The suicide component of the gun debate
I often see pro-gunners posit that many/most gun deaths are a result of suicide, and therefore shouldn't be considered as part of the gun violence equation. Or some such nonsense.
Of course there's an element of truth in this obvious attempt at misdirection.
I am "pro suicide". I believe every person has the right to decide when his/her life should end. I also believe that we should help prevent suicides by persons sufferering from mental illness, and restricting their access to firearms should be part of that.
I suppose some will argue that choosing suicide equals mental illness, but I don't agree. I've believed for years that I will end my life myself before I'll endure endless sufferering followed by dying a gruesome death (not to mention bankrupting my family). I don't call that insane or cowardly, just pragmatic.
I wonder how many citizens may be concerned that an inability to acquire a firearm could prevent their rational decision to end their own life.
I wonder if legalizing means of suicide other than firearms would ease the concerns of some who oppose gun reform. If I could show up at my local hospital and receive a "lethal injection" I'd prefer that to making a mess by splattering my brains all over the scenery. But right now, I don't have that ability, and suicide by gun is easily the most available method.
Thoughts?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)reading for compression after a late night is not my forte' after being up over 30 hours.
I am also pro suicide given limitations.
Kevorkian was hardly a hero, but he at least discerned the difference between spur of the moment and contemplated suicide.
*edited: read faster, then brain processed*
Scuba
(53,475 posts)How's your reading comprehension?
that i did while posting 
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Latest attempt to say there is no problem, that the vast amount is suicides.
WRONGO.
That has really nothing to do with the gun issue at all.
VAST majority of gun deaths are MURDER and have nothing to do with suicide.
ALL mass shootings have NOTHING to do with suicide.
And mass shootings are 75% of the problem and almost 100% of those are with legal guns.
This subject has its own place to be discussed, in the health and wellness section.
And we have no control here on the anti-gun threads of doing anything about the other.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Health its on the left of every page of this board in TOPICS
see:the two on Mental Health
Addiction & Recovery
Asperger's/PDD
Cancer Support
Chronic Health Conditions Discussion and Support
Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Disability
Exercise and Fitness
Health
HIV/AIDS Support
Mental Health Information
Mental Health Support
Pro-Choice
Single Payer Health Systems
Social Security & Medicare
Smoking Cessation
Weight Loss/Maintenance
BTW-Guns are a 100% WELLNESS issue in that every bullet that hits something takes the wellness away from that person and is 100% an additive to everyones health care bills.
Guns are costing the 99% thousands of dollars a year in added health care.
Anyone who has a gun that does something to someone should be 100% sued, as should the maker of the gun, and the gun seller, which is why 100% paper route is needed to see where it was made, purchased, and the current owner.
THE ENTIRE CHAIN (including also the NRA) should be allowed to be sued, like a parent who allows their kid to have a party to drink is sued.
ZERO TOLERANCE.
No further need for me to comment, all my remarks stand as stated.
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)your rejection of factual statistics is always a bit disturbing.
Suicide by gun is in most hands the wrong way to do it, basic anatomy understanding being a thing of the past.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)People in this area want to ENJOY LIFE not have guns and bullets.
Guns make it impossible to enjoy life.
Guns take away 100% of the people's 1st amendment rights who are shot, killed, wounded, or now afraid to even go shopping or to a restaurant or bar, because some bozos have to own guns and bullets.
Really, just get rid of the bullets and guns.
THEN 100% of gun suicides will be gone.
easy if you understand.
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)too while we at it?
This conversation started out dual topic, suicide and methods, and i would love to see the OP re-post in a less echoing forum, because outside of guns she/he has an apparent understanding of things that are not relevant to you and your peculiarities.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)The NRA and the timid ones blackmailed by the NRA allowed nothing
Therefore all gloves are off.
Not only do I want bullets off the street, but it's obvious they need to go away for good
and then have zero tolerance, using any or all means to attain that.
all the soundbytes aside.
anyhoo-
Getting rid of all guns is the #1 way to stop guns used for suicides.
Problem solved. End of discussion
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)you are very rare.
