Guns and suicide

I would guess that a lot of the suicides by guns were impulsive. People got overwhelmed with life and just grabbed their gun and ended it.

A gunshot to the head would be instant and painless, other than maybe during that split second when the bullet hits your head. You're also pretty much guaranteed to die, unless you're a really bad shot.

If you want to jump off a bridge, you need to think about it for a while -- even if just on the drive or walk to the bridge. Plus, if you jump off a bridge, it's not instant. You'll be thinking about it while you're falling, which would be extremely unpleasant and knowing that could be another deterrent.
 

The older I get the more I don't like guns. I don't believe that if everyone had a weapon the world would be rosy and we'd all sing in the sunshine. People use guns to kill themselves, because they are effective. Guns kill people. If you don't believe guns kill, stand in front of a loaded one, put it up to your forehead, and pull the trigger. Gee, you're not rushing out to disprove me? Slogans not withstanding, the fact is guns are lethal weapons. I don't believe they should be part of everyday life.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
The older I get the more I don't like guns. I don't believe that if everyone had a weapon the world would be rosy and we'd all sing in the sunshine. People use guns to kill themselves, because they are effective. Guns kill people. If you don't believe guns kill, stand in front of a loaded one, put it up to your forehead, and pull the trigger. Gee, you're not rushing out to disprove me? Slogans not withstanding, the fact is guns are lethal weapons. I don't believe they should be part of everyday life.
Click to expand...
Then don't own one.
 

win231 said:
There isn't much difference between standing over a bridge, considering suicide & owning a gun & considering suicide.
The issue is what got him there & finding him some help; not the method used.
Murder and suicide are matters of will, not the availability of weapons or balconies or bridges.
The method used becomes a scapegoat to non thinkers who would rather blame an inanimate object that has no will of its own.
We saw a similar scapegoat when Carroll O'Connor's son committed suicide with a firearm. Mr. O'Connor blamed his son's drug dealer because it was easier than blaming his drug-addicted son. I've never heard of any drug dealer forcing anyone to buy drugs.

Would you blame a bridge, a car, a cliff, or a tall building or drugs if someone uses one of those methods?

Nothing whatsoever to do with the 2nd amendment.

And if I'm in a position so desperate as to consider suicide, I'd be glad there was a method so fast & reliable.
Click to expand...
I think Hell just froze over, I agree with Win!
 
rgp said:
Like fmdog44, I too knew a man that took his own life with a gun, for the same exact reasons.

First thing I heard many say ....... How could he be so selfish ? He didn't think about his family, etc.......Talk about selfish thinking. The man was given a death sentence , that included prolonged suffering . So he made it easy ? on himself............If putting a gun inside your mouth and pulling the trigger can be considered easy?
Click to expand...
My friend worked for a funeral parlor. Gun suicides are awfully messy.. He hated having to go and pick up the bodies. And it's expected that the survivors clean it up.
 
Sunny:
Dorthy's ' was hell bent to kill herself, never quite made it.
She died of natural causes in her late 60's, early 70'
(Betch'a you knew that.)

Some conquer their demons, some don't.
Her poem 'On Suicide' is ample warning that this lady was suicidal,
 
There were 19,392 firearm-related suicides in the U.S. in 2010. In 2017, over half of the nation's 47,173 suicides involved a firearm. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that about 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide.

Gun violence in the United States - Wikipedia

With that said...
there are many ways to commit suicide, it doesn't have to be a gun...
my mother tried twice... once at the age of 13 (rat poison) and once at the age of 36 (knife). The psychiatrist she was seeing after the second time killed himself. She told me much later in life if he couldn't take it then how was she supposed to go forward. She lived until 79, chain smoker, alcoholic and finally lung cancer took her.

