Suicide Prevention in Tennessee Gun Shops

Local news

The Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network is targeting gun shops as part of its public awareness campaign to try to prevent deaths.

An example is a poster on display in a Memphis gun store noting that suicides in Tennessee far outnumber homicides, and firearms are the leading method, The Commercial Appeal (http://bit.ly/1RrFVxk) reported. The sign lists a crisis hotline.

Will Bass, the gun shop's general manager, said it's good to have anti-suicide messages posted in the shop, just in case a customer is thinking about ending his or her own life. "To hopefully get them thinking 'Maybe this isn't the best option,'" Bass said.

Each year, hundreds of people in Tennessee use guns to kill themselves. Existing laws won't necessarily stop people with mental illnesses or suicidal intent from buying weapons, but the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network's Gun Safety Project is trying to prevent deaths through the public awareness campaign that targets gun stores and gun ranges. The network is a public-private partnership associated with the state government.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/news/article20624568.html#storylink=cpy

10 Things I Wish People Understood About Suicide

Vox

6) Physical barriers to suicide have been shown to work and so can conceptual ones

Studies show that when we put up a barrier fence on a bridge famous for suicides, the people who go there to jump do not go to another bridge. Bridge barriers lower the real, overall suicide rate. That is why we are finally putting up a barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge — as a chorus of experts in various fields explained, suicide barriers save lives. The act is so impulsive that most of the time people do not seem to plan ahead enough to find a backup bridge and make sure it is climbable and high enough to do the job.

In the 1990s the United Kingdom was seeing a lot of suicide by acetaminophen overdose, so they legislated that the drug had to be sold in smaller quantities. Deaths by acetaminophen overdose fell significantly. The number of overdoses stayed constant, but far fewer were fatal. People survived because the act is so impulsive that they only ingest what is in the house, so smaller bottles save lives.

In the US over half the gun deaths are suicides and over half the suicides involve guns. Having immediate means is bad. If you are looking after yourself, see that it would at least take you a few hours and a bit of effort and human interaction. I have heard from several men and women who store their guns in someone else's home for this reason.

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said suicide is always a rushing of one's defenses, and added that there is nothing worse than rushing your defenses. Wittgenstein felt suicidal off-and-on his whole life and three of his four brothers committed suicide, but he had worked out reasons suicide was wrong and he didn't do it. As a rule, we cannot usefully tell ourselves not to be depressed, but it seems that we can usefully tell ourselves not to commit suicide.

Texas Gun Expert Accidentally Kills Himself at the Range

Gary Dooley

Local news  reports

Smith County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call about 4:45 p.m. Saturday, from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office stating that they had received a 911 call regarding a man accidentally shooting himself at 31 West Shooting Range at 16934 Texas Highway 31 west.

The man, identified as Dooley by Tankersley, died at the scene. 

Sheriff officials said the shooting death remains under investigation early this morning. 

“He has a lot of guns and just loved shooting. He was certainly not a novice and knew his way around guns,” he said. “He would go out to the range all the time and just shoot.”

Quote of the Day

Nothing like letting the NRA babble:

Some would suggest that the rate of suicide may indeed be higher among firearm owners than non-owners. Gun owners are notably self-reliant and exhibit a willingness to take definitive action when they believe it to be in their own self-interest. Such action may include ending their own life when the time is deemed appropriate.

Source, which has again been mirrored.

Also, the idea to treat suicide as a matter of self-reliance is hilarious considering how much the right fights against things such as euthanasia and abortion.

Tick, Tock, Glock

One of the problems with the gun violence debate is that it tries to be scientific in how it presents the issue.  That works well if you just want to go by numbers.  But numbers don't always get the point across.

The "pro-gun" side has used emotion (fear) to get its point across for ages.

The blog "Thoughts at Large" came up with a really great post, Tick, Tock, Gloc, which poins out how the numbers play out:

According to the Brady Campaign, on average, for the five most recently available years for which statistics are available, every day in America there are:

291 people in America are shot (including 52 children (ages 0-19)

87 people die from gun violence:

32 are murdered (including 6 children)

51 kill themselves (including 2 children)

2 die unintentionally

1 is killed by police intervention

1, intent unknown

205 are shot and survive:

148 shot in an assault (including 34 children)

10 survive a suicide attempt (including 1 child)

45 are shot unintentionally (including 9 children)

2 are shot in a police intervention

 If we take these numbers and divide them equally over the course of a day, this is an average day in America.