Not everyone can manage to see things in black and white with such cohesion, you are to be recommended in maintaining your chosen course of beliefs.
Since any further discussion is pointless, i wish you the best in life, and course straight ahead Mr Sulu!
we disagree, the world will not end I suspect
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... who rationally want to end our lives, and have no other practical means.
The intent of this post was to encourage to consider if advocating for other means of suicide would placate some anti-legislation gunners and bring them to our side.
Your posts have not been helpful in that regard, or any other that I can see.
If you want to advocate for confiscation of all guns, please start your own thread, but don't hijack this one.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)to everyone who has over the last 40 years who has whined about overpopulation. However; not only is it 20 years out of date, the man himself was a bit of a quack
While I disagree with more then a few things he advocated, you can still pluck a feather without killing the chicken.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)only! Then you might have a point.
This is about the star trek reference, should have figured you for a star wars fan
on edit: your so lucky i cannot locate a Takei "oh dear" picture atm...but imagine it for me....it would beat your Harrison Ford come back!
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)relished to be part of.
Suicide and Euthanasia are a forbidden topic so i can fault you a little for choosing this particular forum for advancing the discussion (the forum having benefits of being flavor of the day, but is hindered by being an echo chamber where people attempt to display there ePeens(sic) ).
However; it is a discussion well worth having! I understood that from reading your OP.
I do think this more then touches on the the classical liberal approach to end of life decisions, and we had to fight hard to just get the living will installed.
It is my impression that living wills are strictly liberal, and not progressive like many subjects on these forums, so often overlooked and taken for granted..
I wish there was a way to move the topic to a more appropriate forum as graham pointed out.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Perhaps my OP is poorly worded, but I suspect there are a number of people who want to have the right/ability to end their own life, and see no other practical way except by gun. They are, therefore, reluctant to support gun restriction measures for fear they will lose that ability.
I would like to encourage discussion about whether finding them a better way would ease their concerns about gun restrictions. Somehow, this thread has failed to do that at all.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Are you advocating people who want to purchase a gun to kill themselves be allowed to get an exemption under law?
Do you propose legislation to that effect?
Why would 'anti-legislation gunners' as you refer to them, would go for legislation which could make them appear to be mentally ill?
As a matter of common sense to protect the seller, no one would want to be complicit in that. To purchase for suicide is not something most would admit to wanting a gun for in practice and doubt they'd ever do that. It precludes rational reasons to exercise their 2A rights.
So there is no 'gun freedom' (a new meme in this thread) or a clause in gun control legislation for suicide would be allowed. I think this thread is interesting, but is putting forth premises which has nothing to do with the purpose of this group, as we don't want to be on the hook for supporting the right to die by firearm in legislation.
JMHO.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... that being that if alternative methods for rational people to end their lives were available (e.g., go to the hospital and receive a lethal injection), then their averison to gun control may be placated.
In other words, some people are opposed to new gun control laws because they fear losing their only available means of suicide, so let's consider giving them an alternative.
Guns are reportly the favorite means of suicide. Why can't I have a shot instead of shooting myself? Then I'll gladly melt down my handgun.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)If you or anyone is preparing for death as I have the last few years and fully grasp the inevitable humiliation the end of life entails for most of us, there are steps to be taken.
DNR orders, Power of Attorney, Living Wills, Will and Testament and a paid up policy for the funeral home to come, clean and transport remains. Turning my home into a crime scene would be devastating to all who live here afterwards, as there are clauses about deaths that future occupants do inquire upon.
In my situation, I have total say so and am making sure that when I become incapacitated, my wishes will be carried out. To shoot myself because of pain that cannot be treated, would hurt those I leave behind.
So I do not get to go out on my own terms, which I wish. If I had no one who would be hurt by knowing I'd taken a violent means and not said goodbye, which would be a slap in the face and not allow closure, I'd possibly take my own life.
That would be private, but our lives are never lived in private except for stolen moments, and to leave others wondering what amount of pain I was in to have hated my life so much and not regarded their feelings, why I did not say good bye, would hurt them.
