You don’t have anything sharp or a piece of rope?
NPR has a piece of nonsense where a guy with suicidal thoughts is worried that visiting someone with a gun may make him finally do it:
“Having tools for suicide completion … makes it way more tempting to attempt or complete suicide,”
tools for suicide completion? You have plenty of those in reach right now. And you haven’t done it yet. So, clearly, we need doctors to ask about guns in the home. Or rope. Or cars and a hose. Or a razor. Or any number of other things.
September 24th, 2015 at 11:04 pm
I don’t get it, the same people who usually wholeheartedly believe in Darwinism and natural selection, understand the dangers of a species propagating weak traits, will then turn around and even attempt to prevent people who are chronically suicidal from killing themselves.
Look I get that people have their moments, but if you are going thru life with suicidal thoughts and can’t manage to be around a gun because “crazy thoughts”… you need better follow-thru. I am all for genetic diversity, but occasionally some gene pool clarity is in order.
September 24th, 2015 at 11:20 pm
What are they going to do about plain old gravity?
September 25th, 2015 at 10:08 am
How many one-car accidents are actually suicides? Does anyone know? Or care? Should depressives be banned from automotive use?
If someone wants to die, they will die. Or come damn close, or take an action that might result in death. And the only way to stop that is for the person wanting death to have a bigger reason for wanting life.
If doctors can’t do that, they are wasting everyone’s time demonizing guns. Or just demonizing guns, since everyone agrees we are wasting everyone’s time doing this Q&A for guns in these cases of depression.
September 25th, 2015 at 11:43 am
there’s a big discussion of this over at the liberal gun club – the story was by an 18 year old who did it as a class project for suicide prevention week. it comes off as amateurish and juvenile because it’s by an amateur juvenile.
September 25th, 2015 at 2:51 pm
NPR could save a lot of money by just saying the word “Narrative” rather than going ahead with any particular program. It works out the same either way– We all know the stupid narrative already.
September 25th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
His suicide fantasies aren’t about killing himself.
They are about him being noticed in a spectacular way.
Hanging himself doesn’t do that. Blowing his brains out in someone else’s house does.
It’s the same reason that school shooters don’t just kill themselves at home. They want the spectacle.
September 26th, 2015 at 6:56 am
Don’t let your pro-gun bias blind you. Guns are well-designed and convenient tools. Pretending they aren’t, when it suits your narrative, is lying to yourself.
First, Phelps is right – suicide fantasies tend to be about solving ‘unsolvable’ problems, such as getting revenge on everyone who failed the victim. In the fantasy, everyone realizes how they failed the victim.
Second, many suicidal people are prevented from completing their suicide by their low energy. They feel depressed (hopeless and helpless), and they also feel tired, lethargic.
The most dangerous side effect of anti-depressants is the return of energy before the elevation of mood. They give suicidal people the energy to kill commit suicide.
In this sense – yes, having tools around to complete suicide directly and strongly correlates with committing suicide. A gun at hand is convenient. Pills in the house are convenient. Committing suicide or not may be the difference between having to drive to the store for bullets/pills/rope/whatever.
Third, suicidal people tend to be mentally ill, and obsess. They hear about a jump off a bridge or tall building, and they obsess about it. They hear about suicide-by-gun, by-police, by-razor blade, and they fantasize and obsess about it. Guns are well-designed and convenient tools. Some types of crazy should be kept away from dangerous tools, by prison if necessary.
September 26th, 2015 at 7:02 am
Actually, most people who survive a suicide attempt don’t try again:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/
If they survive the first attempt, there’s an opportunity to fix the underlying problems.
The problem with firearms is that they’re much more lethal than other methods, and there aren’t many second chances.
September 26th, 2015 at 9:54 am
Every taxi company offers a free ride to the bridge of your choice if you go there and commit suicide by jumping off – no charge, so banning guns is not about suicide prevention. Suicide cannot be prevented.
The communists at NPR want to eliminate a lot of private things, especially the private gun ownership that empowers people against their commie power grabs. They bend every thought they have to that end. They couldn’t care less about suicides, but disarming their intended victims means everything to them, and they obsess about it.
September 26th, 2015 at 11:24 am
Nailed it with that last paragraph there, Chas.
Antis and grabbers don’t want YOU to have a gun, although many of them are fine with “officials” having them (various gov initialisms, popo, private security). Do they contend that those groups are exempt from depression and suicidal tendencies? No? Well that’s because they don’t give a rat’s ass about the suicidal tendencies of any damn body, or about “the children” either…they just don’t want YOU to have a gun, period.
I was tempted to make light of suicide itself by mentioning the “shooting galleries” they have in some euro towns where dopers can go to do their thing cleanly and without interruption by cops, thugs, etc. and suggesting a similar type of shooting gallery for suicides, secure armored room with a drain in the middle to hose down the aftermath and make ready for the next temporary tenant. But I know and care about some people afflicted with real deal depression so that ain’t funny and I ain’t gonna mention it.
September 26th, 2015 at 3:56 pm
“What are they going to do about plain old gravity?”
That’s why we need to act now to repeal Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation. It is a reckless law, written a long time ago that has no place in a modern industrialized society. It has long become quite anchronistic. Plus that Newton guy who wrote it was undoubtedbly a racist, as were all white 17th century Europeans.
September 27th, 2015 at 5:47 pm
TS, Newton said on his deathbed that he was prouder than anything else in his life that he died a virgin.
I have looked into this. No one will tell me what color.