About Alaska - the very long, very dark winters give a lot of people the ‘seasonal’ type of depression. Supposedly this accounts for lots of the suicide. At least, that is what I was taught in Jr High health when I lived there 
I think I can account for the gun/jumper disparity.
You don’t have to go anywhere special to use a gun. You can off yourself from the privacy of your own living room. But to jump, you have to go somewhere public. Shame may be enough to deter you. Even if not, there could be people who might stop you or ask uncomfortable questions. Not only that, but if suicides are largely impulse decisions, well – jumping takes some planning. One could change one’s mind while on the up elevator.
The posters who rationalize away the gun ownership correlation with any incidence of violence are late.
Curse you! I was going to use that one!
Maybe people think that and that’s the reason for the statistic, but in fact it’s not that hard to fail to kill yourself with a gun. Putting it under your chin or at your temple, for instance, can definitely fail to kill you. (Blow your eyes out, sure. Make sure you cost everybody a lot of money to keep your breathing shell around, maybe. Kill yourself, maybe not.) Even putting the gun in your mouth is not foolproof. A lot of people successfully kill themselves with guns, but it is by no means a sure thing.
The thread’s first proposed explanation of the larger per capita suicide rate in rural areas was availability of guns, albeit in Canada. Does the same hold true in the US?
The overall percentage of deaths that are suicide and the gender difference seems fairly consistent with Australian stats on suicide.
However, instead of firearms around 50% of suicide are from hanging. Probably because firearms are much less accessible. Both methods are highly lethal though, and share in common that they are irreversible (once you’ve pulled the trigger or kicked away the chair that’s it). In contrast, sometimes people can call an ambulance after taking an overdose of medications.
The publication doesn’t give a rural/urban breakdown, but my understanding is that suicide rates in rural areas are higher in Australia too.
Australian stats available here:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3309.0Main+Features12005?OpenDocument
The suicide rate for Alaskan Native teen is 110 per 100,000 for the state, with a rate of 208 per 100,000 in the northern region. If you want to see a community in turmoil, read.
As others have indicated, suicide is generally a very impulsive thing. One may think about it a lot, but any method that is not something that can be done on short impulse is a lot less likely to be tried. Guns obviously fits the bill of being highly lethal, virtually instantaneous from decision to action and from action to death, private, and irreversible. Pretty much any other method is inferior in at least one of those ways
Jumping, will typically require finding a place to jump, going there, and then jumping. I also think the time from action to death is important because there’s no way it won’t be scary as hell. I don’t think many people who consider suicide are interested in being scared or hurting themselves, just in ending their immediate pain, so it would seem to me that it would be a hard turning point, since you have to put in effort to go there and get the guts to jump, why not just use that effort to choose something else? And, of course, I think the height plays a much larger role, since fear of heights is a much more instinctual thing, where a gun, medication, or hanging are dangerous on a higher level.
I also think the privacy thing plays a larger role than some might think. I’ve known a few people who have considered suicide, and in every case one of the reasons, and in at least one the only reason, they chose not to do it at a particularly rough time was the idea of the pain it would cause other people. If you are considering jumping from a bridge, building, or in front of a bus, it would seem to me that the idea that you could ruin hundreds or thousands of other people’s days could make it that much less appealling. And, of course, the idea of some public humilation after what is often a private suffering.
I agree. A lot of people with suicidal ideation talk about it in terms of wanting to end pain, rather than in terms of wanting to die.
For some, of course, the emotional pain acts as sufficient motivation that they may take actions likely to bring physical pain.
I’m not bright enough to know how to read this.
From what I remember in my sociology classes is that suicide correlates directly to how isolated from society the individual feels.
Being actually physically isolated is certainly a factor that puts people more at risk.
Things that mentally hamper ones ability to connect to society also increase risk. In examining suicide rates a minority status increases suicide rate, a persecuted minority even more so.
Higher rates of suicide can generally be found in:
The wealthy
Rural area’s
Job’s that involve little or no communication with others
Teenagers
Homosexuals
Dentists I also remember had a ridiculously high suicide rate. People in polling choose dentists among what they are most afraid of so in turn Dentists have feelings of isolation from society.
So well-to-do gay teenage dentists in Wyoming are pretty much screwed?
Well I think statistically they are still more likely to live then kill themselves, but yeah I’d recommend having life insurance on them.
The Master speaks re: dentists
Medical professionals in general often have a greater knowledge of means, and potential access to drugs which can be lethal if administered correctly.
Actually, getting access to the outside of such buildings is often difficult. Many such buildings are designed to have only rigidly controlled access for approved workers/contractors. I can’t think of any ten story buildings in my (admittedly small city) where a random person could walk in and gain access to the outside.
More to the point: Gunfire is perceived as instantaneous. Can you imagine the horror involved with changing your mind halfway down that 10 story drop? (Something which seems to happen to a lot of the survivors of jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge.)
Whoa! Is that so? I would love to hear about that. I watched a documentary about bridge jumpers once, but I don’t remember anything about folks changing their minds halfway down. shiver
Here’s the first article that came up when I searched from the San Francisco Chronicle, detailing at least one survivor’s story. Back when the barrier was being debated ISTR they’d had a study on the number of survivors who had similar feelings on the way down.
While this does seem to be true for homosexuals, it is interesting to note that when you look at race and gender, white men are actually the highest risk for suicide (my experience working in mental health wards agrees with the stats page linked in the OP on this). Black women are the least likely group to commit suicide.
From working in medicine, I absolutely agree with this. You can blow off your face or cause major head trauma and still not cause enough damage to die immediately.