Guns Are Far More Likely to Be Used in Suicide Than in Killing Bad Guys

[Redfairen]

According to the CDC, 19,392 people committed suicide with a gun in 2010, the latest year for which data are available. That same year, meanwhile, the FBI recorded only 230 justifiable homicides (the legal term) in which a private citizen used a firearm to kill a felon during the commission of a felony.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people under 35, and the Harvard School of Public Health has found that "suicide rates among children, women and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have guns." More than six in 10 of the firearm deaths in the past decade were suicides, not homicides. 

And if you're set on ending your life, a gun is the surest way to do it. Eighty-five percent of people who shoot themselves die, versus 1 percent of people who cut themselves and 2 percent of those who attempt to overdose.

"Removing all firearms from one's home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide," Harvard health policy professor Matthew Miller said in 2007. "Removing firearms may be especially effective in reducing the risk of suicide among adolescents and other potentially impulsive members of their home."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/guns-are-far-more-likely-to-be-used-in-suicide-than-in-killing-bad-guys/284537/

[CBGLuthier]

1. If I kept a gun I would be dead by now.

I am far too suicidal for that and yeah I am not making a bad joke about it. Still here 35 years after my last "serious" attempt.

[libodem]

8. Me too

I'm fairly stable right now and I know suicide is wrong, but I'm glad I don't have to make the decision, to have to make the choice. Seriously.

[Arkana]

2. If only you had a gun--you wouldn't have killed yourself!

Wait...

[hack89]

3. Why is killing the bad guy the only metric?

there are three other options:

1: The bad guy is only wounded - which is the more likely outcome giving how survivable gun shot wounds actually are.

2. Shots were fired but did not hit the bad guy, who then surrendered or ran away.

3. No shots were fired - the sight of the gun was enough to deter the bad guy.

[MillennialDem]

5. And why is successful suicide the only metric

what about all those who survive suicide by gun, those hurt or killed in accidents, those scared by a "good guy" with a gun acting tough, etc.

[hack89]

6. Good questions. Lay out the hard numbers and lets talk about it. nt

[TeamPooka]

10. You forgot the one where the bad guy shoots and kills you.

[hack89]

11. Irrelevant to the point the OP is trying to make

unless you are making an argument that legal gun ownership is justified by violent acts by criminals.

[TeamPooka]

13. no, I'm arguing that just having a gun puts you in more danger.

[hack89]

14. Why? Criminals shoot unarmed people all the time

and justifiable homicides are a very incomplete and inaccurate measure of the self defense value of a gun.

[MillennialDem]

4. Nitpick: guns are not the surest way. Jumping off a 500+ foot tall building is 99.9% or higher rate

of "success"

[steve2470]

12. steps (don't click this if you're squeamish)

1- Make sure gun works properly
2- Make sure gun is loaded correctly
3- Put barrel of gun in one's mouth pointed exactly at one's brain

you get the rest of the grisly picture.

[MillennialDem]

16. You're honestly trying to tell me that shooting yourself in the head is a more certain method of

death than jumping off a 500+ foot tall building?

Outside of getting blown back in by the wind or missing and landing a floor or two down, a 500 foot fall (onto concrete) is certain, instant splatter.

A gunshot wound to the head is not certain (see Gabby Giffords and many other survivors) and perhaps more importantly even if fatal it's not always as instant as people make it out to be.

[steve2470]

17. ok good point

What I'm saying is, if you are really really trying to off yourself, my method usually does the job. I have to admit, yours is 100%. Mine might be 95% with a steady aim.

eta: I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've never heard of anyone surviving a gun barrel in the mouth pointed at your brain. I guess some people are extraordinarily unlucky, if you can call it that. Pretty horrible life to survive that.

[MillennialDem]

18. My mom worked in an ER. Among many other stories she told me was a guy who survived gun barrel in

the mouth pointed at the brain.

Let me add it was a 12 gauge shotgun with a single projectile.

[Orrex]

19. Well, a pistol is easier to conceal than a 50-story building

And the assertion isn't that guns are the most efficient means of suicide imagineable.

The assertion is that, of the means most commonly chosen, a gun is the most efficient.


Did 19,392 people commit suicide by leaping from 50-story buildings in 2010? Why not, in your estimation?

[MillennialDem]

20. I said sorry to nitpick but the OP has this quote:

"And if you're set on ending your life, a gun is the surest way to do it. Eighty-five percent of people who shoot themselves die, versus 1 percent of people who cut themselves and 2 percent of those who attempt to overdose."

I simply said that while a self inflicted gunshot is likely to be fatal, there are other methods that are even more likely to be fatal and also likely a quicker exit (even a GSW to the head is often not as instant as people make it out to be - common misconception is that you shoot yourself in the head and don't ever hear the trigger or feel pain. Sometimes true, not always. Some linger on for minutes or hours or days. Sometimes in pain and aware too).

As for the reason more people choose suicide by gun versus jumping off buildings:

a. Harder to back out / easier to just snap and do it in a fit of depression/suicidal ideation. I know, I've been there. Driving to a building, then taking the elevator up, then jumping would lead many to back off / reconsider.

b. Worry about interference from bystanders and first responders.

c. In my case, terrible fear of heights.

d. The terror of the 5-10 second fall (worry about regret etc)

e. Risk to people on the ground.

Anyway, there are a couple of other ways I can think that are also more likely to be successful and more likely to be quick than jumping off a building but they have their drawbacks as well.

Guns are the most common suicide method because they have this powerful combination: they are easy to access, private, "storable" for later (imagine driving to the same building 40 times while suicidal, rather than picking up the gun and playing with it and putting it back 40 times), and have a high fatality rate.

Not solely because they have a high fatality rate - because of the combination of factors. In places where guns are hard to access, hanging tends to be much more common for most of the same reasons as above.

[Orrex]

21. Well, I guess I don't see the point of nit-picking, then.

Jumping into a vat of molten steel or throwing yourself out of a spacecraft's airlock is also 100% guaranteed to work, but we don't generally include these in lists of "best ways to kill yourself," either.

Other than for the satisfaction of nit-picking, is there value in quibbling about which all-but-certain method of suicide is most likely to succeed?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. It seems like guns are more often than not used for anything BUT killing "bad guys"

Come to think of it, why DON'T we hear more stories about people actually using them to blow away bad guys? I mean, you'd think that the NRA would be hyping them more often. Not that I think that it NEVER happens but it always strikes me as being more of a fantasy than a reality most of the time.

[otohara]

9. Murder Suicides

I wish they would have included the total for these.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. There are also thousands of accidental shootings

of gun owners shooting themselves or of shooting someone in the home. They aren't always fatal injuries, but I wouldn't want to shoot my child by accident. Then of course, there are the children that get their hands on the guns and shoot themselves or others.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/11/guns-child-deaths-more-than-cancer/2073259/