The rest of the blog does a good job of how this plays out in reality.

Now repeat this, every day, until enough of us demand a better society.

Golden Gate Bridge Hits Record 46 Suicides in 2013

From the Trenches

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge has seen a record-breaking level of ‘jumpers’ in 2013, with 46 people ending their life, according to a watchdog group. This is 1.5 times higher than a year before.

The Bridge Rail Foundation urged the authorities to install a safety net to prevent further escalation of the suicide rate at the 1,280-meter bridge, which towers more than 65 meters over the entrance to San Francisco Bay.  

“I know it won’t be built soon, and that’s the most frustrating thing about this,” Dayna Whitmer, board member with the organization, told Reuters.

“We hate to see any more 17-year-olds jump or 86-year-olds jump, it’s just not right,” she added.

The authorities have been planning to set up a special safety net to catch people who jump. However, $66 million are needed to build the construction. Three years ago, a company was given $5 million to design the safety net.

The previous record of suicides is believed to have been 40 or 41 fatalities in one year, Whitmer said.

Currie also said that police officers or others stopped another 118 people from jumping to their deaths. To stop the people from ending their lives, there are bicycle patrols, plus two to four officers on the bridge’s sidewalks, according to California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Andrew Barclay, as cited by Reuters.

In 2012, the number of suicides stood at 33.

Michigan Gun Range Suicide with Rented Gun

Local news reports

Investigators said Wednesday a gun range videotape captured a woman's suicide after she apparently texted someone on her cellphone.

A 28-year-old Waterford Township woman, who has not been identified, shot herself once in the head with a nine millimeter handgun she had rented at the Accurate Gun Range in the 6500 block of Dixie Highway, according to a preliminary report from the Oakland County Sheriff's Office.

The woman had gone to the range about noon on Tuesday, rented the gun and fired off three boxes of ammunition on the practice range, deputies said. She was found lying on the floor by an employee and a range surveillance video reviewed by investigators showed she had been using her cellphone, apparently texting someone, when she set the phone down and put the handgun to her head and pulled the trigger.

The Death of a Gun Control Blogger (satire)

Associated Press reports:

MikeB, well known gun control blogger committed suicide today. His blog, Mikeb302000 has received millions of page-views and is known for being one of the few gun control blogs that accepts comments. He posted a picture of himself on Facebook moments before taking his life. The following suicide note was attached.

I want to apologize to all my supporters, friends, family and everyone in the gun control movement. Our collective failure to achieve even the slightest headway was no problem for me.  Nor was the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive background checks, the recall of heroic State Senators in Colorado, the ridiculous gun bans in Maryland which allowed the gun nuts to stock up before taking effect, the blind concealed carry permit holders in Iowa, none of it really got me down. Even the most recent massacre in the Washington Navy Yard didn’t phase me.

But when I donned The Truth About Guns hat I knew what I had to do. What came crashing into my consciousness was the incredible abuse with which I was treated when I used to post comments there. Some of those comments generated a hundred responses, the major part of which were personal attacks against me. And why? That’s the question that kept me up night after night. In the end I had to stay away, my physical health demanded it. 

Those terrible months came back to me in a way that was both overwhelming and hopeful, in a dark way. I finally had a way out.

I know many of you among the Armed Intelligentsia, when reading this, will want to blame yourselves. Please don’t. It’s not your fault. Thanks to you I feel I’m going to a better place now.

MikeB, whose real name is Michael Bonomo, is survived by three siblings, a wife and two ex-wives, 13 children and 7 grandchildren. He was 60 years old at the time of his death.

91-Year-Old Oregon Man Shoots Himself in a Gun Shop

Local news reports

An employee at the Roseburg Gun Shop reported asingle shot was fired inside the store just after 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The employee told police that a customer, later identified as Charles Hanson, 91 of Roseburg, had come in and asked to look at a handgun. The clerk handed Hanson an unloaded firearm.

