Senior men have higher rates of suicide than average, and firearms were involved in more than three-quarters of those deaths in 2021, according to a CDC report
Evolution has never stopped. Humans are simply creating new selection pressures. Humans are cruel to each other so that some will kill themselves. This will remain the case until cooperation becomes a dominant survival strategy.
I think others have mentioned this, but I’m disturbed that the article seems more concerned about guns than about the way our society and culture fails older men.
Sure it gets a mention but omg guns.
Get rid of all guns and gun suicides will plummet! It’s just obvious! Can’t you see that?! The problem is GUNS GUNS GUNS. After all, this is an anti gun article, right?! Wait… Why does the article mention suicide?
The idea of stopping suicide by removing the means is absolutely sick when you think about it.
Removing the means of suicide is the crudest, least helpful method of suicide prevention.
It’s also extremely cruel. Like if someone really wants to kill themselves due to ongoing unsolvable pain, they should absolutely have that right. Suicide is a human right.
Sure, of course we should do our best to provide options to solve their pain…even if they feel it is unsolvable, it might not be. It is important we do everything to show them that it might actually be solvable. I’m not denying we need more of those supports for people considering suicide. But like, if they have tried absolutely everything and are in a constant state of pain then only a truly evil person would force them to continue to suffer. It’s fundamentally immoral.
Children are able to understand why putting a suffering dog down in the right course of action, but somehow a majority of adults seem unable to draw the same conclusion around people with incurable terminal illnesses that make people suffer immensely (for example ALS).
Get rid of all guns and gun suicides will plummet!
Shouldn’t you guys be somewhere crying out mental health in the replies to yet another mass shooting article?
Sure you can kill yourself other ways, and society isn’t great to older men, or men, or women, or infants, or whatever…but guns deliver instant death that is just barely on this side of the line of premeditated.
The rise in suicide rates also coincides with lax gun laws if you have read anything about the subject.
Think about the last time you had a long, lonely night, it was miserable, right? What if you had an instant way of ending it all right that moment at the height of your torment, and that method was within arm’s reach?
Guns can easily turn a bad night into a person’s last night. Expand outreach for mental health and work on improving society in other ways, sure, but continuing to provide ubiquitous, instant means to kill yourself and others does zero to solve any of society’s ills.
What a load of horse shit.
Wedging guns is nothing but disingenuous.
Suicide is caused by depression. Not guns, Depression.
Higher male suicide rates is caused by the fact that men ACT on it more than women. This is well studied and understood by even first year university students in social studies. The only way to stop it from occurring is before men and women ACT on it. Address the cause depression, and it will improve outcomes.
Programs like, “Black dog institute”, “Are you OK”, “Mens shed Associations”, or best yet, clinical help, Break the stigma of men reaching out for help.
did the americans find out about lemmy? wtf is this comment section??
This is a really sad state of affairs for older guys.
Imagine a guy who gets to 55+ and takes a look at his life and realize he’s not where he wants to be and it feels like there’s no chance to restart. Maybe he just didn’t get into the housing market in time or start his 401k. Maybe some health issues or divorces blew out his savings.
These are the guys who were out of college right before the world was flipped upside down by technology, so I’m sure a lot of them never thought they had to catch up to keep their career running.
It would be really hard to not see it as a personal total failure, and to be frank their family and peers might see it that way too if they know. It probably feels like standing at the base of Everest when he should have the summit in sight.
His peers are either feeling depressed like him or they are jetting around on holidays most of the time.
Guys are taught most of their life to stuff the emotional things, so the future feels hopeless because he’s in a bubble and doesn’t understand how common this feeling is.
I hope we can find more ways to let guys like this, and all people, know that this feeling is temporary and there is a lot of hope waiting at the next turn.
Maybe he needs a bit of a boost from some antidepressants and someone to talk with who can help him let it all out. Or maybe he just needs a society that sees him as someone with something left to give, who still has jobs to be done, and that’s enough.
Ban guns that will fix the mental health problem…
Sarcasm for those unable to spot click bait. Might as well have titled the story “Death the leading cause of suicide among elderly men”…
Why does the US mentality always revolve around a single cause?
It’s clear that the availability of an instantaneous way to end your life on a whim with zero effort and zero percieved pain is going to facilitate a lot of suicides. No, banning it wont stop suicide, but it would absolutely reduce them. To suggest otherwise is simply statistically disingenuous, regardless of how much you have the right to bear them or not.
But if guns are part of the US identity and culture then so be it, but that means spending on mental health outcomes and prevention need to dramatically increase.
It’s a cost either way, whichever side of the gun debate you are on
If you understand suicide even a little bit you would know men do not fuck about when it comes to suicide. There is little in between, no cry’s for help they are rare. guns are a tool to achieve the outcome and the statistics will never change.
So this click bait title is just stupid anti-gun garbage. Men will ALWAYS be the higher suicide rate no matter what.
Up next water is wet.
Toxic masculinity is what you’re describing. It’s very prevalent in the US. Guns are part of that toxic male culture.
If you understood even a little bit about suicide you would understand that sucidial ideation proceeds action, and ideation involves stimulus from the immediate locale.
Oh buddy, thinking it’s 0 perceived pain is something I’d like to understand. Why do people think gunshots don’t cause pain?