Mental health... learning how to move through a personal crisis... learning how to talk about feelings.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.
Learn more

800-273-8255
 
Camper6 said:
My friend worked for a funeral parlor. Gun suicides are awfully messy.. He hated having to go and pick up the bodies. And it's expected that the survivors clean it up.
Click to expand...
Drug suicides are also messy - and unreliable.
The first thing that happens when someone takes an overdose of drugs is their immune system tries to fix it & protect the person by inducing vomiting. That's what happens to people when they drink too much. And that's why execution by lethal injection doesn't just involve one drug; it involves 3 drugs. The first two drugs cause unconsciousness & paralysis. Without them, the third drug that stops the heart might not work.
By the way, if your friend is that bothered by death scenes, he should probably consider a different field.
 
win231 said:
Drug suicides are also messy - and unreliable.
The first thing that happens when someone takes an overdose of drugs is their immune system tries to fix it & protect the person by inducing vomiting. That's what happens to people when they drink too much. And that's why execution by lethal injection doesn't just involve one drug; it involves 3 drugs. The first two drugs cause unconsciousness & paralysis. Without them, the third drug that stops the heart might not work.
By the way, if your friend is that bothered by death scenes, he should probably consider a different field.
Click to expand...
Well now I'm going to be brutal since you don't seem to mind.

One of the deaths by suicide that he attended, and who he knew, he told me the guys eye was on the ceiling. I don't know how conditioned you have to get to just be blase about it.

I'll opt for the vomit any day.
 
Camper6 said:
Well now I'm going to be brutal since you don't seem to mind.

One of the deaths by suicide that he attended, and who he knew, he told me the guys eye was on the ceiling. I don't know how conditioned you have to get to just be blase about it.

I'll opt for the vomit any day.
Click to expand...
Well, yeah. If someone chooses a shotgun, that can blast eyes and other chunks off. And, they're sticky.....:)
 
I'm try hard to ignore the latest disgusting comment from @win231
only because I have something important to say.

Many people have lost the gist of this thread...
In many instances of gun violence, there were clear warning signs that the shooter posed a serious threat before the shooting. Extreme Risk laws give key members of the community a way to intervene before warning signs escalate into tragedies. These laws permit immediate family members and law enforcement to petition a court for an order, often known as an extreme risk protection order (ERPO),1 to temporarily remove guns from dangerous situations. Following due process in court, if it is found that a person poses a serious risk of injuring themselves or others with a firearm, that person is temporarily prohibited from purchasing and possessing guns; guns they already own are held by law enforcement or another authorized party while the order is in effect.

I wish that was the law in 1975 when my older "hero" brother shot himself through the heart. Unless you have walked in my shoes, you simply don't know what you are talking about. We all knew he shouldn't have that gun available but we could do nothing about it. Would he have done it another way? Maybe, maybe not, but at least we could have done something.
He left a wife, 4 little kids, our dear mother, and me, the kid sister. I know now that he was "emotionally terminal" but the pain of losing someone we loved so much, lingers all these years later. It's the worst thing I've ever lived through, and that's the answer I would have given on another thread where the question was asked. Please listen to the message people, as the life of someone you love may depend on it.
 
Last edited:
I have never understood the current interpretation of the Second Amendment. To me (a conservative, libertarian, small government type) it clearly refers to people who belong to "well regulated militias."

I don't care at one level since I don't have any interest in guns and wouldn't own one under any circumstances I could anticipate. At another level, it seems grossly uncivilized to have so many people blazing away at each other, legally and illegally.

Hope that's not "political," just expressing how I feel.
 
win231 said:
Then don't own one.
Click to expand...
I don't own a gun. Hubby doesn't have one. None of the kids, grandkids or our siblings have any guns. Ditto the neighbours that we know have any guns. In fact I don't know a single person who owns a gun although decades ago some of the neighbours had guns to go 'roo shooting once in a while. 'roo shooting is not hunting. It is a night time massacre of animals staring at the spotlight.

For those who are saving up their pills. Hubby went through a decade of anxiety and depression in his middle years. He decided we would all be better off without him and decided to overdose on his antidepressant meds. He read somewhere that if you take them all at once you will probably just vomit them back up so he took them a few at a time over an hour.

I noticed him missing and went into the bedroom where I found him in an unnatural sleep, with the open pill containers beside the bed. I rang for an ambulance and they got him to his feet and took him to the local hospital. He didn't die but for the rest of the day he was high as a kite and actually quite funny. When I realised that he was out of danger I wanted to kill him myself because I had been so frightened. He was very fortunate not to have been admitted to the locked psych ward.

His attempt had serious impact on our daughter and she was emotionally scarred for quite some time. Our son later became suicidal when his marriage was breaking up and he was drinking excessively. He was saved by a work colleague. If he had owned a gun I might not have my son today.