The employee turned away for a moment and reported hearing the gunshot. He ran from the building and called police.

Officers set up a perimeter around the Diamond Lake Boulevard business and evacuated employees from nearby stores.

Hanson came out of the store at around 8:17 a.m., covered in blood. Police detained him, and he was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Officials reported that Hanson died from his injury at the Riverbend Medical Center in Springfield late Thursday afternoon.

The incident is under investigation, but police said Hanson appeared to have a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The story doesn't really add up, does it?

What do you think^

Self-Policing

What does it look like?

The woman at the counter of Keith's Sporting Goods wanted a handgun. She wasn't interested in price, quality or how to use it safely. She spoke slowly that day in June as she made one request: Would the clerk load it?

Maria Ward doesn't judge her customers. Americans have a right to buy firearms, after all. But this woman seemed traumatized. Ward worried she planned to hurt someone.

"I'm sorry," Ward told her. "I'm not going to sell you a firearm."

Ward, who owns the Gresham gun store with her husband, then did something she'd never done before. She warned the Oregon State Police not to allow anyone else to sell Brenda Nyhof Dunn a gun. But the agency, which performs background checks for most gun sales in Oregon, told Ward there was nothing it could do under the law.

The next day, Nyhof Dunn drove to Dick's Sporting Goods in Gresham. She bought a rifle and ammunition, according to the police report, which included a receipt from the transaction. She paid $10 to have the Oregon State Police perform a background check, which she easily passed. Hours later, she fatally shot herself. She was 36.

Sure , she could have used another method to kill herself--she tried hanging, but using a gun is a far more effective way to kill (after all, these are tools for killing or causing serious bodily injury). Few people who try suicide by gun survive -- 15 percent, according to a national study of 2001 data, compared with 98 to 99 percent of Americans who chose pills or cut themselves.

"Firearms are intrinsically lethal," said Catherine Barber, director of the Harvard School of Public Health's Means Matter, a public education program on firearms and suicide. "They are fast. They don't allow a change of mind or the possibility of rescue." 

The Oregon State Police approves, delays or denies gun purchases after a check of statewide and federal databases to see, among other things, if a buyer has outstanding warrants, felony convictions or involuntary commitments for mental illness.

Ward, the gunshop owner, said in an interview that she went as far as warning the state not to perform a background check on Nyhof Dunn if she turned up at another dealer.

"You should not sell her anything," Ward recalled telling a state police employee.

Mathew Oeder,  who oversees the state police Firearms Instant Check System could not provide The Oregonian with specifics about Nyhof Dunn's case. However, Oeder said the agency cannot delay or deny a person's firearm purchase based on the observation of a firearms dealer.

However, suicide victims are far more likely to use a gun already in the home. On the other hand, a small percentage buy one in the days or hours before their death. A study of suicides by firearm from 2007 through 2009 in New Hampshire found 8 percent of victims purchased a gun within a week of their death, most within hours of the act.



Armed with the data, public health experts took their message to New Hampshire gun store owners, asking them to make suicide hotline information available in their stores and teaching them to spot the signs of someone who might be suicidal.

Of course, it's all up to the gun store owner if they want to make a buck, or save a life.

Gun Availability Means Murders for Blacks and Suicides for Whites

The Washington Post

Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

Where a person lives matters, too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is far and away the dominant form of gun death in rural areas. States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates; states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.

Now that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Where there are more guns there are more suicides. Please note they did not say "more gun suicides," they mentioned the suicide rate.

The gun-rights fanatics love to sarcastically say our point is that guns CAUSE people to commit suicide. Of course that's not true.  We understand as well as they do that inanimate objects don't have such power.  But what we understand that they refuse to admit is that suicide attempts with guns are more likely to be successful, therefore where guns are available more suicides take place.

It's really pretty simple.  What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Rural Gun Culture and Youth Suicide

 The Atlantic reports

Rural Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to commit suicide. And while youth suicides have declined across the country in recent years, suicide rates in sparsely populated areas have remained steady. While it is hard to pinpoint the reasons for this disparity -- access to mental health treatments is a major contributor -- one reason may be tied to gun culture. 

