Lindsay Lohan (courtesy movieline.com)

“Gun ownership, which is more prevalent in rural areas, also explains why certain regions have higher suicide rates. Firearms account for about half of all suicide deaths. Research has found that mandating waiting periods, gun locks and other gun control laws are associated with fewer deaths.” – Suicide Rate Highest in Decades But Worst in Rural America [via governing.com]

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68 COMMENTS

    • Exactly. The more gun owners who kill themselves, the more guns I can buy for pennies on the dollar at estate sales. Still waiting for the big Bob Owens garage sale.

      Suicide might be painless, but the yard sales are priceless.

    • Precisely. The only accurate correlation is “more guns, more *successful* suicides,” which, as you may have guessed, also applies to bullet trains, as well as rope & lonely tracts of public forest land.

  2. Urban areas have subways and other trains, and of course high buildings.

    There are always plenty of options for offing oneself.

    • I have a hard time believing the data anyway. At least as it stands without context. I’ve worked LE in urban and rural areas and to me it seems urban areas have far more of everything including suicides. Also from my experience rural suicides tend to be old folks already dying of something and choose to go out on their own terms.

    • And the peer reviewed studies on suicide classifications and coroners’ and medical examiners’ practices, show that gun suicide is classified correctly over 99% of the time, while other methods that are suicide are misclassified as accident more than half the time.

      Just go to google scholar and plug in suicide misclassification or suicide under-count.

      The scientist who deal directly with suicide know this. But the “scientists” who do gun control research don’t even mention this

      • I also have a feeling they didn’t control for things like age, race, gender, etc.

        And that last part of the quote should probably have read “Research has found that mandating waiting periods, gun locks and other gun control laws are associated with fewer [suicides in which the person used a gun]” if it was true. It was probably just a lie.

  3. The article fully admits that guns aren’t the reason for the suicide increase. Therefore gun control shouldn’t be the method to reduce them! >_< they're just pushing an agenda.

    • Indeed. This is another example of ‘correlation does not equal causation.’ One might as well state that tomatoes are toxic because everyone who has ever eaten tomatoes is either dead or dying.
      Realistically, an argument could be made that the availability of a firearm might lead, statistically, to more SUCCESSFUL suicides merely because using a firearm lends a certain, oh, ‘ certainty’ to the effectiveness of the effort. It would also be true that suicidal people choosing firearms as a means are ‘deadly’ serious about the finality of their decision and their desire not to be interfered with prior to finalizing the act.
      On the other hand, if firearms were unavailable or difficult to obtain for even one dedicated to ending their own life, one of the runner-up methods would rapidly take their place.
      No gun? Readily available morphine, oxycontin, or Fentanyl. No drugs? Automobiles and other vehicles (impact or exhaust). No IC engines, things with wheels that move, or airplanes about? Household chemicals, or household chemicals and a plastic bag. No household chemicals? A plastic bag. No plastic bag? A length of rope, a shoelace, a bit of twine. No ligature? There’s always water. Or high places.
      Where there is the will, there is the way; The key to preventing (or lessening the incidence of) suicide is intervention–or magically improving the human condition so that everybody is just so healthy, wealthy, and Dag Blag WISE that they just wouldn’t think of it.
      Fat chance.

      • Breathing is some dangerous stuff. Never knew of anyone who died who wasn’t breathing shortly before they died.

  5. Since when is another person’s (other than family members) suicide my concern? In this case I’ll go with the Feminazis’ position of “our bodies ourselves”. If you have the “privacy right” to kill a viable child in your body then you have the “right” to kill yourself.

    • Of course for abortion to be a personal right over one’s body you first have to devalue the life of another. Likewise, for suicide to be a body choice of the individual he/she must devalue the lives of friends and family ( provided they have any) who will be affected and likely damaged by the act.

      • Not condoning suicide, but a guilt trip doesn’t seem like a productive means of reducing them in general. Often as not, it’s stuff related to the family and ‘friends’ that contributed to the depression in the first place.

        • Anxiety is a bigger cause of suicide than depression and suicide is simply a way of escaping pain. I was talking about the philosophy that attempts to normalize suicide being shameful.

  6. Suicide is suicide… method doesn’t matter what are the underlying causes?
    There is no there there in an article that’s a waste of time to read.