I know families where a relative took their life and the 'spirit of suicide' affected the remaining living, made them wonder why they were going through their own problems and suffering, and had to endure and some attempted suicide. After all, if So&so did it, why not?
Is this the legacy one wants to leave to those we love, who may not understand? That we turn them away from our grief and sorrow, and leave them a bloody mess to clean up? That being almost as hurtful as doing it in their face, to destroy their view of life and us and even the value of life itself?
These are the questions I had to ask myself when contemplating such an end ot life. I have seen much in this world I did not want which blighted my joy of life and made me wonder why I should bother. Each person has their own burden, so why would I pass this on?
It is said that 'the love that we withhold is the pain we carry' from one life to the next. If there is a chance we may continue on as an energy or whatever, why would you want to return to face the same traumas and pain again, until you found peace for not overcoming it now?
I'm using the generic 'you' as I hope you are not speaking of yourself. It is also said, and I know the feeling of liberation that considering suicide brings, a freedom one does not want to give up, to be at that doorway. To be at that crossroads and have the luxury of choice is tantalizing. It is hard to go back and work on a life broken by pain, loss or deprivation of what one expected and worked for. It takes humility, which coupled with love for those we care for, is not a burden or weakness.
By saying you want an easier path to death, it sounds like you have made up your mind to take that last freedom and go on your own terms, regardless of the cradle of life that you now live within. To be contemplating death is to discount life, it's said. But I can't tell anyone what to do, but I would not keep a gun about whose only use is to kill myself, for the reasons stated above.
It almost sounds, although I am sure you don't really mean to say there is a therapeutic use for a gun. I remember being in a lot of pain with no cure, thinking 'But they shoot horses, don't they?' It seems more humane, but we are not livestock, we are beings who live in a whole. A death by gunshot cannot be a private matter, the vibration of that last sound will reverberate in many lives. Is that what we want to do?
Make some better plans, is all I would say to the generic 'you' I am speaking of. I'm not judging or dismissing pain, but I have felt that feeling of release, that desire to have it all over with, while still capable of choosing life or death and not dying under the care of someone who I may not trust and who may or may not respect me as person.
That's all I can thing to say about suicide by gun or death in general. I googled when I was answering this, and found many webpages on how to kill oneself, there are many ways that don't involve guns.
So this isn't really a practical use for gun ownership.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)So what alternative do you offer besides saying "don't do it"?
BTW, I'm a healthy man with many reasons to want to continue to live. I sincerely hope I die a sudden, natural death when my time comes. I would never advocate another commit suicide.
But I reserve the right to make that decision for myself. Sadly, a gun is pretty much my best alterntive right now. If I could gain access to a lethal dose of narcotic, I'd prefer that route.
My point for posting here has unfortunately been missed. Would you accept that there are some number of gun owners who wish to reserve that same right and see their gun as the means should it come to that?
BainsBane
(53,012 posts)I am not going to go through them here because it's inappropriate, but while guns are the most lethal method of suicide they are far from the only one.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)I would accept that some gun owners are thinking that way - but they would oppose any form of inspection into their purposes for gun ownership if that was the sole reason for keeping a gun.
In other words, they are not going to be honest with anyone. Which is where registration comes in, and background checks, and any number of lies they may be willing to tell so that their gun can be their release from society.
Because the purpose of gun control legislation is stop death, and it is the common belief that suicide by violent means and in secret - which is what you are saying perhaps, is a valid cause for keeping a gun - is irrational.
It is precisely the reason that mental health court prohibit gun ownership from those who are determined to be willing to do harm to themselves. There is no compatibility with gun laws and killing oneself.
Since this is a group about enacting legislation on gun control, which includes the mental health reasons as part of the plan, that your belief or the belief of those you advocate for in this instance is incompatible with the SOP of the group.
Suicide will not be written into gun control as part of a legal exemption because the person doing so is considered to be mentally ill to inisist on the right that course rather than availing themselves of legal means, hospice or right to die legislation.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... you think I'm advocating? If so, mine must be a poorly written OP.
