How Patients Answered, "Do you have access to guns?" prior to Suicide Death

MaverickNH

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I'm just reviewing a manuscript from a large CA healthcare system (10 authors), which finds that over half of those in contact with primary, urgent or mental healthcare professionals in the 6 months prior to their suicide death indicated upon survey that they had no access to firearms. Of those deceased, less than half died by firearms-assisted suicide. Hanging/Suffocation & Poisoning beat Guns 48% to 37%. My conclusion - didn't have a gun so used a rope, poison, etc. No news there... I rejected the manuscript as it's not generalizable outside CA and the journal is in the top 10 national impact index. It'll get published somewhere else to justify the grant spent money and to get more. I'm sure there's a few $Trillion in COVID/Infrastructure tax dollars to help their cause.

So, how's those invasive medical gun questions working out? Not so well...
 
I’m sure they get the same answer to the monotone “do you feel safe at home? Do you want to hurt yourself or someone else?”

Why not take 5 minutes and have an honest chat with a patient? “Hey joe, times are tough for a lot of people right now. How are you hanging in there? I’m asking because if you are hurting I want to try and help.”
 
An honest consideration of gun suicides has to acknowledge that there is some increased risk of suicide due to having a firearm. It's just not logical to believe otherwise. I am not going to try and quantify the additional risk, but to deny it seems silly to me. Suicide with a handgun takes only a second or two of will. Most other more or less failsafe methods that people actually use take much more deliberation.

I've always thought that the increased percentage of suicides among police officers is simply due to them all having firearms. Not the depressing, stressful nature of their work, etc, that others claim. They just have to have a few seconds of true will.
 
An honest consideration of gun suicides has to acknowledge that there is some increased risk of suicide due to having a firearm. It's just not logical to believe otherwise. I am not going to try and quantify the additional risk, but to deny it seems silly to me. Suicide with a handgun takes only a second or two of will. Most other more or less failsafe methods that people actually use take much more deliberation.

I've always thought that the increased percentage of suicides among police officers is simply due to them all having firearms. Not the depressing, stressful nature of their work, etc, that others claim. They just have to have a few seconds of true will.
Except that suicide is rarely the impulsive action people describe it as...
 
An honest consideration of gun suicides has to acknowledge that there is some increased risk of suicide due to having a firearm. It's just not logical to believe otherwise. I am not going to try and quantify the additional risk, but to deny it seems silly to me. Suicide with a handgun takes only a second or two of will. Most other more or less failsafe methods that people actually use take much more deliberation.

I've always thought that the increased percentage of suicides among police officers is simply due to them all having firearms. Not the depressing, stressful nature of their work, etc, that others claim. They just have to have a few seconds of true will.
If people without a gun want to commit suicide, they will find a way. Its not the gun
If murders without a gun want to kill, they will find a way. Its not the gun.
 
If people without a gun want to commit suicide, they will find a way. Its not the gun
If murders without a gun want to kill, they will find a way. Its not the gun.
Both are easier with a gun. Do you really believe otherwise? If you say you do, then you are either a liar or stupid. Which is it?

And I am pro-gun (mostly) and not even anti-suicide; my brother has two friends with terminal health issues who are both going to shoot themselves when their illnesses become too much.
 
Both are easier with a gun. Do you really believe otherwise? If you say you do, then you are either a liar or stupid. Which is it?

And I am pro-gun (mostly) and not even anti-suicide; my brother has two friends with terminal health issues who are both going to shoot themselves when their illnesses become too much.
I don't respond well to immature insults from a keyboard commando.
 
It wasn't an insult. It's called logic. You should try it sometime.

And I am not a keyboard commando. But you can believe that if you wish.
 
One of my cousins killed herself this past winter. I believe it was more impulsive than not.
Condolences for your loss.

Belief is great. Who talked to her about her experiences in the months and years leading up to it? What data do you have to support your belief?

Depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are incredibly complicated. It's certain that an occasional individual has a single moment of impulse, but that's not the norm.
 
Condolences for your loss.

Belief is great. Who talked to her about her experiences in the months and years leading up to it? What data do you have to support your belief?

Depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation are incredibly complicated. It's certain that an occasional individual has a single moment of impulse, but that's not the norm.
Thank you.
 
I’m sure they get the same answer to the monotone “do you feel safe at home? Do you want to hurt yourself or someone else?”

