Let’s not misinterpret the experts now. We are arguing the means here, not the cause. I don’t see how your research makes suicide more likely other than a correlation (which you know isn’t something you want to stand on). I may not have stats but I’ve seen enough drama and horror flicks to know that there are a lot of ways crazy people would end themselves.
Look again at those numbers. If you have roughly 40 million people and you increase the local level of gun ownership, the overall suicide rate jumps from 8,052 to 14,809…not quite double the rate, but over 80% higher. That is the overall rate. The rate of suicide by guns, however, goes from 2,606 to 9,749…an increase of over three and a half times higher. The “low gun” area isn’t one where it is impossible to get a gun, either. Because we are comparing different places in the US, and not different countries, people in “low gun” areas can go buy one, just like people in “high gun” areas. We are talking about access in the home at the time the impulse hits, not the overall ease of getting a gun.
Now, it is true that when people don’t have a gun in the house, they’ll find something else, some of the time. Whereas 5,060 chose a non-gun method of killing themselves in places where it would have been easy to get a gun, that number bumps up to 5,446 in places where a gun is less likely to be found in the home. That, however, is just over a 7% increase in suicide by all those other means. If you weren’t tempted to jump off of a bridge or take a handful of pills as your first choice, lack of a gun will not lead you to choose those other means all that much of the time…just as I think we can assume that those who want to take a handful of pills won’t automatically turn to a gun if they can’t find a way to put themselves into a deep and bloodless sleep from which they hope to never wake. Having one’s preferred means of committing suicide available when suicidal thoughts hit does matter!
If those numbers do not mean that lack of a gun does not keep some people from putting their plans into action, then please come up with some other hypothesis about what situations are behind those numbers. If having access to a gun isn’t causing the difference, what is? Something is! What is it? We do need to know!
If someone has the thought, “I cannot take this any more, maybe I ought to just kill myself right now, this very night”, the next step is to consider the means by which this could be accomplished. If there is a gun in the house, a self-inflicted gunshot wound will make the list. What the experts are saying is that if the person does not have a gun around, sometimes they will not get any farther in the planning stage than that.
Now, you are right: the person who thinks “I will NOT take this any more, and I am GOING to kill myself tonight” is somebody that may manage to put their plan into action even if they are put under a suicide watch. There are a lot of people, though, who aren’t quite so determined as that. The experts are saying that if those people don’t have access to a gun, many of them will not push themselves to find a different means of killing themselves.
I’m not misinterpreting the experts, either. The experts can also interview people who attempted suicide, and ask what their thought processes are. The experts are saying that when it comes to turning suicidal thoughts into suicidal actions, what sort of means are available matters. It is not a case where the person is always going to be so driven that they’ll find a means no matter what they have to do to find it. Sometimes, the simple lack of a gun will keep the plan to kill oneself in the planning stage. Not everyone with suicidal thoughts is a go-getter about it.
A very long time if you ask me. I’d sooner want to know how the world’s gone to Hades, what I can do to survive, and, if we’re talking sentimental value (which you seem to appeal to), how I can use what’s left to have some fun surviving.
Remember, it’s us you’re talking about, not ancient peoples who didn’t question religious notions and thought the earth was on the back of a giant turtle.
Actually, I’m not talking about purely sentimental value. I’m talking about self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence–gold is a highly feel-good metal to look at–and people start longing for that after a very short time in bad circumstances. Purposeful simplicity is not something the general population embraces, particularly not in the long term. Gold and other pretty things make hard times seem far away, just as much now as ever.
