Senior men have higher rates of suicide than average, and firearms were involved in more than three-quarters of those deaths in 2021, according to a CDC report
Senior men have higher rates of suicide than average, and firearms were involved in more than three-quarters of those deaths in 2021, according to a CDC report
Not just me, but everybody involved in suicide prevention. It doesn’t matter how unintuitive you find it, means reduction works.
Suicide is an impulse and when people have access to guns, they can act on that impulse in minutes, if not seconds. It’s painless and requires zero preparation time.
What other method even comes close?
You might have the tools to slit your wrists, but it hurts, it’s easy to get wrong, takes much longer than you’d think and sucks the entire time.
It’s also extemely difficult to seriously injure yourself on purpose. Most people have heard of “hesitation marks” but nobody has heard of “hesitation gunshots”, because they’re not a thing.
Okay, so what about hanging? For most people, step 1 is going to be Googling “how to tie a noose”, which will immediately present them with local suicide prevention resources.
So fuck it, lets head outside.
Maybe jump off something high? How long would it take you to get to a bridge or building that would definitely be fatal? Would you need to drive? Would you need directions? Could you leave without anybody asking where you were going? Once you got there, could you climb on the edge without being seen by passers by, all of whom will immediately try and help you or call someone who can.
And of course once you were looking out over the edge, could you do it? It’s terrifying and a very primal survival instinct will tell you to stop. Even once you jump, you’re still not arriving at oblivion faster than someone with a gun would.
Maybe you could overdose on something? The 90s made it look so cool. But of course, few people have fatal amounts of drugs just laying around and for most people, it’s far quicker and easier to go to a gun store.
So whats left? Shit that practically nobody does, despite the pro-gun community insist every suicide method is the same. People don’t gouge their eyes to get to their brain or feed themselves into a tablesaw.
No, it doesn’t sound like that at all, you just want to signal to others that you’re not right wing but still love guns.
But sure, we can stick with that analogy. Do women who aren’t pregnant still have abortions? Do they just find another medical proceedure to have instead?
If you’re pro gun, there’s no use pretending “saving womens lives” is a thing you care about. 70 women are shot and killed by their partners each month, over 4 million report being threatened with a gun.
Abusers with access to guns are 5x more likely to kill their partners and guess what the gun lobby does? Openly opposes domestic abusers losing their guns.
Suicide is everything from highly planned to impulsive. You’ve built your argument on a fallacy.
So this isn’t about male suicide but guns…
Great minimization to wedge your rhetoric.
When the causes of death is compared across genders is blatantly obvious the difference is the means to ACT on it. Men are less likely to seek help, more likely to ACT. This is not a uniquely American issue, its world wide in fact America does not rank in the top 20 countries.
To make my point, here is the Australian suicide statistics. Notice how its the same problem and we do not have guns accessible? https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/deaths-by-suicide-in-australia/suicide-deaths-over-time
Sure, I probably should have said “many suicides are an impulse”, but you’re going to have to do better then semantics.
But if that’s the game we’re playing, by your own admission, it’s not a fallacy, it just doesn’t cover every suicide.
Which is fine, because I’ll never claim that gun control will prevent all suicides, but the types of impulse suicides I specifically detailed.
Means reduction is means reduction. It remains one of the most effective methods of suicide prevention and that wont change just because this particular means reduction upsets pro-gun reactionaries.
People also got upset when their access to barbiturates, toxic gas and easy to jump off bridges was reduced. But people went ahead and saved a measurable number of lives anyway, because bridge aficionados aren’t part of a death cult backed by a powerful lobby group.
So you’re saying that men have greater access to some kind of “means”, that are more lethal than other means, which increases the number of them that die by suicide?
Damn, who’d’ve though?
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m the one advocating that we take steps to reduce the suicide rate, using repeatedly proven strategies.
It’s the pro-gun commenters that you seemingly agree with who are advocating that we do less.
I even did it without bringing gender into it, because I don’t feel that someones genitals makes their suicide any more of less tragic.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop you from seeing the words “women” and “suicide” used in the same post and twisting it into something you could get upset about.
Yep, I see the statistics that have nothing to do with the point I was making.
To preface for others, I have placed some of the more triggering parts of this discussion behind the spoiler tags so others reading can avoid the more sensitive part of these discussions.
You should not have over stated the minority. I understand, anything to further your political rhetoric.
And yet the suicide statistics CLEARLY show it made NO difference for Australia, none.
spoiler
Better ban rope now, hangings now dwarf suicide by guns as the leading cause.
Clearly you can’t even be bothered reading the statistics, not a study, statistics. If you had bothered to read the statistics of means over time, it clearly shows the volume has only increased over 5 decades and the means has drastically changed. The change in access made, NO difference in the outcome.
That was a typo on my part which you can clearly see if you read the two sentences together. Not means; intent. Absolutely men have far more intent then women. Pick any study, the conclusion is the same: intent.
That baseless claim at it again. Its statistics show the exact opposite.
No. I’m disagreeing with political bots like yourself “PoliticalAgiotator” wedging an agenda to benefit your politics. Its disingenuous garbage. I’m keeping my politics out of it, I find it weird how uncontrolled guns are in the US however I am not deluded by how little of an impact it has had here. It detracts from real discussion to address the real cause.
The delusion is pretty bad for you. You have not read the post title, let alone the article or even the statistics I provided. Welcome to the conversation, or is that the point: to derail and not contribute.
