Guns and Suicide in the United States

The New England Journal of Medicine ^ | September 4, 2008 | Matthew Miller, M.D., Sc.D., and David Hemenway, Ph.D.

[mabelkitty]

More commit suicide from drugs they’ve been prescribed by doctors.

[JimC214]

I agree with you. He wasn't in his right mind, and today the meds are so much better.

[Joe Brower]

Enemy Action Ping: The latest psuedo-science "study" by the New England Journal of Medicine.

For the FreeRepublic "banglist", please click HERE .

[Blood of Tyrants]

Morons. Guns no more cause suicides than pencils cause misspelled words.

[Pistolshot]

Attempts involving drugs or cutting, which account for more than 90% of all suicidal acts, prove fatal far less often.

So we are going to affect the lower 10% by attacking your guns.

What idiots.

[Pistolshot]

The gun store I frequent has had a lot of new customers come in for a hand gun. Many say it’s because they aren’t sure the next president will allow such purchases. They want one now while the purchase is still allowed.

I hear the same things every weekend in the shop. People are scarfing up the sunset-'black guns' as fast as they can. The fear is that NObama will reinstate the AWB no matter what Heller says in the interest of 'public safety'.

Even the post-ban guns are getting purchased, which is unusual. Heller was definitive, but a few doors opened up for 'some controls', which will be interpreted liberally by the anti-gunners, and narrowly by the pro-gun crowd.

[B4Ranch]

I think they were referring to attempted suicides, not successful suicides.

[OKSooner]

Speaking of which, I heard that a "popular" means of suicide in Japan these days is asphxiation. The person shuts themselves up in a small space, maybe even a car, and simply burns a couple of charcoal briquets in an hibachi.

Sad but true.

[mbynack]

How many people acquired the weapon for the purpose of commiting suicide and how many owned them for more than a year prior to the event? How many of those people would have commited suicide by another means if a weapon was unavailable?

What brand of firearm "causes" the most suicides?

How many of the suicide victims consulted a doctor within a month before the attempt?

Does this means that doctors cause suicides?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Because these guys want to make sure only doctor-assisted suicide is legal.

[DBrow]

This happens here too. A Delaware kid killed himself in a camping tent with a charcoal burner. He had used salvia within the last month, so his mom got active to make yet another plant illegal, salvia’s illegal now in Delaware and a few other states.

As a method to go, it's more peaceful than running an auto in the garage and certainly cheaper and less messy than a .357.

[Smokin' Joe]

The nanny staters have a brush with the truth, in that the urge to commit suicide is a transient one in most instances, with the intensity of the crisis which provokes it.

Why is suicide becoming more common?

I think the answer is cultural, not technical.

Our culture, especially youth culture, is focused on the present and living in the moment, instead of taking a longer view which would add perspective. The intensity of the present becomes overwhelming easily to someone who cannot or will not envision a future beyond the moment of crisis. A breakup/divorce or other event becomes world-ending, not a gateway to the future, and the good that can arise from a difficult moment is overshadowed by the immediacy of a short-term worldview.

The same phenomenon is visible in the way many handle (or don't) their finances, and trade instantaneous gratification for what would be a better deal over the long term.

The absence of God, the idea of eternity (to place the hour/week/month/year in perspective), and the lack of philosophical depth to see the potential benefits inherent in even a negative circumstance contribute as well.

If people had to beat themselves to death with a stick, at some point the lights would go on and they might decide this isn't such a good idea.

But if someone is bound and determined to end their life, they will find a way, and all that will change is the means, not the outcome.

Then, too, weren't some in the medical community pushing for doping up the depressed to the point where they were purt'near catatonic and letting them die?

I guess they figured it is OK if the doctor kills you, that way they can send the relatives a bill.

[B4Ranch]

A friend hung himself in his garage. I don’t have any problem with that except that he was married and had three small kids. Why did he take the chance that one of the kids would be the first to find him if he was pissed at his wife?

I suppose when things get that bad you aren’t thinking too straight anymore.

[Redcloak]

Another amateurish, flawed paper.

