If you want to go that route, then you'll need to also remove the following instruments:

* Ropes or any kind of cords that can be used for hanging * Blades of any kind (kitchen knives, scissors, box cutters, utility knives, etc.) * Anything that can be sharpened into a point that can puncture flesh * Any kind of chemical substance that can be deadly in sufficient quantities. * Any bodies of water where one can drown * Any accessible point that is high enough for one to jump off of.

The list goes on. Eventually, the environment that is left would basically be a padded room in a psychiatric hospital in a straightjacket.

To most people a gun is pretty much a button you can press and instantly end your life, and in the hands of a knowledgeable user that's about right. I think that kind of ease makes a gun very different from other methods you list, most of which require some combination of willpower, preparation, and endurance of pain and discomfort.

Your belief is common but misguided and incorrect. Many suicides are impulsive and if an easy method isn’t available the moment passes and no attempt is made.

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9068255/suicide-impulsive-gun-...

A gun is certainly more attractive as suicide tool than all the things you have listed. It's easy, quick and painless.

From the story, clearly it isn't. I've a friend who killed himself with a pistol. From the blood spatter around his house it was determined that he shot himself, survived and woke up, put a towel on his head, then shot himself again.

I guess I should have written "It looks quick, easy and painless". If I wanted to kill myself I probably would use a gun.

Please don't be disingenuous. Not one of those promises an instant, painless lights-out the way a gun does.

None of those leave you without one of the most fundamental parts of your identity if you mess up the attempt.

About all risk leaving you with severe brain damage. Suffocation, bleeding out.

That's a fallacy. If you have both of you sneakers untied, I bet you don't refuse to tie the first one (whatever it is) because the second would still be untied.

Ugh, are you trying to make this anti gun?

There are so many ways to commit suicide it's hardly worth listing them here. If her family kept any pills in the bathroom it's likely she could have killed herself without leaving the room.

It isn't about guns per se, it's about all lethal items. The how of suicide is just as important as the why. Having anything in your home that is a highly efficient means of killing yourself greatly increases the risk that you will in fact kill yourself. Most suicidal intent is temporary and most suicidal behaviour is impulsive, so restricting access to highly effective means of suicide is a vital tool in preventing suicide.

In 1998, the UK restricted sales of paracetamol (acetaminophen) to packs of no more than 32 tablets. The result was a lasting reduction in suicides by paracetamol poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts by other means. Several studies have found that interventions like installing suicide prevention barriers on bridges can reduce the suicide rate rather than merely changing the choice of means.

https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f403

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/useful-links/bibli...

If you take an overdose of tablets or slit your wrists, you'll probably survive with suitable medical care. You probably have the opportunity to change your mind, call an ambulance and save your own life. Very few people survive a gunshot wound to the head; all of them sustain life-altering injuries.

You have the right to own a gun, but that comes with responsibilities. You need to recognise that your gun poses a serious risk to you and your family, especially if it isn't consistently stored in a suitable gun safe or someone in the house is at risk of suicide.

If you're worried about the mental health of a family member, controlling their access to convenient and highly lethal means of suicide could well prevent an impulsive decision from becoming a tragedy. Clear out your liquor cabinet, throw out any surplus medication and get your gun out of the house.

http://www.meansmatter.org/

Rather than offer your thoughts on what may have happened, you might be interested in reading about actual research into suicide. The gist is that many suicides are impulsive when an easy method is available– most often a gun.

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9068255/suicide-impulsive-gun-...

And I'm saying there were other methods just as easily available if not more so if she was already in the bathroom.

Maybe. A close friend of mine used pills instead of a pistol. Thankfully they didn’t succeed in their endeavour but the fact is people who are intent on doing the deed will find a method.

The rate of success with pills is lower, and it allows time for regret and the patient to seek help, whereas with a gun after the trigger is pulled it's over. The reasons that American men commit suicide twice as often as women do even though only half as many men attempt suicide is because they are more likely to use a gun.

If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit.

0: https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#15 1: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-... 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf

> the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]

From that link:

> Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010).

Firearms being used in self defense =/= lives saved by firearms.

Indeed, it turns out it's complicated. That's why I said we need more data. I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.

Edit: posted in a different comment but including here as well.

> A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.

Moreover, "firearms used in self defense" practically mean more dead people even if the defense was "successful". The mindset of dehumanizing perpetrators is disgusting, they are still people and we should strive to minimize their injuries, too, if possible (there are plenty of nonlethal means like tazers and pepperspray).

> Moreover, "firearms used in self defense" practically mean more dead people even if the defense was "successful".

You appear to be assuming that using a firearm in self-defense means killing in self-defense. If that is your position (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting you), I am not convinced you are correct. Many uses of firearms in self-defense are brandishing only; and even if a firearm is discharged in self-defense, it is not a given that it kills the original aggressor.

Not sure I agree with this either. I expect the most likely circumstance would be that the defender shows the weapon and the aggressor runs away. It's possible that it results in more gun deaths or injuries when you count both attackers and defenders, but not certain. IMO ctric isn't wrong that, as with anything, you need to study both harms and benefits and make educated decisions; I just had to point out that his initial interpretation of the study results was misleading.

I personally don't own a gun (I'm also in Canada where things are a bit different) but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not. That doesn't mean that unrestricted gun ownership is a net good though, of course.

Fortunately it appears we can all agree that it is critical gun owners store and secure their guns properly. In my opinion that would be a good place for new laws to focus: for example you could be required to demonstrate that you have a secure storage location and proper training before you could be licensed to own a firearm.

> but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not.

Someone actually has broken into my home, when I was there, and I am profoundly grateful that I, and probably the burglar, didn't have a gun available.

It didn't even cross my mind to arm myself with a weapon. I offered him a cup of tea. I told him I had nothing of value in the flat, and that it'd be safer for him to come down from the loft and leave by the front door than to climb down the scaffolding of the building next door (which is how he got in). He declined the tea, and decided to leave via the scaffolding. I called the police, and they found him in the garden of the house next door. He pulled a beer bottle on them, they subdued and arrested him.

Guns and weapons would have made this mildly stressful situation hugely worse.

I'm glad that situation worked out well. Could you not have done exactly the same even if you'd had a gun though? And that way had he not responded to your excellent de-escalation technique, and had instead attacked you with a bottle, the deterrent of the weapon might have saved you from injury.

I feel the need to again emphasize that in general I am in support of gun control and that I don't personally own guns; I can see how a person might want to though.

No he couldn't. First, the temptation to escalate is there and real. Second, if there is a chance that the homeowner will be armed, the burglar might just as well arm themselves, too. It's a cycle of fear and violence which becomes so ingrained in population's psyche that they don't even consider the world with lesser stakes.

I don't get it? Just because you own a firearm or have one on your person does not mean you must use it. Also, just because you do not feel comfortable deciding when it's appropriate to use a firearm does not mean other people feel the same way.

It still means more guns in the society and, correspondingly, more death. The externalities of arming yourself with a gun are just too high to justify it.

The CDC is banned from investigating gun deaths, so is unable to produce an unbiased result. ("Dickey Amendment")