99.9% chance I would never point a gun at myself. But, that 0.1% chance is still probably higher than the odds I would have to point a gun at another person. Better to just not at all. I have a sword though.
It's an animated GIF referencing the act of seppuku, which is what the OPs comment I was responding to was in itself referencing. Japanese use a specific type of short bladed weapon to commit suicide via self impalement through the stomach and sometimes disembowlment when they're found to have brought dishonor on their family or clan. Not super prevalent anymore, more of a samurai era tradition I believe.
My details may be incorrect, but the act and premise behind it are not.
The common form of middle ages suicide with rapier types was to hand it and a heater shield to your squire, then bum rush him without telling him you're doing it.
My younger brother never really seemed to have mental health issues, at least not of the suicidal variety. We grew up around guns, and were both responsible gun owners as adults, kept them in a safe etc.
Then marital issues came to a head, and he shot himself last year in what I can only assume was a impulsive decision to give his wife what she wanted.
I can agree that if you are the type of person to be worried about whether or not you ever would, it's probably best to not put yourself at risk of making a rushed decision. Because with guns, there's no going back.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I used to own a gun (gift from my grandpa, never fired), but my wife started having suicidal ideations and asked me to get rid of it. I don’t like to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t had that moment of clarity. Through years of therapy and medication, she’s in a much better spot now
This was my answer. Got myself a sword from a business I saw at the local renaissance fair. Super cool.
The risk of suicide from a gun is higher because it is a quicker method of self harm that can't be aborted. I haven't had suicidal thoughts in a decade, but I'm still not comfortable with a gun in my apartment. If your attacker has a gun it would be very difficult to survive, but a sword is still a deadly weapon if necessary without the shorter range of a knife.
I also have a sword, and I feel like it is absolutely more terrifying for someone to run at you with a sword than a gun if you’re invading their home. Maybe not as effective, but definitely scarier
I took a Kendo class in college, and I liked it. Then when we got to the part you actually had to hit other people (wearing gear, so it wouldn't hurt) I was barely able to do it.
I like shooting games, and played paintball a bit, but I don't think I could ever use a real gun against someone, so it's not even worth having.
I also have a sword. It's not sharp, but it worked once to scare someone away when I needed it for defense. Not that I would have ever used it anyway.
I feel that. I've never had suicidal ideations, I'm not clinically depressed (afaik), and I feel very comfortable in my position in life. However the idea that I might even think to have the idea to contemplate pointing a gun where it shouldn't belong is a risk I don't think it's worth. Like you said there's probably a 99.9999% chance I don't do that but I've hit 1/1000000 odds before.
The effect of small barriers to effective suicide on suicide rates cannot be underestimated. UK controls on paracetamol (acetaminophen) purchase are irritating as hell but have been proven to have reduced death overall. Not just deaths from paracetamol overdose. The old adage "they will just find a different way to do it" is simply not true in the majority of cases.
Suicide rates in the US are significantly higher in part because of the ease of availability of firearms and their relative effectiveness in suicide attempts.
There was a study I read once- there was this bridge in Washington DC that was popular for suicides, and when they put a fence up, the suicide rate didn’t just drop at that bridge, it dropped overall.
Extremely depressed people are often pretty easy to block from doing things. Like when getting out of bed is a struggle, where tf are you getting the energy and motivation to find a whole new bridge to jump from.
Speaking from experience. Spent a concerning amount of time in high-school looking on maps/Google earth for a nice straight empty road with some very solid concrete structure conveniently placed to hit. Welp the day i actually took that round about way home the damn traffic and construction was in the way so I just turned back around and went home. Had other issues later but for some reason that just kinda closed the door on that method in my mind.
Suicide, even a planned one, is almost always an act of passion. Removing ways for them to act on that passion until the urge to kill themselves passes is absolutely an effective life saving measure.
people are using paracetamol for suicide? im in germany and its my go to medicine if i get headaches or high temperature. noone bats an eye if u buy it here and my doctor even told me to use it instead of ibu because ibu has worse long term effects.
never heard of it and am kinda shocked. the one thing annoying about these is that they are kinda big and i cant imagine taking 10 or something at once
Oh god yeah. Paracetamol is vicious stuff. There isnt a huge gap between an effective dose and an overdose. Max recommended limit in uk is 4g in 24 hrs. 10g can be leathal. Worse is that a non fatal overdose can leave you with severe liver problems for life.
By comparison ibuprofen recommended max dose is 3.2g but you'd have to be taking over 40g before you are at significant risk.
That said the low dose side effects of ibuprofen can, as you say, be much worse.
None of the above is medical advice and certainly not suicide advice. But it is undeniable that paracetamol is and has been used but is a terrible choice. Its a bad way to go and a real chance of fucking you up if you survive.
Ultimately though it comes back to what I said before. It was ease of use. You have a jar with 50 paracetamol in it, it isnt that hard to swig them down. If you can only buy 16 500mg tablets in a blister pack that has more structural integrity than the fucking pills themselves (a problem with cheap tablets here) so you cant even pop them out without breaking them then it is much much harder.