Why not take 5 minutes and have an honest chat with a patient? “Hey joe, times are tough for a lot of people right now. How are you hanging in there? I’m asking because if you are hurting I want to try and help.”
Too much work. They don’t care but they want to look like they do.
In the military, everyone who deploys no matter where gets asked a barrage of questions. Before, during and after deployment. I get it, the questions for the very one remove the stigma of seeking out help and can help the guys who really need it. Since everyone goes, the guys who need help can get it without being weak.
But the questions are stupid. “Do you ever want to hurt someone?” THAT’S THE FRIGGING JOB!!! All the questions are stupid and asked in the most uninterested manner, almost begging for smart ass answers.
Just another ploy for the medical profession to pretend to care.
 
Both are easier with a gun. Do you really believe otherwise? If you say you do, then you are either a liar or stupid. Which is it?

Lol little kids have hung themselves with electrical cords and belts. You don't need a gun to kill yourself. The fact that a gun might be convenient doesn't increase the rate of suicide. Look at Japan- guns are inaccessible to most, still has high suicide rate.

If someone is serious about suicide and not just an attention whore, they won't have any problem killing themselves.
 
Women are far more likely than men to attempt suicide, by a factor of three or four to one. Yet almost twice as many men die by suicide. What is your explanation for that? You seem to be an expert.
 
Both are easier with a gun. Do you really believe otherwise? If you say you do, then you are either a liar or stupid. Which is it?

And I am pro-gun (mostly) and not even anti-suicide; my brother has two friends with terminal health issues who are both going to shoot themselves when their illnesses become too much.
What does THAT have to do with our right to appropriately attempt to defend ourselves from others?

Sorry for your friend's situation
 
Thank you. I didn't say it did. I'm just rationally discussing guns and suicide.
I didn't mean to suggest YOU made the comparison. I was just pointing out that while some people will misuse, abuse, etc, firearms, that bad behavior is not a reason to confiscate guns from people that have no intention or desire to do any such thing and in most cases will live out their lives having never encountered a situation where they had to use a gun. They/we should not be deprived of that ability because of some other person's actions.

See my signature, "Tyra" for an example...
 
Women are far more likely than men to attempt suicide, by a factor of three or four to one. Yet almost twice as many men die by suicide. What is your explanation for that? You seem to be an expert.

Unsuccessful attempts can often be a cry for help as opposed to a determined attempt to end it all.

Men are more hard wired to keep things bottled up than to ask for help. More frequently when men have decided to check out, they are done. As in done and not negotiable. That is a dark place to be and everyone who finds themselves there are convinced that they are all alone.

My brother took his own life. We knew things weren't going well but nobody saw it coming. Only afterwards did we see all the signs for exactly what they were. By then it was too late. My parents were devastated. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children.
 
Suicide is typically impulsive. For example, people who jump off of bridges, heights, etc., and survive, usually relate that the second after they jumped, they realized they'd made a horrible mistake and wished they could undo their decision. (For a fictional example that's been praised for its verisimilitude, see "The View From Halfway Down" from Bojack Horseman.)

Whether removing a ready method of suicide from the home has the effect of reducing suicide rates is unknown. Gun control advocates like to make a lot of hay out of the fact that when the UK switched over from coal gas, which had a high carbon monoxide content, to natural gas, which has no carbon monoxide, the suicide rate dropped by something like one-third. ("Sticking your head in the oven" was a common method, prior to the switch.) However I've read at least one claim that The Netherlands underwent a similar switch and it didn't affect suicide rates measurably, as would-be suicides found other methods.
 
I’m sure they get the same answer to the monotone “do you feel safe at home? Do you want to hurt yourself or someone else?”

Why not take 5 minutes and have an honest chat with a patient? “Hey joe, times are tough for a lot of people right now. How are you hanging in there? I’m asking because if you are hurting I want to try and help.”
Yeah how would you justify 300k in medical loans if you talked to people like humans thougb
 
Both are easier with a gun. Do you really believe otherwise? If you say you do, then you are either a liar or stupid. Which is it?

And I am pro-gun (mostly) and not even anti-suicide; my brother has two friends with terminal health issues who are both going to shoot themselves when their illnesses become too much.

Mostly. Lol. f***ing fudd Karens everywhere.
 
Women are far more likely than men to attempt suicide, by a factor of three or four to one. Yet almost twice as many men die by suicide. What is your explanation for that? You seem to be an expert.
More women are emo attention whores/suicude chumps. Males don't attention whore to suicide because they rarely get validation/feedback for it. Men are also far less likely to seek or obtain help because society has told them that "feelings are illegal" etc, regardless of any clown world woke bullshit (which is a lie anyways) men are typically socially conditioned to believe that showing weakness at any time under any circumstance is bad.

None of this of course has much to do with guns though. The notion of guns really influencing suicide is garbage. Plus it's just anti claptrap anyways, it's a distraction from trying to get people to stop killing themselves, if that's the intent.
 
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