GUNS AND THE TRAGEDY OF SUICIDE

 Kwei--Wednesday

We often think of guns in the context of hurting or killing others, but in fact in the USA, suicide deaths by firearm are more common than any other category of gun death (including homicide) among both males and females and across most age categories. Males account for more than 85% of all gun deaths, regardless of intent category. 

(Image: andriano.cz / Shutterstock) 

Suicide claims the lives of 23,000 Americans every year, including 1100 children and teens. Nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths in the US are suicides, which is an average of 63 deaths a day, about the same number as the fatalities in the Las Vegas mass shooting.

(Centers of Disease Control & Prevention / RCraig09)

The pie-chart view is another way to look at it:

 

The Global Perspective

The USA leads the world in gun-related suicides. 

                                                                                  

Although the USA ranked fourth in the world in 2016 with 12,400 firearm-related homicides, that figure pales in comparison with its 23,800 gun suicides. None of the other 194 nations and territories in the report came close; India ranked second at 13,400. It should be noted that in 2016, the highest per capita suicide rate by firearm was recorded by Greenland at 22 deaths per 100,000. Greenland is beset with challenges such as social turmoil and alcoholism.

Gun Ownership And Suicide Risk

A large and influential study in The New England Journal of Medicine found an elevated risk of suicide among a large sample of first-time handgun owners. Stanford University researchers followed over 26 million men and women in California who were 21 and older and who hadn’t owned guns before October 2004. A little less than 3% of the cohort, or 676,425 people, became gun owners between then and 2016. In this group, the risk of suicide in this group was about nine times higher than among non-owners. 

Those who died by suicide using a firearm — 6,691 people out of 17,894 total suicides (37.4%) — tended to be male, white, and of middle age (mean age of 41 years). The period after gun purchase that had the highest suicide risk was 1 - 3 years. A firearm was used in 89% of the suicides among handgun owners and 33% of those among nonowners.

Two notable findings emerged in this rigorous study: first, new handgun ownership is strongly associated with suicide immediately following California’s 10-day waiting period between purchase and acquisition of a firearm; second, although the absolute risk of suicide is higher among men than among women, new handgun ownership is associated with a disproportionately greater increase in death by suicide among women.

The one-purpose device

Suicide by gun is a particularly violent and heart-wrenching mode of death. Imagine the horror of coming home to find one of your loved ones dead from a fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wound. This is the kind of image that will haunt a person for years. To me, the revulsion I have for a firearm is that it's an instrument singularly-purposed for a single deadly purpose. People jump off bridges, but that's not why bridges were built; rope can be used to hang oneself, but that's not the primary use of a rope; you can slash your wrist with a razor or knife, but they weren't made for that reason. You can OD on opioids, but their original purpose is otherwise. But a gun? There are no two ways. If you point a loaded pistol at your head and fire, it will do its only assigned job.

Morality of Suicide

There is philosophical, psychological, and moral debate about suicide. Is it actually immoral or wrong in some other way? Is it selfish? People often cite the severe blow dealt to family and loved ones. Why didn't the suicide victim think about that? And anyway, isn't the phrase "suicide victim" an oxymoron?  

In considering suicide however, it's well to examine the surrounding circumstances. Perhaps suicide should be thought of not so much as an isolated act, but as the fatal and tragic (always tragic) end of a certain progression of events. In the depth of a severe depression, the self-loathing can be so intense that the sufferer completely devalues themselves. Even the persuasion that their family loves them can be quite meaningless and unhelpful, because, in any case, a suicidal person doesn't believe that. 

Why guns are the problem

Sworn NRA members often say, "Guns don't shoot people, people shoot people." This is one of the stupidest, most simplistic, circular, and self-defeating platitudes I've ever heard. The answer, of course, is, "Yes, but people can't shoot people without a gun." [Insert rolling eyes emoji here.]

Many people can get to the other side of severe depression by their own fortitude or with the support of others. With treatment, these same people will no longer want to kill themselves. Suicide is sometimes a flash decision after waxing and waning of suicidal intent. That flash decision, which could have been otherwise forestalled, is fulfilled by a gun at hand. The chance the person had to get through their dark, terrible moment is now gone for good. That's where the tragedy is, and that's why the call for gun regulation remains strong.

This week

Lisa asked me to fill in for her today as she is on tour for her newest book, HOUR OF THE RAT.  We all hope that it is very successful.

It has been another strange week in the world, so I thought I would highlight various items that caught my eye.

Nelson Mandela

My hero, Nelson Mandela, is in hospital yet again having been admitted about two weeks ago.  According to South Africa’s President Zuma, Madiba, as Mandela is known, was responding to treatment and is in serious but stable condition.  America’s CBS News, however, reported that Madiba hadn’t opened his eyes for days and that his liver and kidneys were only functioning at 50 percent, and that he had undergone two surgeries.  It also claims that Madiba’s heart had stopped at one stage, and he had to be resuscitated.

A young Mandela - in 1937

A more recent photo

It also came to light this week that the emergency ambulance that was taking Madiba to hospital in the middle of the night two weeks ago broke down en route to the hospital in Pretoria leaving him and his wife stranded for 40 minutes in 45 F (8 C) temperature.