BainsBane
(53,012 posts)They just require a bit of extra planning.
Robb
(39,665 posts)In Colorado the number is 76%. That truth does not preclude fun safety legislation, quite the opposite.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)graham4anything
(11,464 posts)I have NEVER heard any one not pro-gun or pro-NRA(or both) use that word in any board on the internet or any thread other than one where an anti-gun person posts and a pro-gun person uses it.
It is one of "those" words.
And then 78.32 posts in a thread are someone demanding a citation.
The police should issue a citation to anyone with a bullet in the street, the citation being mandatory fine and possible additional jail penalty.
Within days, there would be no more bullets in the street, once there is zero tolerance
Like driving drunk is zero tolerance.
sarisataka
(18,473 posts)Scuba is hardly what I would classify as pro-gun or pro-NRA.
Backing up claims with proof is so last week 
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)eradication is a word cancer doctors like to use in certain types.
Guns and bullets are a cancer.
They need to be eradicated from the streets, and while at it, private property too.
It's a wellness issue.
MH1
(17,573 posts)I'm an advocate for gun control. The discussion here is about whether the means of ensuring right-to-die is a barrier for some people to accept gun control. I see Scuba's point in the o.p. I'm not sure how big a factor it is. Personally, I think "right to kill someone who f*cks with me" is a far bigger factor for most people. But that doesn't mean it isn't a worthy topic of discussion.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... countless times.
Suicides accounted for 76 percent of the 6,258 deaths from guns during a 12-year span, 2000-2011, while homicides comprised 20 percent. The rest were either accidental, legal shootings by law enforcement officers, or unexplained.
Gun suicides were disproportionately committed by white residents, while homicide victims were predominately minority. White residents, 70 percent of the state's population, accounted for 88 percent of the gun suicides. Blacks were victims in 21 percent of the homicides, but only make up 4 percent of the population. Latinos were victims in 34 percent of homicides, while comprising 21 percent of the population.
Gun death victims were overwhelmingly male -- 85 percent of all deaths involving guns and 87 percent of suicides using guns.
Those over age 70 had the highest rate of overall deaths from guns, 18 for every 100,000, almost exclusively suicides. The 21-to-30 age group had the highest rate of homicides, about 5 for every 100,000.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57575721/new-colorado-gun-control-law-could-help-prevent-suicides/
And both nationally and in Colorado, handgun deaths are far more likely to be suicides than homicides.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... some gun owners fear new gun laws will remove their ability to rationally end their life.
sarisataka
(18,473 posts)No one can deny suicides using a gun are not violent and clearly they are gun related but they are completely separate from deaths by crime or accident. We really have three different causes of the total gun deaths; changes in law will really only effect one- crime.
The first goal is to reduce crime deaths even though it will have little effect on the other categories.
Robb
(39,665 posts)A gun is extremely effective for suicides; first-timers trying something else tend to fail.
Nothing can stop a person determined to end their own life, of course, just like no amount of security can stop a determined car thief. But there are steps that can be taken to stop half-hearted attempts at both, and they are successful.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Deliberate suicide, and the legalization and normalization of end of life rights is an almost entirely separate and unrelated to gun control issue.
MH1
(17,573 posts)If I am approaching a stage of life where I may become debilitated to the point I can no longer control my own life, perhaps I want to protect my freedom to control when and how it ends. In that case a person might oppose gun control, who otherwise would support it.
I'm old enough and have seen enough bad scenarios to understand the fear of losing that control.
I still support gun control. Frankly, that is, until it impinges on my own freedom to own a single gun and a single bullet. Then we'll have to see where our society is on that other, "unrelated" topic.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)... gun owners who don't want their access restricted? That's my question.
If a large percentage of gun deaths are indeed suicide, perhaps another means will help us make our case.
sarisataka
(18,473 posts)I do not think it would change many minds. For one, the debate is too emotional. Logic gets lost in hyperbole. Second, the number of people who buy/own a gun intended for suicide is likely very small. Those who would see and agree with your logic would not be enough to tip the scales.
