Gun Control Folks Try to Muscle in on Suicide Prevention

And they are rebuffed. Why? Because the suicide prevention groups are already working with NSSF on a program. Despite all the cries of “evil gun lobby!” from the gun control crowd, this is a smart move on the part of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

If your actual goal is to prevent suicides, gun owners need to be a part of that conversation. Embracing the Brady Campaign or Mom’s Demand’s message would cause us to reject the AFSP’s message and our community would circle the wagons. It would weaken AFSP’s mission.

Gun owners are not unaware of suicide. Our community recently experienced a high-profile loss. We are not inherently hostile to suicide prevention, or friends and family taking reasonable measures to try to keep guns away from those who are a danger to themselves or others. But that depends on suicide prevention as a movement not adopting an anti-gun position.

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  2. Female Suicide Rate
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5 thoughts on “Gun Control Folks Try to Muscle in on Suicide Prevention”

  1. Good analysis.

    It’s interesting to me that, in the linked article, the Brady spokesperson states that they distribute literature about taking guns away from those at risk of suicide. Isn’t that a “loophole” that these groups are demanding to change, since it would be a personal transfer?

  2. Any system of suicide prevention that would take guns away from people would be the opposite of helping. If somebody is depressed and heading towards suicide, but getting help means they lose guns for life, they will probably not get the help they need.

  3. I question, however, if we should always be interventionist when it comes to suicide prevention anyway. After all, the one thing that everybody owns is their own body and their own life, and it is theirs to do with as they please.

    It’s one thing to intervene with a clinically depressed teenager and get them some help, something I have no problem with. It’s quite another to intervene with the decisions of a person in their 60’s suffering from chronic diseases.

  4. “As a suicide prevention organization, we are not in the business of saying who can and cannot own firearms. We are in the business of saving lives.”

    ouch, that is going to leave a scar.

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