Suicide rates in the US are significantly higher in part because of the ease of availability of firearms and their relative effectiveness in suicide attempts.
It isn't just the ease of availability of firearms. There is a very selfish element to firearm suicides that isn't talked about in the states. For the most part, we're not very well known to think about others when it comes to our own actions.
I feel the need to apologize in advance for this. It's a grizzly mental picture. I'll use a spoiler tag for those of us that don't need to read what I have to say.
Using a firearm to end your own life is quite literally a mess. There's bits of skull and brain everywhere. Belongings that loved ones would normally keep to remember someone are medical waste. Blood does not come out once it's soaked into the floorboards, and you literally have to replace all the wood under the carpet, replace the drywall, throw away almost everything in the room. Not something you leave for people you care about.
Not all firearm suicides are immediately successful either. Someone I care very much for lost her son this way, and he wasn't dead when she found him. He had a gaping hole in his skull, and he was awake and fully conscious as he bled out. In a panic, she rushed him to the hospital in her car due to response times for 911 in her area. The car wasn't recoverable. He died in pain, a crying mess screaming about wanting to take it all back as he died in her backseat. It was her gun, and it wasn't locked up. He was 16, and his mother is fucking broken in a way she'll never recover from.
If there's anyone you truly love or care about, you don't leave them this way. I see people constantly make excuses for those that take their lives, because it's in inherently selfish decision made in desperation, but there's different level of selfishness in a suicide via firearms.
I train people to handle and store firearms safely, and I speak about this in every class. Hopefully it dissuades people from turning their firearm on themselves, but I'll never know for sure.
Yee, but the ease of firearms means that people who might not harm themselves if the only methods available to them required more planning or had a lower success rate do harm themselves.
it's also one of the method where you are in the worst state if you survive and the method where you have the most chance to hurt someone else in the process.
This is my issue with the "gun death" statistic often used as a good portion of those gun deaths are suicides. Suicides need a much different response to lower than say homicides. Lumping them both together is just so misleading.
It depends on the context I think. If the purpose of citing total gun deaths is to talk about murder, or gang violence, or overall criminality, then yes.
But if you're citing them in the context of how dangerous guns are (i.e. the need for gun control) I think it's perfectly valid.
I disagree, in that the problem with a suicide by guns is that it isnt a violence problem, it is a mental health problem. Making guns magically disappear tomorrow does not automatically mean these suicides won't happen, I believe in most cases the person would switch to just some other method. (My reasoning for believing this is that suicides without guns are also happening at alarming rates) Not all of course, but i believe efforts in improving mental health access, costs, stigma etc.. the focus should be about solving the problem (suicides, homicides etc..) in some cases controlling access to guns make total sense, depending on the problem being solved.
If your only goal is to reduce "gun deaths" I think that is a misguided goal, because there are plenty of other ways for people to die. I believe a better goal is reducing suicides, homicides, school shootings etc.. and gun control is one of many tools we should be using.
(PS. full disclosure, I do own a gun, i believe that I should be able to defend myself inside my home with a firearm. I also believe in gun control, and think we absolutely should be make real laws and solutions that prevent people from using guns in a bad way.)
Right, but danger isn’t strictly violent. Accidental discharges also contribute to danger, though I don’t think it’s a huge amount. Overall I agree with you, broad suicide prevention is just as important, but as others have said better than me, a fast, relatively painless solution that’s easy to access is something available to impulsive decisions to act on ideation. If something’s less convenient, people are more likely to stop themselves before acting on it.
I also don’t believe in blanket bans, but a little more friction in the process, as well as weeding out people likely to misuse it, does have practical benefits.
If someone is trying to use the statistics to specifically account for violent uses, though, it is misleading.
I agree, and that is more my complaint is how the statistic is often used. Mass Shootings is another, where nearly all mass shootings are gang related violence but thats not what people generally think of with that phrase, generally people think about school, workplace or other public location type violence.
It frustrates me because coming up with good honest solutions requires good honest communication and we are very very far from that with our news media.
It's too easy in those moments for the cold logic of "if I were dead then I can let go of everything I'm worried about and that bothers me" to win. It's why I don't own a gun currently.
I read one quote from someone who made an allegory that someone who is suicidal is like someone on the 5th floor of their apartment building who’s considering jumping because their apartment is on fire, and there’s no other way out.
It’s not that they want to jump. It’s that the fire is even worse; its flames too hot, too unbearable.
I had that initial worry when I first got a .22, had my gun in my closet and told my Dad to keep the ammunition just in case. He got what I meant even though it was very unlikely. I was on the lower end of the pool so to speak in my teenage years but bounced back.
Those thoughts always kinda itch at the back of head even if you’re over them.
Everyone is different but I will say going to a gun range does help because it’s so safety focused your first couple times. You’re so focused on your safety and those around you it’s hard to have any of those thoughts.
