[A] person bent on suicide will find a way.
Many studies show that when guns are not available people bent on suicide find some other way.
In the interest of our side being the one that is accurate and honest we must concede that for all the same reasons that firearms are our tools of choice for self-defense, they are particularly potent for suicide. The biggest problems firearms pose for suicide are:
1-The effect is pretty much instant. A hole is made somewhere. Other than a gutshot or flesh wound where bleeding out is the only risk of death, there is effectively zero time between pulling the trigger and whatever the bad effect is going to be. No time to pump a stomach, or give antidotes. No chance to find someone 10 minutes after they pass out and drag them out to fresh air.
2-It is easy and doesn't take much creativity. No need to acquire pills, or figure out how to tie a rope. Part of this, I think, is a perception that a properly placed gunshot is likely to be very quick and very near painless.
Bearing this in mind, we look at data such as from
this 2008 report in the New England Journal of Medicine shortly after the Heller decision. Admittedly, the anti-gun bias is beyond overt. But unless the data is blatantly in error, it does highlight why suicide by firearm presents special problems for preventing suicide and giving folks a second chance.
NEJM said:
In 2005, the most recent year for which mortality data are available, suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Americans 40 years of age or younger. Among Americans of all ages, more than half of all [SUCCESSFUL] suicides are gun suicides.
...
Why might the availability of firearms increase the risk of suicide in the United States? First, many suicidal acts — one third to four fifths of all suicide attempts, according to studies — are impulsive. Among people who made near-lethal suicide attempts, for example, 24% took less than 5 minutes between the decision to kill themselves and the actual attempt, and 70% took less than 1 hour.2
Second, many suicidal crises are self-limiting. Such crises are often caused by an immediate stressor, such as the breakup of a romantic relationship, the loss of a job, or a run-in with police. As the acute phase of the crisis passes, so does the urge to attempt suicide. The temporary nature and fleeting sway of many suicidal crises is evident in the fact that more than 90% of people who survive a suicide attempt, including attempts that were expected to be lethal (such as shooting oneself in the head or jumping in front of a train), do not go on to die by suicide. Indeed, recognizing the self-limiting nature of suicidal crises, penal and psychiatric institutions restrict access to lethal means for persons identified as potentially suicidal.
Third, guns are common in the United States (more than one third of U.S. households contain a firearm) and are lethal. A suicide attempt with a firearm rarely affords a second chance. Attempts involving drugs or cutting, which account for more than 90% of all suicidal acts, prove fatal far less often.
[emphasis added as was the word "successful" in the first paragraph]
The bolded portions highlight the reality of the effectiveness of guns. More than 90% of suicide attempts involve drugs or cutting (meaning well fewer than half of all suicide attempts involve firearms), but over half all successful suicides used a firearm. Guns are uniquely effective. The odds of getting a second chance are much lower when using a gun than when not.
This to me begs the question of whether those who are truly committed are more likely to use a gun while those who are hoping to be stopped pick a less effective method. But taken at face value, guns do post a unique risk for suicidal individuals.
The lock them up and away is just another ploy by the anti's.
This is always going to be at play. And so we must resist it.
At the same time, in those cases where a person is known or believed to be suicidal or at risk of being suicidal, it is prudent for parents/guardians or friends and family to do what they reasonably and legally can to limit access to firearms. This is far different than imposing or accepting a general, legally enforced requirement to lock up all guns.
Charles