For some strange reason, I highly doubt you read anything at all.
As you argue against proven suicide prevention strategies. How very compassionate of you.
It makes sense that you’d focus on numbers without any greater context, because it makes it far easier to manipulate them. I’ve already addressed your bullshit arguments in your other comment.
Alternatively, people can just click the link above and get the opinions of an institute dedicated to suicide prevention and the studies they’ve based it on, then decide if they’re likely to know more or less about suicide prevention than this random guy on social media.
So you’re saying that women are just doing it for attention and thats why their suicide rate is lower and why they don’t use guns?
That’s the opinion of a complete cunt, but I cant figure out any other reason for you to even mention it.
Okay then, lets do it this way: find me three suicide prevention organizations that don’t support means reduction or explain to us how you’re more qualified than the literally hundreds that do.
This shouldn’t be a problem right? After all, you’re definitely correct and trawling through hundreds of studies, statistics and statements to individually link them on social media is a trivial thing that it’s not dishonest to demand.
So that’s your compassion? Ignore others around you hey. Makes sense.
Oh this is hilarious, do tell, how I manipulate an entire countries statistics on suicide over time!
They’re absolutely right, as a generalization. Does it stop the result when access was taken away specifically for Guns. The statistics clearly show means changed over time and did the rate reduce? No. That rope lobby is looking mighty dangerous now. You better get on the case.
Is that what I said? Don’t worry, I don’t just make baseless claims or tell you to just google something that doesn’t exist. Suicide rate is 3 times higher for males, after all this is the topic with Guns.
higher rate of suicide among Australian males are that males tend to choose more lethal methods of suicide such as hanging (60% of male suicides), poisoning, including by car exhaust (11%), and firearms (8%). (Australian Psychological Society)men have a greater tendency to not recognize or respond to their own negative emotions or distress, which may result in more chronic and severe emotional responses to adverse life events (Goldney et al., 2002)Men are less inclined to communicate feelings of despair or hopelessness, and are more likely to present a stoic attitude towards misfortune (Howerton et al., 2007; Witte et al., 2012)have fewer social connections (Denney et al 2009)Differences in help seeking between men and women are additional contributing factors. Men tend not to seek help for emotional difficulties, often feeling that help-seeking is a weakness or failure and preferring to solve problems on their own, without being a burden on others (Emslie et al 2006)Don’t worry you do enough gas lighting and straw-manning for everyone. At this point its assured you’re lobbying for big oil.
Yep, what a surprise, you can’t find any organisations that agree with you, even though your clearly the expert.
Even more fascinating is when you finally start pulling out extracts, you struggle to not contradict yourself.
So you’re adamant that guns have nothing to do with the suicide rate, then immediately paste a quote about how lethality of method increases the suicide rate?
Do you think guns are more or less lethal than hanging you fucking dunce?
Don’t bother answering, just repeat “b-b-bhut Australia” over and over again, pointing at a policy that didn’t target suicide prevention.
Maybe you can follow it up with throwing a tantrum because people aren’t discussing exactly what’s in the title, even as you gloss over the “U.S” part so that you can use an island with 14 guns per capita to a country with 120 guns per capita.
So you have no evidence no study and no statistics to support your baseless claims and generalisations. I thought so.
A pathetic political wedge attempt.
Repeatedly linked. Have the gun lobby built a GPT bot and taught it to sealion?
You should get a job at a suicide hotline and when people call up, ask them if they’ve considered buying a cool gun and shooting things because after all, it makes no difference at all if you give suicidal people firearms.
You know, because Australia banned semi-automatic weapons.
Two counter points:
First is gunpowder is a weapon that does level playing field between two people who have different amounts of strength. What I mean is a 6foot 250 lb muscle builder is just as deadly as a 90 year old grand ma.
You have to acknowledge that point even if I agreed to your points.
Unlike all other weapons strength doesn’t matter for a gun. Basic biology that women are physically weaker than men. Yes some suggested that a woman shooting a guy in self-defense should be legal and mostly is.
The second is is you are wildly wrong about having access to drugs. I’m surprised you are suggesting that the average American household doesn’t have a lethal dose in their medicine cabinet.
Sure, in some bizarre labratory conditions that don’t reflect reality, the body builder and the grandma have equal capacity to murder anyone they want.
But that’s almost never how it plays out. Do you know who actually wins in that matchup? Whoever is the shittest person.
Is the grandma deeply racist and the body builder black? Then all my money is on the grandma. Is the body builder far-right and opening fire on a family having a day out with grandma? Then all my money is on the Nazi.
But of course, we don’t have to talk about convoluted hypothetical scenarios. The pro-gun community had dictated the gun laws for 25 years, promising shit like “a level playing field” the entire time, despite it been a deeply fucked way of describing people fighting for their lives.
So why are none of these promises coming true? Why are women and minorities less safe in America compared to other wealthy countries? Why are the crime rates in America basically the same despite tolerating children being executed en masse every few months?
If these gun laws keep us safe from tyranny, why are there fascists preparing for an election, enthusiastically cheered on by the the pro-gun community?
When they inevitably lose and arrange their next attack on the Capitol, puffing their chests out with pro-gun pride and executing anyone who stands in their way, are you going tell us just how level the playing field was?
Most of then also have a lethal amount of bleach too but believe it or not, most suicidal people would rather not torture themselves to death.
Just because something is theoretically fatal doesn’t mean it’s a suicide risk.