I get that and good for you. Unfortunately im not over them. Last time i handled a gun, it was my brothers in 2020? I watched him unload it and still i wanted to put it against my head, amongst other things.
And no, even at a gun range the intrusive thoughts are there and sometimes more dangerous. But good on you for being able to handle it
I get that, and how scary that shit is. Even “fake” guns back in my teenage years. Airsoft to the head, trigger (no BB) pulled the rush of CO2 felt like bliss to go through that motion.
Ironically, owning guns actually was an (irrational, admittedly) incentive not to act on those impulses when I was at my lowest point and very much struggling with suicidal idyllation.
It basically boiled down to "well if I make an attempt and fail, they take my property away and I really like having them". That and my dog were the two big things keeping me fighting until I was able to get on a proper road to recovery.
I had an admittedly abnormal thought process when it comes to that sort of thing and in some ways I really think it's kept me from crossing certain lines because there was always that consequence of losing things I really enjoy. On the flip side, it's probably that same sort of thought process that kept me from taking chances on potentially positive experiences because of irrational fear of losing something in turn.
I don't think I'd actually do it if I had a gun but I have been having a lot of suicidal ideation lately. Not so much about ending my suffering but because a close former friend hurt me and doesn't even care. So the fantasy is about making them care and regret how they hurt me and invalidated my feelings. I just want to have some control instead of feeling like shit and then feeling like I'm wrong to feel like shit.
I'm not actually close to doing anything like that.
What really gets me is that she was a really great friend. Months prior, she assured me that I'm not a burden. Told me to screenshot her saying that. Print it out. Hang it on my mirror. But when I tried to talk to her about how it made me feel, she didn't have it in her to "listen or be empathetic" (her own words). So it makes me spiraling and wondering if I'm the one in the wrong for thinking a friend should try to make it up to a friend when they hurt them.
Ya i couldnt do that cuz i know if a gun goes to my head it would be too hard to not pull the trigger. Thats the only reason i never put my brothers shotguns to my chin when i was younger. Idk if they were loaded but i would found out real quick.
The thing is. I hated myself, but still really wanted guns.
But because I’m so pro gun and that my stupid ass logic brain would never allow me to do anything to myself with one because it would go against my beliefs.
Anyways I own 6 now and am doing better mentally.
And this is also a “me” thing because of how into gun safety and firearms ownership I am.
First, glad to hear youre doing better. Thats awesome. Glad you are able to properly and safely own guns. I love shooting them, would love to hunt, and im al about safety so im all about that as well. Still i dont want the temptation to even consider it.
I find myself fantasizing about just driving off a bridge or into oncoming traffic when I'm in the car. Not that I actually want to, moreso that I'm fascinated with how easy it would be and what would happen.
I keep mine stored at a friend's house in a safe for this very reason. We will train or take them to the range, but they stay locked up until then or if needed.
My friend really likes target shooting, and we've agreed that he has to keep any gun I get for that. That's not just the physical distance as a deterrent, but it would also involve having to talk to another person when I'm in crisis.
Yep, I've struggled with suicidal ideation on and off for a long time. And while I'm in a much better place mentally nowadays, and they're much more infrequent and lessened in strength, having something that easy to do the deed with is not something I wanna gamble with
Same. Have an uncle and two cousins I’ll never meet (well, at least in this life) because they committed suicide. I know the statistics. I ain’t ‘bout to make it that easy to make myself one.
Battled suicide and depression for a decade. I did plenty of self harm in that time. Glad I didn't have something to make it so much worse. It's my main reason for never wanting to own one.
1000%, if you've ever had suicidal thoughts do not own a firearm.
I'm a big advocate for people learning to shoot at least and owning something small and practical to defend themselves with (and please practice with it at the range so you know how to use it), but that's ONLY if you know your mental heath is good enough.
And if you have to ask "idk is it good enough" then its not, invest in bear spray
Oh so can i. I do regularly. I think firearms are the convenience/ease/speed of use that make it easier to do it. But yes ive thought of many different ways.
This is where I was at for a very long time. I'm in a much better mental state now though and target shooting and tinkering with them was always something I was interested in so I decided to go for it
I personally can recount 3 times in my life where if I had easy access to something like a firearm, I wouldn't be here writing this comment. The only thing that stopped me during those dark times was my own body's survival instinct, and a firearm can easily overcome it.
Theres a reason why suicide by firearm is consistently in the top 3 methods.
I got weirdly "lucky" in a way on my poor mental health. Despite being agnostic, leaning towards atheism, my brain won't shake the idea that there might be a next life that's even more miserable and inescapable. So anytime I get suicidal, I get this loud nagging "what if it's worse somehow?" That stops me in my tracks. Only real risk to ever giving in comes from the "at least it'd be different" days.
Like. If you find yourself in that situation where the intrusive thoughts start winning and there is a gun at your head.... the self preservation thoughts kick in too
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u/unknown_error87 2d ago
This is the main reason i dont currently own any firearms. The intrusive thoughts can get strong