One more anecdote (realising that anecdotes prove nothing of a general nature) involves one of my cousins who was a farm manager. He was born with crippled feet and as a baby and child endured years of operations and plaster casts to allow him to walk normally and he was a very strong man, in every sense of the word. Like many of our generation, he was a lifetime smoker and in his late 50s was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread to his brain. As a farmer, he naturally owned a rifle but he asked that the rifle be removed from the house to ensure that he would not blow his brains out when things got very tough. I guess he wanted to spare his family the added trauma this choice would bring. Inevitably he died some months later and my sister and I flew down to be present at his funeral service. We were amazed to see how much he was held in high regard in that town. His funeral cortege was led down the main street with a police motor cycle escort. I hope to die with as much courage as my cousin, facing whatever comes without traumatising anyone else.

I would like the very best palliative care though and I am confident that my daughter, the nurse, will see that I get it.
 
Last edited:
I have seen people who have committed suicide. A few were by guns, which is very messy and it also causes the family member a great amount of emotional harm for years to come, if they were the person who found their relative.

I also investigated a 14 y/o girl who hung herself because she was bullied at school and a 15 y/o boy who put the gun in his mouth because he was also bullied. I also had a high school friend that put a shotgun in his mouth because his parents (mainly his dad) wouldn't let him skip school and go to the fair with the rest of us and our little gang.

In both cases, the moms and dads divorced later. In the girl's death, Mom was admitted to a psych ward for a few months before she was released and is now doing well. The parents of the young man divorced and both have remarried. My friend's parents were together until their deaths.

I always wondered why divorces happen more than it doesn't.

But, having a gun around the home and a suicide by using that gun is no reason to take guns away. If it wouldn't have been the gun, there were many other ways if he had really wanted to "off" himself.
 
911 said:
I have seen people who have committed suicide. A few were by guns, which is very messy and it also causes the family member a great amount of emotional harm for years to come, if they were the person who found their relative.

I also investigated a 14 y/o girl who hung herself because she was bullied at school and a 15 y/o boy who put the gun in his mouth because he was also bullied. I also had a high school friend that put a shotgun in his mouth because his parents (mainly his dad) wouldn't let him skip school and go to the fair with the rest of us and our little gang.

In both cases, the moms and dads divorced later. In the girl's death, Mom was admitted to a psych ward for a few months before she was released and is now doing well. The parents of the young man divorced and both have remarried. My friend's parents were together until their deaths.

I always wondered why divorces happen more than it doesn't.

But, having a gun around the home and a suicide by using that gun is no reason to take guns away. If it wouldn't have been the gun, there were many other ways if he had really wanted to "off" himself.
Click to expand...

I hope you are retired now and if you are that you can sleep better at night...

My daughter works at a funeral home/body removal/cremation business and has experienced all aspects concerning death and families. I've heard her stories and it took her awhile to sleep through the night. It took me awhile to understand her desire to be of help.
 
hiraeth2018 said:
I hope you are retired now and if you are that you can sleep better at night...

My daughter works at a funeral home/body removal/cremation business and has experienced all aspects concerning death and families. I've heard her stories and it took her awhile to sleep through the night. It took me awhile to understand her desire to be of help.
Click to expand...
My worst experience with a suicide was when I was called to a home in an upscale area just outside of Philadelphia. A 14 y/o girl hung her self in her room using a thin belt. I had to have the mother physically removed. She was a complete mess, so I had another Trooper strap her in a gurney and the ambulance took her to the hospital.

The girl was a total bluish-purple in her neck and her face. It appeared that she must have tried pills first, maybe aspirins, because there was vomit on the floor. Later, I went down to the hospital to speak with the mother, but she was in no condition to talk about what had happened.

When we spoke to the older brother, he told us that his sister was being bullied at school because of her weight. We spoke to the school administrators and they were adamant that they weren’t aware of anything going on with her. We went back to the school months later and spoke to the entire middle school about bullying.
 
I have often thought that if the "suicidee" had thought about the aftermath that he was leaving behind for other people, that he might consider a different mode.
There was a book published on this subject back in the 90s that sold many copies.
 


Back
Top