I would say I am anti-suicide for personal beliefs but do not believe others should be denied the option of euthanasia. Opening a legal option for self determined euthanasia should happen but I think is many years away in this country.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... "the number of people who buy/own a gun intended for suicide is likely very small."
Considering the number of gun-suicide deaths each year, it may actually be fairly large.
sarisataka
(18,473 posts)but I believe it is a choice of opportunity. the gun may have not been purchased with the intent of suicide, but it is the most effective option at hand for a suicidal person.
laws which restrict guns from the hands of people have an would likely rffect on impulsive suicide attempts but not so much on those with serious depression or those who are choosing suicide as euthanasia.
it is possible there is a fairly significant number of elderly person or people with terminal illness who do keep a gun around with plan to and their life.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)I changed my mind, but I still don't keep a gun in the house. The facts of life for many people are they are not going to be able to change things to the way they want, and their health is not going to improve. They don't want to go and beg (and they would be forced to beg and get nothing for it) for help from the medical profession to either get better or die in less pain than they are in. They want a choice that they are not being offered.
But many of suicides are not that way - they are the most extreme form of temper tantrum. Sometimes to hurt their spouse or forced to admit they failed in some way. We need as a society, although it's unlikely we will, address the values that people have about themselves, their lives, their families.
Many of the suicides are due to financial or job loss, which is a grevious harm to a person's sense of identity, belonging and value. Yet we see homeless people or others who accepted that their lives are no longer what they thought they should be and they want to live. We see those who have committed crimes that some of us would rather be dead than to have done, and they want to live. We sometimes have expectations of how our lives must be lived, and cannot meet them. Rather than just enjoying being alive.
Some people that commit suicide are not loved by anyone, least of all themselves; others are loved but carry their own private hell they find unbearable. I can understand the thrust of this question. Because death by gun is a reliable method, quick and painless if a head shot.
In particular, men seem to be more driven with rigid thinking patterns they learned growing up and less shock at the thought of leaving a bloody, obscene mess for another person to clean up. They also hang themselves which is very disturbing to those who find them. I recall a man who was angry at his wife. His revenge was to hang himself in the back yard of their home on a tree in front of their small children while she was at work and telling them it was her fault.
The children were unable to grasp what was happening, unable to stop him but one ran to neighbors for help but he'd died by that time. With that memory in their minds for a lifetime. If he'd owned a gun, he could have gone faster; maybe he would have killed the children as well to hurt his wife.
Those statistics show how effective guns are at ending life, and they should always be regarded as what they are, instruments of death. A reverence for life doesn't invite that into one's environment.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)like anything dealing with the issue of guns, suicide by gun is a selfish egotistical bloody messy way an act of vengence on everything else.
Hospice is there for those actually terminally ill.
Anyone else is spur of the moment and no, I don't believe that is the way out.
Kurt Cobain left a child and a wife. Why? Pretty stupid of him if you ask me, and no one to idolize.
Seems like some here are trying to exploit the gun issue by rationalizing the use of a gun.
Still not quite sure why this is in this area of the board.
One would think this discussion would be more appropos in the pro-gun part of the board,
where everyone there would start on the same page.
This area should be about the life of all those a day who are killed and the families ruined by the insane selfish greedy people who value gun/bullet over anything sane.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)The effectiveness and speed of a gun for suicide is a reason why some would keep a gun around for such a purpose. Although that indicates planning and they would find a way - but a gun is quick and sure.
With such a high percentage of suicide by gun, they may have purchased for that reason. But one would hope they did not buy a gun for just one purpose, such as stalkers or DV abusers have done, to intimidate or kill their victims. That is the reason why court orders should be made to not avail them of that particular opportunity to kill.
That killers often kill themselves as the police close in to deny society to have the last word, has its on name, 'suicide by cop,' but it's also to escape the consequences of crime. But I think it serves little to delve into the mind of such persons.
The problem in using suicide as a reason to deny the right to own a gun does come into play when one is adjudicated to be a danger to oneself and others in mental health court.