    • What matters about method is that the science says over 99% of gun suicides are correctly classified as suicide, but that more than half of suicide by other means is likely misclassified as accident.

      The peer reviewed studies show Medical Examiners start with presumption of suicide in self caused gun death — and start with the presumption of accident in self poisoning, single car fatalities from driving into abutment, drowning at sea et etc.

  7. I’ve known only 1 person who committed suicide by firearm. Two who drove in front of trains. one hanged them self and four from drugs. The instrument is of little consequence. The motivation is the question. People who want to die will find a way. Committing suicide is a very personal choice. It’s legal in some places even with the aid of a doctor. Blaming firearms is a purely political ploy and nothing more.

    • I generally agree, except for driving a car in front of a train.

      Driving in front of a train can place a huge burden of guilt upon the conductor: even if there’s no way the train could be stopped in time, he was still in control of the instrument of another person’s death, and that can weigh on a person. (Happened to a family friend.)

      Then there’s the potential for derailment, causing massive damage and, if it’s a passenger train, loss of life.

      If you wish to kill yourself, that’s your business; but you have no right to risk other people’s lives in the process.

      • Seeing as suicide is the ultimate expression of selfishness, the practitioners really don’t have to care

        • There is a caveat to that.
          MANY suicides are narcissistic acts done by people without any concern for others, and some are simply acts of revenge. Many also are committed by people whose empathy for others has been deadened by their own mental pain to the point that, it’s not that they don’t actively ‘care’ for others who are impacted, they’ve weighed that against their own, very real mental suffering and discounted it. Others commit suicide out of the necessity of REAL pain, and some even do so out of altruism.
          Every story is different.

  8. While Suicide is a tragic final act, at the end of the day it isn’t an illegal act. Using something that isn’t illegal to justify restrictions on rights is wrong.

        • Since our lives belong to the state, at the very least criminal charges for “willful destruction of state property”.

      • Typically it is attempted suicides that are illegal. For a failed attempt they lock you up in the loony bin.

    • I don’t think I have ever heard the argument put forward so logically. Minus the few states were it is still a crime, any law restricting suicide would be curtailing a legal act. Very interesting.

  9. Personal choices…I am OK with that…as long as it is suicide only…not murder-suicide.
    As another poster said: your body…your choice…just like with abortion.

    • Of course there is a host of reasons why suicide is morally wrong. The problem with the ” Your body your choice” argument is that it is inherently narcissistic and neglects the fact that suicide often damages surviving family and friends.

  10. Statistically it mostly breaks down to race. White people commit suicide at a much higher rate than blacks, blacks commit murder at a much higher rate. Very few whites in the inner cities, very few blacks in the country.

  11. Japan, china, South Korea, as well as a large number of European countries and at times, Canada, have higher suicide rates than we do….the first 3 have absolute gun control, and the others extreme gun control….

  12. The suicide rates in gunless South Korea and Japan are double the US murder rate and suicide rates COMBINED.

    so statistically speaking, the average Japanese or South Korean is more likely to die by violence than the average American

  13. Without suicide the leftards would have nothing. Is that Lyndsay Lohan trying to off herself?!?

  14. Major issue with suicide is that people that off themselves via a firearm are usually losers in life and end up using some cheap junk firearm to do the deed. I go to estate sales and in instances where the deceased committed suicide, there are few quality guns. No wonder they committed suicide, buy a quality gun, usually associated with a quality life and you won’t be shooting yourself. Tonque / (gun) in cheek humor.

  15. There are states that have laws against suicide?

    Ahhhhhh. Those must be the ones with no suicide.

    I wonder, what’s the penalty?

  16. There is a positive correlation identified between the lack of a social network (isolation) and suicide. It is reasonable to assume rural/less populated areas are frequently more gun friendly, while more suburban and urban/more populated areas are less gun friendly… in other words the correlation may seem present between guns and suicide but the causation isn’t solid… it may be the isolation. But I’m just a Psychology teacher, what do I know.

  17. You should have the right to kill yourself
    Some things are worse than death
    It is actually a logical decision in certain progressive neurological diseases where you slowly lose all motor function but your mind is not affected
    I think it is better to choose the time of death in this situation than to live, paralyzed, on a ventilator for many years

    • Most people here: You have a right to protect your own life!

      Most people here: You have no right to end your own life!

      Cognitive dissonance is not just something that afflicts the lefties.

