A gun in the home leads to higher suicide rates. According to The Harvard School of Public Health:
“Removing all firearms from one’s home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide,” Miller said.
“Removing firearms may be especially effective in reducing the risk of suicide among adolescents and other potentially impulsive members of their home,” Miller added.
So this is a new article. But I’m pretty sure this study came out a while ago. The question is, then, why is the media rehashing it now?
While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time.
People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time, the researchers said, citing other surveys.
What about success rates for slitting wrists, jumping, or throwing oneself in front of a train? It would seem to be that if someone were hell bent on suicide, there are many substitutes. By this logic, we should tear down the Golden Gate Bridge, which is the number one location in the world for people jumping to their doom. I’ve always wondered whether people who use drugs aren’t really all that serious about getting the job done.
In Japan, which has an amazingly high suicide rate, hanging is common among adolescents.
Harvard should be closed and sold at auction. How many suicides have been inspired by their tough curricula and the tremendous pressure they place on their young students to succeed?
That would do a great deal to lower the suicide rate, right in their own milieu where they actually have the right to exercise that denial control. They can close any time they want and deny young people access to the high stress levels leading to local suicides. Until we see them do what they can to solve their near problem, they should shut the fuck up about what other people should do about lesser likelihood of the problems.
I’d like to know how 10% of suicide attempts with a firearm fail…
And Harvard has “tough curricula”? Hah! (I went to another Ivy League school) While there (about 5 years ago) one of the schools’ (can’t remember which one, Columbia, maybe) papers did a story on the rates at which Ivy students graduate with honors. Harvard had something like 92% graduating with honors.
I’m tired of the ‘concern’ over teen suicide.
I’ve been tired of it for 50 years.
By puberty, everyone knows which members of their class aren’t ever going to see 21. It isn’t going to make any difference whether they get intensive therapy or are completely ignored. They just don’t function in society and we and they know it.
Think of it as Evolution In Action.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying AughtSix, “The toughest part about Harvard is getting in.” Talking to the undergrad Harvard boys when I was in college, I was appalled at what they considered a “tough” class.
I was using the current definitions. I only graduated high school, but I am far more capable than any college graduate I have met in the last 30 years. Hell, I can even read!
Is this the same study where they didn’t bother to differentiate urban and rural incidents but went on state numbers? Because that’s the only one I’ve heard of that actually shows any relation. Of course suicide and gun ownership are more common in the country (and always have been as long as I remember).