Obviously, with such a high rate quoted in this thread of 60% by Robb, they weren't getting help. Not all people live in areas which support the mentally ill, not all people have insurance or family to make certain they get the care they need.
I'm not sure why this topic was brought up, but the assumption might be made, having no idea about the OP's stance on gun matters, and only knowing in general, just 3 on this thread's positions besides myself, I don't know why it is here other than a philosophical exercise.
It's an odd question that even the most avid pro-gun poster would not admit to holding as their real reason to own a gun, since it might indicate their own lack of sanity or propensity in the issue. People seldom if ever admit to having such pain and or sorrow they have considered ending it by their own hand.
I see the reasoning behind what one may construe as a possible rationale for the person who wants to be prepared for all possibilities. But it's not a gun control issue, it's as one poster here calls it a 'gun freedom' issue for some. IOW, advocating for no questions asked in practice, which is not about encouraging legislation for gun control that everyone knows will never take place - the right to kill yourself with a gun.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)I'm a life-long gun owner who would like to see very restrictive measures taken, including ...
... 100% background checks
... 100% registration
... banning of "high firepower" weaponry. See here for more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2213258
... buyback/transfer limitations (weapons held before being banned cannot be transferred, even to heirs)
... magazine capacity limit of seven
... ammunition purchase limits for ammo taken off range premises
... insurance mandates
... and more
nonoyes
(261 posts)It is a shame that the thread got so hijacked by a fool with no facts about suicidology, (yes, there is even a word for the sociological study of suicides!).
Getting back to the question of whether SOME gun owners might consider one of their needs for a gun to be to end their own life at some point, I suspect there are more than a few gun owners who might think that, but is there really any way of knowing? I mean, people who own guns will rarely voice that, (perhaps only on a message board where they can be anonymous).
But EVEN IF we had the most restrictive nationwide regulation, registration, and licensing of gun owners, those people with a sincere desire to end their life with a gun could find a way, often with planning well in advance, and a legal purchase of a handgun.
Just my random thoughts so far on this. Basically, I don't think opposition to gun control legislation has much to do with people who wish to carry out their own suicide. But it is true that guns are the most effective means of taking one's own life, and that more people die from suicide by gun than die from homicide or accidental gun death.
No, I think, (although I don't know, because I'm not pro gun, I'm pro gun-control and pro-gun safety), that most people who wish to keep their options to gun purchase and ownership so UN-restricted feel that way because their personality is mistrustful of others having any significant control over the gun-owners' personal lifestyle and thinking. I don't know for sure, but that is what I have come to think is at the root of all this opposition to gun control we see here in the USA. It's a cultural uniqueness that is very American, not the same in Canada, or England, where I have spent some time. Of course, the NRA both incubates and fans the flames of those kinds of passions, and the relatively high rate of homicides in the USA, compared to other nations serves to reinforce those personal fears and desires to own guns. The desire to control one's means of death might be some, but not a major factor in gun owner's motivations, but, again, how would I ever really know?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)
rrneck
(17,671 posts)to want to hurt somebody? You have to work at it. People who hurt others aren't animals. There are no evil babies. We all have to capacity to hurt others, but you have to develop that capacity.
What would it take to hurt yourself? Self preservation is a powerful instinct and it takes work to overcome that. And just as exigent circumstances can greatly contribute to the development of the desire to hurt others, they can contribute to the desire to hurt oneself. And those exigent circumstances include the our own brain chemistry.
If we want to overcome the desire in people to hurt others or themselves we will have to manage much more than the most obvious tool used to do so. In fact, that tool (a gun) actually plays a minor role in the problem of violence against others or ourselves.
nonoyes
(261 posts)I think wanting to hurt someone is a function of anger. Uncontrolled anger.
Gun-freedom advocates sound very angry to me. Angry at a government, angry at people who hurt them or control them, angry at the unknown, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable.
Inflicting harm upon another person comes from anger, and from the fear that produces that anger.
But I think this wandering off the topic of suicide as a possible reason for such virulent opposition to gun-control fom gun-freedom advocates.
