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protect yourself rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 7 months ago by Jackie_meaiii@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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[-] lady_scarecrow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 7 months ago

People who own guns are at a much higher risk of suicide. Guns might make you feel safe, but in reality the most likely person to die from your gun is yourself.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

This is like survivorship bias, but in reverse. Obviously almost everyone who killed themselves with a gun had access to a gun, but this doesn't mean that they wouldn't have committed suicide by some other means if they didn't have access to a gun.

This is something that is impossible to determine scientifically. If everyone in this study group killed themselves with a gun, how many of them would have not killed themselves if they didn't have a gun? They can't un-kill themselves and let us take away their guns so we can determine the effect.

What this study shows is that a gun is likely the first choice of gun owners who are trying to kill themselves. It cannot determine how much less likely they would have been to kill themselves had they not owned a gun, if at all. Intuitively I do believe that it would be less, because other means are likely more difficult, slower, or less effective. Whether this would result in slightly fewer suicides or much fewer I do not know, but this study doesn't prove either.

[-] tron@midwest.social 7 points 7 months ago

What this study shows is that a gun is likely the first choice of gun owners who are trying to kill themselves. It cannot determine how much less likely they would have been to kill themselves had they not owned a gun, if at all.

I wonder how many people choose other methods of suicide (Hanging/Drug OD) when they had a gun available.

[-] bluewing@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago

When I was a medic for 15 years, I was paged out to 4 suicides, two self hanging, one OD, and one wrist slashing, (all male). Nor can I remember any reports of suicide by gun either. There were also good number of attempted OD's though. And this was in a rural community where almost every home had at least one gun and often more.

I don't think anyone could prove one way or another why guns didn't seem to be a choice for suicidal people in that community. I certainly don't know. But people who are not of sound mind often do strange things for inscrutable reasons.