I have a theory with no proof at all :), actually a two parter.
Mountain west states have a general, “if you want to be left alone, then we will leave you alone” attitude. Which i think ends up as dispondent loners, and people really fed up with things are more likely to move there, and more likely to eventually kill themselves.
And living there, I can say from experience, sometimes in Winter on the plains and deserts , can just really kick you in the soul if you don’t watch it and figure out how to escape mentally. The cold wind howling, the break featureless landscape, the feeling that you are overwhelmingly alone, and there just is no sense of anything hopeful or beautiful in the world anymore, and it goes on for months, can just really drive you into deep deep depression.
Every time I’ve ever pondered suicide (or, sadly, attempted it), it’s been to resolve immediate pain. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to exist… I just didn’t want to hurt anymore and I couldn’t figure out another way to stop the pain at that time.
For that reason, and owing to my psychiatric history, I will never have a gun in my house. I’m too afraid of what I might do with it sometime. In general, I’m doing much better, but I wouldn’t want to even be tempted by a gun.
I moved from the Bay Area to Montana a few years ago. While living in California I didn’t know anyone who owned a gun… not even a hunting rifle. Here in Montana everyone I know owns at least one rifle, and most own a handgun for defense against bears, as opposed to people.
I think the access to a firearm in the privacy of your own home lowers the barrier to suicide for many people. If you don’t own a firearm you have to come up with some other way to ‘off yourself’, which means you have to really think about it in advance… and that may deter at least some people in urban versus rural areas from going through with it.
The highest rates of suicide in the OECD are in the heavily urbanized nations of Japan and South Korea, so whatever’s driving the ratio of suicide to population density in the US doesn’t seem to hold true worldwide.
I am afraid of heights and jumping from a bridge or building is not for me.
When they made jumping off the Golden Gate bridge impossible (there is now a metal net) they assumed that suicides would simply find another place to jump from. But there was apparently no increase by other methods. Suicide is often–probably usually–a spur of the moment thing. One of the few survivors of jumping off the Golden Gate bridge said he changed his mind halfway down. Whether you can do anything to help at that point or it was pure dumb luck that he survived was not mentioned.
It’s kinda odd that Washington DC has the lowest suicide rate. Political suicide seems to be the way to go.
And these states are five years old. I can only imagine them being much higher in economically hard hit states like the rust belt that is Michigan.
I dunno about suicide, but I’ll bet murder and domestic violence are both way up. Nothing destroys a marriage taster than too much time to sit around at home communicating with each other.
Our windows don’t open past the third floor, by and large. Seriously. The only rooftop I’ve been on that I could have jumped from was a two story building, and that’s not nearly tall enough to be sure. Also, jumping from a building or in front of a train or bus or turning on the gas stove with no flame (in an apartment, not a detached home) all carry a high risk that I’ll injure or kill other people in the process, and I’m not willing to risk that, even in my suicidal moments (which, don’t worry, are all in the past!) Really, the only practical way I could ever think of to kill myself without collateral damage is poison or overdose, and that’s awfully iffy if someone comes home early or I miscalculate the lethal dose.
I do wonder what the *attempt *rate difference is geographically. Could it be that equivalent numbers of urban dwellers *attempt *suicide, but the population density means you’re more likely to be overheard/seen/helped and the close proximity of hospitals means you can be saved more often?
I mean, if I was out in the back field with a gun in an isolated area, what are the chances someone’s going to walk by and see me before I bleed out, and then get me to a hospital 30 minutes away? Whereas in the city, someone’s going to hear the gunshot and call the cops, and there are four emergency rooms within 5 minutes of my front door and a trauma center 8 minutes away.
My other thought, and this is just based on my experiences, is that urban people are more likely to seek mental health assistance than rural folks. The rural folks I know are very much of the “bootstraps” mentality, and won’t seek treatment for depression or bipolar disorder even if there is a clinic in a reasonable distance. That’s a sharp contrast to the urban people I know, who may be resistant to seeking treatment, but do tend to give in and seek help eventually. It would stand to reason that the population without the facilities and/or desire for treatment for mental illness would have a higher suicide rate.
Out of curiosity (don’t worry; I don’t have access to a gun even if I were suicidal), is there any place a person could shoot themselves that would be pretty much a guarantee? I mean, I imagine severing your carotid artery would be pretty much a slam dunk, but I don’t even know where exactly it is on my neck. How about straight to the center of the forehead? Obviously, caliber of weapon matters here too; a 22 is going to be considerably less reliable than a 45, I’d think.
I have read somewhere that the most certain method is one that supposedly a lot of cops use, amusingly called “swallowing your gun”. You put the gun barrel in your mouth. However, I have read differing opinions about how aim it. One is to point the barrel upward so the bullet passes through the center of the brain, exiting somewhere near the top of your head. Another is that you want to destroy the brain stem, which manages autonomic functions like breathing, and is located near the bottom of the brain, so you would fire more or less straight back though your mouth. I think.
Me, the most certain way I can think of to kill myself would be to jump off a really tall building and land head first. But what do I know?
Possibly the brains. I can think of several workarounds off the top of my head, ranging from a stick to a string tied to the trigger and looped around the butt, to putting the butt on the floor and stooping down over the barrel. Once the top of my head is gone, though, the ideas will just fly right out of there.
Maybe, but there’s also the creep-out factor of those who have survived attempted-suicide-by-shotgun. You can blow your face off instead of blowing your brains out. I remember seeing a TV interview once with a guy who used a shotgun and ended up blowing off his mandible, maxilla, and much of his nose. His brain was perfectly fine, in fact he was quite well-spoken in his interview.
A shotgun most definitely wouldn’t be my first choice. It wouldn’t even be on the list.