Let's admit it, when our lives seem out of control, we all feel a bit angry when we are put in that place. I certainly do, when I lost my car keys, when someone had broken into my house and stolen my computer and TV, I was angry, something happened I couldn't fix, couldn't control. But I didn't want to kill or use a gun, I just had to deal with it.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)revolves around why we do things. On can be angry because he or she spent their life unleashing that feeling to facilitate brutalizing others. One can also be angry out of self defense. Anger is even a symptom of depression.
The emotions we experience are another factor in our actions, but what we choose to do with them is much more important.
nonoyes
(261 posts)I'm not sure I agree that anger is ALWAYS a symptom of depression, though, if that is what you meant.
Anger is a natural reaction of human beings to lots of events. The question is about how we control or don't control our anger.
And I'm not even sure murderers are always angry people or depressed people. Some murderers do it because there is a sexual component to the act of killing, although I think people who murder with guns do it to gain control of a situation OR because they are experiencing uncontrollable anger toward that person. So, yes, anger is AN important dimension in murder by gun, but I doubt it is universally true for all gun murderers. There are even people who kill others with a gun for personal profit, for money, inheritance, or for a fee, a contract killer.
This issue is a bit far afield from the OP's topic, but it certainly is a worthy issue of discussion here in this group.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)In fact, nothing ever happens for just one reason. I think our tendency to ascribe a single cause for complex behavior lies at the root of a lot of social and political problems.
BainsBane
(53,012 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 23, 2013, 06:25 PM - Edit history (2)
Here I'll speak openly as a long-time sufferer of major depression, which I hope you recognize is not easy to do given the stigma associated with mental illness. I am fairly certain that if I had owned a gun I would not be alive now. Depression is accompanied by excruciating bouts of mental anguish, temporary in nature. I've described it as a psychic pain that feels like an ax splitting your brain apart. People with mental illness who kill themselves seek relief from that pain. It is far from a rational decision.
While all people who commit suicide do not have mental illness, many if not most do. It is part of the mortality of such brain diseases. Guns make suicide easy, too easy. The CDC shows that 90% of suicide attempts by gun succeed. Compare that with 5% by pills, another common means of suicide attempt. Just over half of all gun deaths are suicides.
People who feel they must commit suicide can find other methods. Those other methods are not as easy, but that means they have to put more thought and planning into the act.
Of course, this discussion is hypothetical because handgun bans are not realistically on the table. Comprehensive background checks, however, would prevent those adjudicated dangerous to themselves or others from acquiring guns, which is a good thing. It would in no away effect those with chronic diseases affecting other parts of the body besides the brain, or even most people with mental illness.
nonoyes
(261 posts)I don't agree with all of it. Thanks for being so open about how this worked for you. Your use of facts were also insightful and helpful, I didn't realize people who try suicide with guns only succeed 90% of the time, I would have guessed 99%.
You have a lot to contribute to DU and to a group like this. Please keep posting, I enjoy reading what you have to say on this and other topics.
BainsBane
(53,012 posts)Partly because some people end up changing their mind mid act and injure rather than kill themselves. I might have the numbers slightly wrong. It might have been 95%. I'll have to find the article I read this in. It was a peer reviewed psychiatric study.
Progressive dog
(6,898 posts)[link:http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/statistics-most-lethal-methods| Maybe this study.
Progressive dog
(6,898 posts)So we need assault weapons and 30 shot magazines so people can commit suicide? That makes absolutely no sense.
patrice
(47,992 posts)along. I know I have been thinking it might be, especially in conjunction with expectations of environmental disaster synching up with economic disasters.
patrice
(47,992 posts)questionable to say the least and may actually substantially degrade broader cognitive resources that produce the invention of which necessity is the mother.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... by providing rational citizens with an alternative to a gun in the mouth?
patrice
(47,992 posts)calls affected by a wide variety of "other" things.
My basic criteria is: is this a free person making a free decision. If we pretend those other factors impacting a decision are not there, we do not know the answer to that basic question. If those other factors are recognized and owned by those involved in a given situation, then the chances of a given decision being free, NOT coerced in in manner, are higher. Have you seen any of that research which describes how impulsive so much suicide is? Half an hour one way or the other and outcomes can be entirely different.