According to a recently published survey of Midwestern mental health clinicians, one of the challenges rural therapists face is telling parents of troubled youths to lock up their guns. The Midwestern counselors in the survey "agreed that nearly everyone owned and used guns," and said that in a lot of their clients' homes, guns were so commonplace that they became "part of the furniture."

 

ABSTRACT

Engaging caregivers is an essential component of service for at-risk youth. Engagement has been described as specific behaviours (e.g. treatment participation) and attitudes (e.g. therapeutic alliance). Although best practices for working with suicidal youth includes involving parents in the assessment and crisis plan, there has been almost no research on the process that clinicians in outpatient settings use to engage parents of youth who exhibit risk for suicide. The purpose of this study was to document how clinicians in outpatient mental-health settings engaged parents following a youth suicide assessment. Twenty-four clinicians from the rural Midwestern USA took part in two focus groups to discuss typical interactions with parents following a suicide assessment. Analyses suggested that clinicians' engagement with parents included five major elements: (i) presenting difficult information; (ii) responding to parents' reactions; (iii) joining with parents; (iv) moving the parents towards concrete actions; and (v) addressing rural gun culture. The results are discussed within the context of Staudt's conceptual framework of engagement with caregivers of at-risk children. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Good luck with that, addressing rural gun culture. Convincing gun owners that gun availability is one of the factors in gun violence, including suicide, is a tall order even when addressing intelligent and educated people. "Rural" is used as a politically correct euphemism for the opposite of intelligent and educated.  Convincing them is next to impossible.

Although improvement seems unlikely,  the study is still interesting because it supports the long-held gun-control axiom that says guns in the home result in more suicides.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Gun Rental Suicide at the Range in California

Local news reports

Kenneth Matthew Wells, a 32-year-old Laguna Hills resident, went to Evans Gunsmithing Shooters World, located at 1637 N. Brian Street, on Saturday afternoon, Orange police Sgt. Dan Adams told the Orange County Register. 

A little before 1:30 p.m., other shooters at the firing range saw Wells fall to the ground. He was discovered dead from a single gunshot to the head. Police called to the scene said a suicide note was found in Wells’ pocket. The case is being ruled a suicide, Adams said.

What's your opinion? Is the easy rental of handguns contributing to this problem? Should there be better screening before allowing someone to use a rental gun?

Do you think this was one of those "determined" suicides?  He wrote a note, went to the range, rented a gun and then blew his brains out.  It would be hard to deter a guy like that, wouldn't it?

But most suicides aren't committed by such determined individuals.  Evan at gun ranges, when someone goes there depressed and angry in order to do the deed, they aren't entirely committed.

They could be swayed. Easy gun rentals do matter in cases like that.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

In Utah 80% of Gun Deaths are Suicides

The Salt Lake Tribune reports 

According to CDCP data, 217 of the 2009 firearm deaths — more than 80 percent — were classified as suicides.

John Malouf, a psychologist from Valley Mental Health, said guns are the most common method used in completed suicides, while pills account for the most attempted suicides.

Malouf said he feels that if guns were more controlled or less available, people might be less inclined to commit suicide.

"It’s easy access to a lethal method," Malouf said, "When you think about it, if someone is suicidal and they don’t have a lethal method, they usually get through the crisis OK. If they have a gun, they kill themselves, not realizing they would get through the next day."

I can understand the pro-gun attempt to separate suicides from other gun deaths. I disagree with it, but I can understand that it serves their argument.  They say there aren't all that many gun deaths to worry about. Further restrictions are unnecessary. Of course this is not true, but that's their argument.

What I can't understand is the justification that usually accompanies this argument, that people have a right to commit suicide, that it's a simple choice and that people are free to choose.

The psychologist quoted above put it perfectly.  The way I say it is this: suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Eat Your Gun

What does this look like to you? Go to Criminal Wisdom to find out.

Kennebec Maine Man Shoots Himself - Suicide Suspected

Local news reports

Friday morning that a 29-year-old man died after shooting himself inside the apartment. The shooting was reported at 3:30 a.m. and other people were inside the apartment at the time.

The man died at the scene after attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.