  19. There actually is a lot of research that shows people have a “preferred method” and if that is removed then they are less likely to act. Also, firearms have a fatality rate of >90% in suicide while other means have much lower rate. There are a large number of people that try suicide once and have extreme regret and are glad to be alive. So, in essence, having less firearm access IS saving lives.

    The bigger issue is improperly stored firearms. Accidental death in children. Children killing using parents firearms.

    Personally, I’d be all for felony charges for adults who allow their guns to fall into children hands.

    • Cool, so when I have kids and teach them how to shoot, you want to lock me up for it? And literally millions of others? Go gargle razorblades

      (And if you only meant in cases where someone gets hurt, there are already mechanisms in place for felony charges to be filed. This is common knowledge, so I assume simply by the fact that you felt the need to comment that you meant something else)

    • Several people have pointed out Japan as the example that shows lack of a access to firearms does not result in a lower suicide rate. Korea actually has more restricted access than Japan and an even higher suicide rate. Many other countries also have more restricted access and similarly high or higher suicide rates than the US.

      My guess is the study you’re referring too interviewed a lot on non-serious cry for help attempts rather than serious attempts (almost no other way as most of the serious attempts weren’t around anymore to be interviewed), because the Koreas, Japanese, Russias, . . . etc all seem to be effective at offing themselves when they want too.

  20. Research has found that mandating waiting periods, gun locks and other gun control laws are associated with fewer deaths.

    Gun locks? I’ll possibly agree there is an association with more firearms used in suicides when firearms are more readily available. I would not agree that guns available increases the rate of suicide: see japan.

    But gun locks? If that defeats the owner of the gun, I’m surprised they haven’t already accidentally killed themselves. If the sole reason someone else decides not to kill themselves is they might have to find a key, or use a bolt cutter or drill, or procure their own gun and ammo, then I doubt the person strongly wanted to kill themselves to actually follow through.

  21. I knew a person who committed suicide. She took a high dive off the dry side of Hoover Dam. Not sure, but that might have been Arizona’s jurisdiction, not Nevada’s.

  22. Since the antis love anecdotes I’ll use one of my own:

    Don’t date Courtney Love. Especially of your name is Kurt.

  24. If owning a gun makes suicide easier, have a waiting period for the first gun. After that there’s no point. The person already owns a gun so there’s no logic for a waiting period. “Oh, well they could have sold their first gun or all their guns so there should always be a waiting period.” No, that argument doesn’t hold water any more than that a person won’t commit suicide if they don’t have a gun. The idea that a person who threatens suicide should have guns taken away doesn’t hold water either, either the person is trying to get attention through a suicide threat or they’re suicidal, not both. If you want to die you DON’T tell other people so they can stop you.

    I want nothing more than for people who think they need to commit suicide to find fulfillment in life again. It’s a terrible thing that makes me feel sad for them to think of the pain that could be so great to consider that. But there’s no logic to attaching gun control to it.

  25. There are a few incorrect points of logic here. First, correlation is not causation; the use of one tool does not mean that one tool is a cause. Because of this they incorrectly conclude reducing the number of guns in circulation would positively impact suicide. There is no data to show removing a gun as an option stops suicide attempts. This argument also asserts death by gun is worse than death by any other means because…reasons.
    Suicide with a gun is the most effective means, but removing guns has not provided any positive impact. The only impactful measures are based on intervention, but that’s only common sense.

    • It’s farmers, they have a particularly high suicide rate. Probably higher than reported, highly likely that many of the accidental deaths were hidden suicides (so the insurance would still pay out to the surviving family). Farm life is hard, and the economics of farming haven’t been that favorable to the independent farmer for awhile.

  28. Bad conclusion from the data. If you look at suicide rate by vocation, the last couple decades, farmers have some of the highest suicide rates. If you break it down further, the farm industry has been under financial duress for awhile. Yes, cheap credit, easy to get loans, but also perpetually falling crop prices. Long hours, high debt, lowered year to year incomes, few community support structures, older workers, and yeah, there is a rural based community (can’t have farms in the city) that has above average stressors and a higher suicide rate as a result. Once again, got nothing to do with guns.

  29. Since the source (Governing.com) is now equating correlation with causation, it would be fair to say that those in urban areas prefer to kill others when they encounter difficult times.

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