The reason all of that is important, beyond a given individual's right to life, is because the recognition of those other factors is what produces rational responses to the sorts of things that affect life and death FOR PRACTICALLY EVERYONE in one way or another. And it is also that awareness, that recognition, that identification of as much as possible that affects as many people as possible that makes invention/creative responses to problems possible. Without that potential, we continue down the path of not knowing that we don't know what, under what could be as yet unidentified circumstances, we may NEED, very significantly NEED, to know in order to survive and develop in the best ways possible for the most people possible.
And if none of that matters to you, perhaps you should consider, not only, why your terms for living are privileged beyond those of others who could be affected by the ways in which inventive adaptation are oppressed for the convenience of others, but also whether, when it comes down to it for you, your own decision is not an authentically free decision, but is instead the result of regressive losses that are systemically conserved because no one is looking beyond the easiest and cheapest answers.
Additionally, if you can ask that question about yourself, then perhaps you can extend it to asking whether there could be some point out there in time and circumstances in which it is significantly possible that a need for something, say, like a certain bit of engineering (chemical, software, materiel . . . whatever) vital needs that could have been met, if resources had been conserved, but the need is NOT met, because suicide facilitation killed off the roots that would have manifested what was needed, and because the need is not met our entire species becomes extinct, including all of your future loved ones. If it's all really only about convenience and costs, wouldn't it be better to just get it all over with now? Why stick around?
Again, you can say, so be it. That's your right, but you do not have the right to make that decision for others . . . unless you are claiming a privilege that I/we did not bestow upon you.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)"The definition of rational is not as absolute as we might pretend it is." Our society has entrusted courts to determine if someone is rational or not. Courts typically rely on medical and other experts. We do this every day.
It sounds as if you are trying to make a case that suicide should be illegal. But at the end of your post you wrote the following:
"That's your right, but you do not have the right to make that decision for others . . . unless you are claiming a privilege that I/we did not bestow upon you."
I'm not trying to make any decision for others. I hope no one tries to make that decision for me.
If I've misread your message, please help me out.
patrice
(47,992 posts)Let's say "best" means the truest, most authentic, so the most authentic decisions are free (not compulsed in any way) decisions made by free individuals.
Are there factors that affect how decisions are made by individuals? Are all decisions/choices equally free made by equally free individuals? Can some of those factors that affect a decision point amount to a compulsion that affects a decision in ways that are the opposite of how that same decision would be made if those compulsive factors were not what they are?
I'm not saying that any of that can, nor even necessarily should, be changed, but that all of it needs to be a part of any given decision in order for that decision to be a free as possible choice and not some form of systemic oppression, LEGAL or otherwise, oppression that, because the frame is artificially limited, is called the will of the individual, when, if these truths had been recognized, that person might not have come to that decision point in the particular manner under consideration and, even if s/he DID come to the same decision point, there would be others who DON'T (because the affecting factors are more authentically recognized) and that fact should be as valuable as the fact that any given person does come to that particular decision point and decides in whatever manner that s/he does decide.
I'm trying to tell you what my conditions for this suicide proposal to be legal would be. I won't be surprised if these criteria are ignored on the basis that there is nothing in the legal system that addresses what could/should have been, but then, not everything is valued by whether it is legal or not, even though it is assumed that systems can't process that fact and that they need to restrict themselves to legalities in order to function.
patrice
(47,992 posts)circumstances instead.
GoldenEagle16
(40 posts)The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.
Where a person lives matters, too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is far and away the dominant form of gun death in rural areas. States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates; states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.
Suicides and homicides are highly charged human dramas. Both acts shatter families, friends and sometimes communities. But the reactions are as different as black and white, and those differences shape the nation’s divided attitudes toward gun control.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/
The issue of suicide presents an insight into why different groups view gun control differently. It argues that perhaps an anti-suicide message is more important than an anti-crime message when trying to convince certain demographic groups.
