically a way for those on the anti-gun side to essentially just inflate the numbers to look more scary without context. I’d need to be convinced by some evidence that the US, who is really in the middle of the pack wrt suicides per capita would substantially change those numbers if guns were outlawed or even more strictly controlled. I mean, WHY would those number change? Why would the US, with all of the other issues we have that lead to suicide, suddenly go from the middle of the pack wrt suicide deaths per capita to the among the lowest in the industrialized world if you magically took those suicides out by simply removing guns? To me, this has never been adequately answered. Instead, I’ve heard how gun suicides are more likely to kill, and how people don’t get second chances, blah blah blah…but this doesn’t explain why in countries with heavy gun control or even basically gun bans their numbers per capita are higher than ours, or why this one change would shift our own from where they are to among the lowest.
Don’t use stats, don’t quote studies…I’ve seen them and, to me at least, they don’t answer this basic question. Walk me through the logic as to why the US, with the host of issues we have, would go from where we are today to a sustained suicide per capita rate that would be among the lowest in the world with this one change. If you want to say we’d fix all the other issues as well, then that doesn’t really say why we don’t do that first instead of focusing on gun control as the fix. If you have another explanation I’m all ears, as, to me, this is the key thing that is always danced around and why I, personally, disregard suicide deaths in these sorts of debates. To me, suicide rates are a sunk cost…regardless of whether you have guns or don’t have guns, a given society WILL have suicides, especially if you don’t address a host of other, underlying issues that leads to suicides. THOSE issues can, IMHO, substantially change the suicide rates. The method? I’m not seeing it as the critical issue, as, to me, people who want to commit suicide will find ways. Fix the core issue as to WHY people want to commit suicide, not how they choose to do it. That’s JMHO and all, but if you want to convince me I’d need a logical reason which, to me, has never been given in these debates. YMMV of course.
Like some others in the thread you ignore that Suicide attempts with guns are more likely to SUCCEED than suicide attempts with pills.
And the suggestion that those who want to ban dangerous objects should also want to ban useful or even life-saving things is the sort of asinine non sequitur which makes it pointless to discuss guns with gun nuts.
Many people can do this voluntarily. But not in California, where it is an illegal transfer to give them away for safekeeping, without involving cops and an expensive process. I suppose the best think you can do is keep them in a safe if you have one, and hand over the keys.
No doubt, guns are more deadly than hanging or poisoning. Again- so? If a person wants to exercise their right to commit suicide, shouldnt they be successful?
Gun are both useful and life-saving. This makes it pointless to discuss guns with gun grabbers.
Do you advocate making suicide pills available over the counter? Available at gas stations? Sold as a combo pack with lottery tickets?
I think that suicide is a right, and should be part of our mental health system. If you want to commit suicide, then you should be able to go to a place that will try to help you with the problems that you are struggling with, that will try to talk you out of it, but ultimately, if you have made an informed decision, help you to end your life as humanely and painlessly as possible.
A gun in the nightstand is not exactly the same thing.
To this I say, you are right, we should not make laws with the intent of preventing people from getting a gun to kill themselves with. I have no idea how such a thing would work, even if we didn’t worry about pesky things like the Constitution or how to enforce it.
OTOH, having fewer guns in the hands of criminals reduces the demand for guns in the law abiding. I have to admit that with the unrest over the past coupla months, I have seriously considered getting a gun. I don’t feel I need a gun to protect my house from invaders, I have a couple dogs, and even though I’m getting into my 40’s now, I can still put up a pretty good fight. If they have a gun though, I need one too. And there’s a whole lot of guns out there.
So, I do weigh my safety against the danger of having a gun. At this time, I still side against becoming an armed American, but it’s still on the table.
Fewer law abiding people who feel that the need to have guns are fewer law abiding people with the ability to commit suicide on a whim or during a dark moment.
That’s not what the quotes say. They say that those with guns commit suicide at a higher rate than those without. I am not disputing that guns are the favorite way. Poison often fails to kill you - guns seldom do. Thus if you do not have a gun your chance of survival is much better. Plus poison takes more preparation.
I’m all for assisted suicide That has nothing to do with suicide when someone goes off their meds or is depressed and not thinking straight. If you’ve had people close to you kill themselves that way you wouldn’t be so insensitive.
But if they kill far more than they save, what then? We know they do, otherwise the NRA wouldn’t be so opposed to research in this area.
You can say the exact same thing about murder - if you want to kill someone a gun is but one way, there are others if you can’t get a gun. Yet we count murders-by-gun in the statistics for gun deaths, why should suicides be any different?
Different societies have different stresses and taboos and what not when it comes to suicide.
I do not think this is the same as comparing crime statistics. I would think a mobster in Japan is not “nicer” than a mobster in the US and you are as likely to be killed by one as much as the other.
Suicide has all sorts of societal baggage and some are more prone to it than others. Access to guns is not definitive since, as is often noted, there are many ways to kill yourself without using a gun.
But we can see from the study that guns skew things. It is not as if banning guns would make suicides end but it is clear it would reduce the number of successful suicides.
Guns are an almost irrevocable means of suicide. It follows that making an access to a gun more difficult would reduce suicide deaths. That is what this study tells us.
FWIW: I had a friend who bought a pistol and committed suicide with it less than a month later.
I am not insensitive. Like i said- altho I think suicide is a basic human right, it is usually a tragedy. And I have had someone close to me commit suicide by gun. Mind you, they had inoperable cancer, so…
No, actually they dont:
The NRA, and Congress , isnt opposed to research- you can research all you want. The Law says that the CDC cant spend any of their budget on trying to promote gun control. Their big study- the famous one, was made with the *avowed purpose of gun control. *
S, here I am, a small L libertarian, who has a great respect for the Bill of Rights. I dont belong to the NRA, nor do i have a AR15 or any sort of gun collection. But because I dont like stupid laws that do nothing and I want to protect the Bill of Rights- you call me a “gun nut”.:rolleyes: Can I call you a “gun grabber”?