I don't know why they didn't call it an accident? What was a guy like that doing with a gun anyway?

Please leave a comment.

Junior Seau Commits Suicide with a Gun

via boston.com

Junior Seau, a 43-year old 12-time NFL Pro Bowl linebacker, was found dead today in his home, the result of a gunshot wound, police confirmed. 

Police are investigating the shooting at the Oceanside, Calif., residence of the former New England Patriot and San Diego Chargers football star as a suicide. Police confirmed that Seau was found by his girlfriend at his beachfront home with a gunshot wound to his chest.

People who attempt suicide are often temporarily insane. The lethality of a gun makes it more likely that they'll succeed. It's sad.

 What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Tommy Marth, The Killers Saxophonist Kills Himself with a Gun

Contact Music reports

The Killers saxophonist Tommy Marth was found dead in his back garden at his home in Las Vegas, the Guardian reports. Marth apparently took his own life, with the Clark County coroner recently coming on record to announce a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head found on the corpse when services arrived. He was 33.

Gun availability plays a major role in suicides.Using a little common sense, it's easy enough to figure how this works.  Given the high lethality of a gunshot to the head, attempting suicide in this manner is more likely to succeed than using a razor or pills, which are the other most common means.

Common sense doesn't work for the pro-gun crowd, I'm afraid.  They have too much bias for that. So what might work is this.

Based on the theory that many people who attempt suicide are not completely dedicated to the idea but are acting on impulse or acting out of a temporary period of difficulty, we can assume that if unsuccessful they'd be glad and never attempt it again. This was proven in a survey some years ago in which survivors of gunshot suicide attempts were interviewed. Every single one expressed gratitude for having survived the close call and expressed a desire to live.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Murder - Suicide Ends at South Florida Gun Range

The Miami Herald reports

A suicide at a South Florida gun range led to the discovery of a second dead body in a Tamarac home as BSO investigators discovered it wasn’t just a suicide but a murder-suicide.

According to BSO investigators, a 52-year-old man walked into the Arizona Shooting Range, located at 4317 North State Road 7 around 10:40 a.m. where he rented a gun and shot himself in the head. No one else was hurt.

He was taken to Broward General Medical Center where he died.

When investigators went to his home to notify his 45-year-old wife, they found her body inside the house. Investigators have not said how she was killed or how long ago the murder took place.

This incident combines the best of our favorite stories. Guns are bad news for women, once again. Shooting ranges, especially in Florida, are anything by safe places. Of course the gun-rights crowd will defend a person's right to kill himself rather than admit that gun availability plays a part.

Another humorous aspect of this story is that although Florida is the number one most baneful state around, this particular gun range was named for the second place contender.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Guns in the Home and Suicide

The Star.com reports on something of interest to Americans, or at least it should be.

Suicides. Suicides dropped dramatically in Canada thanks to the federal gun registry. Not only do statistics prove as much, it stands to reason that with improved gun safety comes decreased gun fatalities; with fewer tools-of-choice for suicides available, fewer suicides occur. It just makes sense.

Here are the stats. A home where there are firearms is five times more likely to be the scene of a suicide than a home without a gun: Canada Safety Council. The Institut national de sante publique du Québec has assessed that the coming into force of the Firearms Act is associated, on average, with a reduction of 250 suicides (and 50 homicides) each year in Canada. That’s nearly one life saved per day. StatsCan figures are stark: firearm suicides have dropped 48 per cent since the enactment of the very law that the Conservatives seek to repeal.

In The States it's not quite as high as 75%, but the majority of gun deaths here are suicides as well. Do you think that fact is overlooked in gun control discussions? Whenever it does come up the pro-gun crowd comes up with one of their three standard responses. I think they must memorize these inanities.

1. People who want to kill themselves have a right to do so
2. People who want to kill themselves will find another way if no gun is around
3. What about Japan? (this one was debunked here)

What's your opinion? Are suicide rates even a greater reason for strict gun control laws than the traditional gun violence?

My belief, and I'm not alone, is that in most cases suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  One study interviewed survivors of gun suicide attempts. Every one interviewed expressed gratitude to have failed. The absense of gun availability, as proven by the Canadian experience, ensures fewer suicides.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.