The paper fails to mention any benefits from owning firearms. Yes, some people use them to commit suicide just as others use them for crimes. However, the number of defensive uses is two orders of magnitude greater than the number of criminal or suicidal uses. The paper also fails to address the issue of substitution. If a suicidal person is denied access to a gun, their suicidal impulses do not magically disappear. They substitute another method of self destruction. Furthermore, the paper relies of unverifiable phone data. It’s a known fact that gun owners lie to strangers asking about their guns over the phone. Thus the rate of gun ownership is likely higher in the states they identify as “high gun ownership states” and the rate of suicide per firearm is lower.

If only they would show the same level of concern about real threats to health; like 5-gallon buckets.

[Atlas Sneezed]

In 2005, an average of 46 Americans per day committed suicide with a firearm, accounting for 53% of all completed suicides.

---

I suppose they’d rather these folks jumped outta windows?

[CholeraJoe]

Canada and New Zealand where gun ownership is highly restricted have higher rates than the USA.

Suicides per 100,000 people per year^[1]

Country	Males	Females	Total	Year
Lithuania	70.1	14.0	40.2	2004
Belarus	63.3	10.3	35.1	2003
Russia	61.6	10.7	34.3	2004
South Africa[2]	N/A	N/A	30.0	2004
Kazakhstan	51.0	8.9	29.2	2003
Hungary	44.9	12.0	27.7	2003
Guyana	42.5	12.1	27.2	2003
South Korea[3][4]	N/A	N/A	26.1	2005
Slovenia	37.9	13.9	25.6	2004
Latvia	42.9	8.5	24.3	2004
Japan[5]	35.6	12.8	24.2	2005
Ukraine	43.0	7.3	23.8	2004
People's Republic of China (selected areas)	13.0	14.8	13.9	1999
Sri Lanka	N/A	N/A	21.6	1996
Belgium	31.2	11.4	21.1	1997
Estonia	35.5	7.3	20.3	2005
Finland	31.7	9.4	20.3	2004
Croatia	30.2	9.8	19.6	2004
Serbia and Montenegro	28.8	10.4	19.3	2002
Hong Kong	25.2	12.4	18.6	2004
France	27.5	9.1	18.0	2003
Switzerland	23.7	11.3	17.4	2004
Austria	26.1	8.2	16.9	2005
Moldova	29.3	5.2	16.7	2004
Poland	27.9	4.6	15.9	2004
Czech Republic	25.9	5.7	15.5	2004
Uruguay	24.5	6.4	15.1	2001
Luxembourg	21.9	7.4	14.6	2004
People's Republic of China[6]	13.0	14.8	13.9	1999
Denmark	19.2	8.1	13.6	2001
Cuba	20.3	6.6	13.5	2004
Slovakia	23.6	3.6	13.3	2002
Seychelles	N/A	N/A	13.2	1998
Sweden	19.5	7.1	13.2	2002
Bulgaria	19.7	6.7	13.0	2004
Germany	19.7	6.6	13.0	2004
Trinidad and Tobago	20.9	4.9	12.8	2000
Romania	21.5	4.0	12.5	2004
Suriname	17.8	6.4	12.1	2000
Iceland	17.7	6.2	12.0	2004
New Zealand	19.8	4.2	11.9	2000
Bosnia and Herzegovina	20.3	3.3	11.8	1991
Canada	18.3	5.0	11.6	2002
Norway	15.8	7.3	11.5	2004
Portugal	17.5	4.9	11.0	2003
United States	17.9	4.2	11.0	2002

[PRC]

You need to get your facts about suicide right
first suicide has changed over the past 50 years. The increase in black men killing themselves has increased 10 fold. Teenage suicides have had a slight decrease.
Men who complete suicide are more likely to use a gun
Women are more likely to attempt and they use pills
Places where gun ownership is high in this country are higher than places that do not have high gun ownership rates
More suicides used to happen in urban areas 20 years ago, today it’s higher in rural areas

[txroadkill]

Source?

[PRC]

Multiple sources
start with the CDC
I am an expert on this subject and have been a national speaker for over 25 years on preventing suicide

[Antoninus]

In gun-free Japan, the per-capita suicide rate is several times that of America.

You got it. It's pretty bad when even the New England Journal of Medicine is doing political advocacy.