Gun Control & RKBA

And we know wht you've said is wrong because in Western countries without guns murder rates are lower.

As for suicide, what your saying is based purely on ignorance, so I won't take offense, but a little research will show you that guns play a HUGE part in a countries suicide rate. If Japan had hundreds of millions of guns it's suicide rate would be much higher, and when guns are removed from the equation suicide rates drop and successful suicide attempts drop dramatically. And of course most people attempt suicide once. And usually within a few minutes of deciding to try. If they fail they don't try again. They don't get that option if a gun is involved.

With the focus on who dies by suicide, these experts say, not enough attention has been paid to restricting the means to do it — particularly access to guns.

“You can reduce the rate of suicide in the United States substantially, without attending to underlying mental health problems, if fewer people had guns in their homes and fewer people who are at risk for suicide had access to guns in their home,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, a director of Harvard Injury Control Research Center and a professor of health sciences and epidemiology at Northeastern University.

About 90 percent of the people who try suicide and live ultimately never die by suicide. If the people who died had not had easy access to lethal means, researchers like Dr. Miller reason, most would still be alive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/health/blocking-the-paths-to-suicide.html?_r=0

Numerous prevention efforts were launched, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on studies and task forces, resilience programs and increasing access to mental health care.

Yet eight years and hundreds of deaths later, the suicide rate hasn’t improved. The number of suspected suicides in 2012 among active-duty soldiers was 166 at the end of October, surpassing the 165 total for all of 2011.

What’s gone wrong? Why hasn’t the Army or Defense Department been able to reduce the number of suicides?

Experts say it’s because efforts have ignored the most evidence-backed, proven prevention method: making suicide harder by restricting access to lethal means.

“There are two ways to reduce suicide: You can make it harder for them to die in an attempt, or you can heal underlying distress,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, the associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“The idea is to restrict methods that are the most lethal, to provide a second chance,” Miller said.

“Means restriction,” as it’s called in public health, has been proven to reduce the suicide rate in a wide variety of places.

In 2006, after years of suicides among young men in the Israel Defense Forces, authorities forbade the troops from bringing their rifles home on weekends. Suicides dropped by 40 percent, according to a 2010 study by psychiatrists with the IDF and the Sheba Medical Center.

Those attempting suicide for the most part act on impulse, often after surprisingly brief periods of deliberation. But the impulse also passes. A survey of people who deliberated about killing themselves but did not act found that for about half, the suicidal period lasted less than an hour, according to Miller.

Among people who made near-lethal attempts, 24 percent took less than five minutes between the decision to kill themselves and the actual attempt. Seventy percent took less than an hour, according to a 2001 University of Houston study of 153 survivors.

Although people who attempt suicide often suffer from psychological distress, Miller said, they don’t act until a “last straw” — a loss, a humiliation, an arrest.

“That’s the time when you can lose control of your ability to act in a sensible way,” he said. “When you are at your wits’ end, what you can reach for determines whether you live or die. All you have to do to die is lose control for one minute.

“If you’re in a house with a gun, there’s a lot more of a chance you’re going to die,” he said.

Living in a home with a gun increases the suicide death risk two- to 10-fold, Miller said.

http://www.stripes.com/news/experts-restricting-troops-access-to-firearms-is-necessary-to-reduce-rate-of-suicides-1.199216

IF we gut gun suicides by 2x we'd save 7500 people a year aprox. In the last decade we would have saved 150,000 people - but I know I know teh gunz.