There’s a well-known and strong correlation between gun ownership and suicide rates:
Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t.
I’m not sure if it’s fair to say that people are “acting like this is normal” - it is a real danger, and it’s good that these folks are aware of it and are acting accordingly. Even if you get help, you won’t just magically get better and will never suffer from suicidal thoughts again. Making sure you don’t put yourself in unnecessary danger seems like a healthy strategy to me.
Is it just me or this statistic kind of… useless? It’s the same as saying “people who own a car are eight times more likely to die in car crashes”. No shit. Surely we should be comparing the raw (successful) suicide rate of gun owners versus not. Later in the article they do cover this to a point, stating that it is still a 4x increase.
The researchers found that people who owned handguns had rates of suicide that were nearly four times higher than people living in the same neighborhood who did not own handguns. The elevated risk was driven by higher rates of suicide by firearm. Handgun owners did not have higher rates of suicide by other methods or higher rates of death generally.
I don’t know if it’s a people who already have issues and have guns are more likely to use the gun instead of other means kind of statistic you have there, but owning a gun does not want to make you want to kill yourself purely by existing. It is a problem that exists regardless of the gun. And people who just… don’t have a gun have a thousand different ways to accomplish the task. You aren’t like, a healthy individual then get a gun and suddenly have … urges.
I don’t know if it’s a people who already have issues and have guns are more likely to use the gun instead of other means kind of statistic you have there
Well, you could easily figure that out by reading the link I sent. But I’ll gladly clear it up for you: the statistic isn’t about “likelihood of using gun for suicide”, it’s “likelihood of suicide”. Men who own guns are 8x more likely to kill themselves than men who don’t.
but owning a gun does not want to make you want to kill yourself purely by existing. It is a problem that exists regardless of the gun.
It is, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the statistics. Owning a gun dramatically increases your chances of suicide, mostly because it’s the quickest method easily available. Suicide is extremely often an impulse. If you have a quick and easy method available, you’re far more likely to commit suicide than if you don’t. This has been researched for a long time.
And people who just… don’t have a gun have a thousand different ways to accomplish the task. You aren’t like, a healthy individual then get a gun and suddenly have … urges.
Okay, so people with suicidal thoughts should just buy guns and go through with it, or what? I’ll repeat myself: you don’t just get help and are magically better the next day. Improving your mental state is a process that takes at the very least multiple years. Knowing yourself and statistics well enough to not give yourself an easy suicide method is good.
I assume it increases the risk of successfully kill yourself on impulse. Having fleeting suicidal thoughts because of a temporary circumstances, is what is dangerous here. That’s the kind of suicide you’d regret if you could regret something when being dead.
The more interesting thing is that it’s only 8x higher for men opposed to 38x higher for women. If I remember correctly men tend to do more brutal suicides, which means a percentage probably only got that gun to kill themselves.
