this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Again a foolish answer, I know of more than one case, where people who failed at their suicide attempt just tried it a second time. You can't really blame guns for social factors. No one pulls the trigger by accident.
EDIT: I think it's also important to note, that I think people who really want to kill themself will just choose the most effective way.
Guns are only about 80% effective at suicide attempts. There are some 100% effective ways that are barely more complicated... yet pulling a trigger is still the most popular in the US.
Thank you for this perfect answer -- I couldn't have asked for a more perfect demonstration of how deeply flawed and self-centered pro-gun logic is.
There is an entire world's worth of suicide statistics and study out there, because it's allowed to be studied without an American death-cult opposing it. In most countries, that research is actively encouraged since it saves lives.
But don't worry about those mountains of evidence, you "know a couple of people" so it must all be wrong.
Sure they do. In America, legal gun owners routinely kill people by accidentally pulling the trigger. From toddlers getting hold of a gun and killing themselves to hunters throwing a loaded gun into the back seat and blowing away a passenger, it happens about as often as mass shootings do.
I was worried that people would claim my "they're just doing it for attention" comment was putting hyperbolic words into your mouth but nope, you're just going to actually say it.
I'm sorry for the missunderstanding, I meant that very little people pull the trigger on thenself by accident.
That's neither what I said, nor what I intendet to say. I just said, that people tend to choose the most efficient and painless method of suicide, and that a gun ban wouldn't prevent them from commiting suicide, because most of them will just choose the next efficient method. No one prepares a hanging for attention, but more people preffer a bullet over a rope.
EDIT: I forgot to specificly reply to your first point, but I think it's kinda covered in my second part. For clarification tho: I life in a country with a lot less gun ownership than in the US, thereforce people just choose other methods.
Which shows you're not really listening.
Yes, people do have a preferred method. That's what "means reduction" is, and it's been repeatedly shown to reduce the suicide rate, because it turns out that people often don't just choose another method.
When they do choose another method, methods with lower lethality than guns result in more survivors, only 10% of which will go on to die by suicide.
While all of this might feel unintuitive, it all remains demonstrably correct.
I'm interrested where the 10% are from, but I assume they are data points from the current state where people preffer suicide by guns. I do think that if people had to choose different methods than guns the statistic would look different. Also I think that gun ownership is rather one of the less important influences on the suicide rate, if most people can't afford therapie not having accses to a gun probably won't stop them from doing it.
Take for example Japan, it has one of the lowest estimated gun ownership rate in the world but also unfortunatly one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Suicide is considered a major social issue in Japan and it is exacly that, a social issue, not a gun issue.
It's a complex problem with many factors but widespread access to guns is a provably one of those factors. The 90% survival rate after a failed attempt comes from the world over.
You don't get to handwave away statistics when they're inconvenient and then pull them out when you think they can score you a point. Suicide causes and prevention are areas that are extensively studied.
I don't know where I did, if you are reffering to the suicide attempt statistic, you missunderstood me, I just didn't know it exists. Also you kinda do it here by not answering to my point.
I agree that it's a complex problem, that's why I do think that we need laws, that regulate how people use their guns (like a regulation, that you have to keep your gun locked away), not who uses guns (with exceptions like terrorists and people who threat to commit a crime or suicide, minors, etc.). Maybe the widespread acces of guns has a higher impact on suicide rates, than I think, but it's far from the most important factor in my experience. Maybe the suicide rates are down a bit if we ban guns, but the mental health of people wouldn't get better by making them life. I think that physicly preventing people from killing themself isn't the right approach in the long run.