Rapport newspaper reported that Mandela’s close family was deliberating on ““just how much medical intervention was enough for an old and very sick man”.  My cynical side wondered about Michael’s blog of a couple of weeks ago (Don’t live too long . . .) in which he reported that Mandela’s daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, were in court seeking to get control of their father’s trusts.

[For those of you interested in why Mandela is called Madiba, it is customary to honour someone in South Africa by giving them the name of the clan they belong to.  Mandela is a Xhosa of the Madiba clan.]

Water

It seems that it is raining heavily almost everywhere in the Northern hemisphere.  My newspaper today reported that 4500 people may have died in flooding and landslides resulting from pre-monsoon rains in Northern India and Pakistan.

Rescue worker in India

Shopping is difficult in monsoon season

Calgary in Canada suffered its worst flooding ever, leaving 70,000 people homeless until the floods recede.

Devastating Calgary flooding

More from Calgary

Here in Minneapolis, we had three waves of thunderstorms come through over the past three days, leaving more wind damage than flooding.  Half a million people were left without power, largely due to thousands of trees that were blown over because the soaked soil was unable to hold them up in the face of the high winds.  Fortunately the temperatures were balmy.

Water-logged soil caused trees to fall

And road to collapse

More from Minneapolis

Protests

The civil war in Syria took a backseat to the protests in Turkey that started initially in reaction to the government wanting to develop part of one of Istanbul’s only green spaces, Gezi Park.  There was a lot of water there and in Taksim Square, where police doused protesters with water cannons.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyin Erdogan took a firm stance against the protesters, saying at one stage “Nobody but God will have the power to overthrow our government.”  Several protesters have died in the turmoil.

At least it's not bullets

I hope it wasn't cold outside

Brazil too saw massive protests initially against a hike in bus fares in Sao Paulo.  It rapidly spread across the nation of 195 million into protests against corruption and lack of basic services, as well as anger that so many billions were going to spent on the 2014 Football World Cup and 2018 Olympic Games instead on education and uplifting the poor.

We need more jobs

No caption needed

Millions protest

Tear gas

I fear South Africa could see similar protests when Madiba dies.  

Is it possible that it will pick up the World Cup if Brazil defaults?  After the 2010 World Cup, which it hosted so successfully, it is not out of the question.

World’s oldest embrace

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper reported this week on what must be the world’s oldest embrace:

“The rain was pouring down as the skies opened up in the Karoo Basin 250-million years ago. An injured amphibian Broomistega, possibly hurt by the storm, crawled into a sleeping animal's burrow to shelter from the violent weather. It is suspected that the mammal-forerunner Thrinaxodon – which, from simulations resembles a furry Komodo dragon – was hibernating, although when done for short periods of time this is called aestivation.

Both animals died, and their fossilised embrace, discovered by South African scientists, marks a world first. “

I, Broomistega, take you, Thrinaxodon, to be my ...

Creationism,

I read something this week that I found quite remarkable.

"Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.  The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process."

                                                                                                2012 Gallup poll

Greece closes public television station

In what was called an effort to deal with the budget crisis in Greece, conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras decided to close down the Hellenic Broadcast Corporation (ERT). The country’s national broadcast service.

Great poster

The leaders of the other two parties in the government coalition were outraged. 

Protests have taken place against the decision.  Hopefully Jeff can fill in the details.

Lost firearms

Gun dealers in the USA lost 10,915 firearms last year.  So much for responsible gun ownership.

Obama’s African safari

The Telegraph reported last week: “Barack and Michelle Obama have reportedly scrapped a safari during their trip to Africa because of the costs of snipers needed ’to neutralise cheetahs, lions and other animals if they became a threat’.”

I’m delighted.  Who knows what would have happened had a baboon jumped on the game vehicle to pilfer food.

Oh Barack, what am I going to wear?

How I beat Serena Williams at .. tennis

Last Tuesday, as I was checking in for my Delta flight from Heathrow to Minneapolis, I had an interesting experience.  (And, no, it’s not another airline story of woe like Michael’s unbelievable experience last weekend – A Personal Best).  A woman, obviously from Delta, walked up to me and asked if I would like to play table tennis with Serena Williams.  I agreed with great alacrity – after all, Serena is one of the greatest tennis players of all time.  Why would I not want to play against her?  Needless to say, it was a puzzling request.

Apparently Delta was having a big promotion for its new terminal at JFK in New York, from whence Serena had just arrived.  A table tennis table had been set up in the check-in area in Terminal 4 at Heathrow.  There were cameras everywhere, and reporters were buzzing around like mosquitoes on a Minnesota lake to witness the several passengers who had been recruited to compete. 

That's me hidden on the left!

After a brief warm-up, my partner – a talented young woman with a two-fisted backhand (in table tennis?) – and I squared off against Serena and her partner.  The game was somewhat abbreviated I have to admit (best of five points), but my partner and I prevailed 3-1.

Serena waves graciously after losing to my partner and me

As you can see, I am going to make the most of these bragging rights.

Stan for Lisa - Sunday