Thanks to the President’s admission that he could have been Trayvon Martin, the Zimmerman trial remains the mainstream media’s teacher’s pet. But the seemingly endless post-verdict controversy about race is not the launch pad that gun control advocates are looking for. So they’re doing what they do, mutating their message until it finds some purchase in the popular imagination. You may have noticed the latest trend: gun control as “gun safety.” As we reported earlier, the Centers for Disease Control are hoovering funds provided by Presidential Executive Order to study “gun violence” as a public health crisis. Out in California, the group now known as Napa Common Sense Gun Safety is organizing a Gun Safety Day. ‘Cause suicides. Check the logic . . .
Over the past 3 years, 83 percent of the firearms deaths in Napa County result from suicide and 40 percent of all suicides in Napa County are accomplished using firearms (according to Napa County Coroner’s Office and County Health Status Profiles 2012 Cal Dept. of Public Health).
Nationally, 85 percent of all suicide attempts using firearms are successful, far ahead of any other method of attempted suicide. Yet 90 percent of those who survive a suicide attempt, by any means, never attempt suicide again. Guns are simply far more lethal than cutting, poisoning or suffocation (including hanging). Means matter.
In response to this and to the altogether too many massacres that have preceded very public suicides at Columbine and in Newtown, Conn., amongst many others, a group of concerned Napa County citizens is proposing a “2013 Napa County Gun Safety Day.”
The lack of linkage to statistical evidence to support those numbers is par for the disarmament course. [Note to napavalleyregister.com: stats matter.] But the idea that the Columbine and Newtown spree killers were “public suicides”—as opposed to, say, spree killers—-is a strange stretch.
I guess writer and organizer David Campbell (above) and his gun control compadres want to put as much “gun violence” under the mental health umbrella as possible, to make it more politically malleable. In the same sense that the Obama administration classified the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence” rather than an Islamic attack to avoid the truth about terrorists.
Gun control as suicide control. That’s a mean meme that’s picking up steam. It also flies in the face of the facts. For example, “gun free” Japan has a higher suicide rate than the United States. And here’s an interesting stat from the aforementioned CDC:
The greatest percentage of suicides among females ages 10 to 24 years occurred by suffocation (48.5%). The greatest percentage of suicides among females ages 25 to 64 years and 65 years and older occurred by poisoning (42.8%, and 36.1% respectively).
So all this focus on firearms-related suicides is sexist. Who knew? Ban rope? Anyway, make no mistake: this is one of those camel’s nose under the tent deals. “Gun safety” = “gun control.” Not that you would know it reading Mr. Campbell’s bullet points:
The citizen’s group, known as Napa Common Sense Gun Safety, believes that a Gun Safety Day is necessary:
• To increase awareness of the importance of gun safety.
• To remove from circulation unwanted or unused firearms from those who wish to tender them. These firearms would no longer be subject to theft, misuse or accidental discharge.
• To publicize the Sheriff’s Office’s ongoing program of receiving firearms and ammunition at any time year-round.
• To provide trigger locks and/or cable locks to county gun-owners who wish them.
• To highlight the fact that suicide is the major source of firearms deaths in Napa County. Removing stray guns may help prevent suicides.
• To provide a forum for strong, positive public interaction with local law enforcement agencies.
What’s wrong with any of that? You tell me. But before you answer, know this: Mr. Campbell owns Tillerman Tea (Steven Demetre Georgiou need apply). Campbell’s company’s webpage has a simple message front and center:
Please support common sense gun safety regulation in your nation, your state and your community; it’s a matter of life and death!
What was that about the road to hell?
Since when are firearms the business of the National Automotive Parts Association???
Napa Valley in CA, not the auto parts store. :p
lmao
I thought they just sat around with barreled wine.
While suicide statistics related to guns may be accurate, the fact remains that a gun is simply a MEANS of committing suicide. Controlling them doesn’t address the REASON behind these suicides or suicide attempts. And we are now back to the same rhetoric as related to criminal shootings where the gun (evil black gun) is the means yet we so quickly fail to address the reason behind the shootings.
Sensible people WITH NO “HIDDEN” AGENDA know this.
They ain’t foolin’ me.
And if they would just get rid motor vehicles, there would be a huge reduction in drunk driver deaths, suicide by CO in closed spaces, No more wrecks…
Wow, I just saw a unicorn flying over a rainbow!
Did you happen to partake of some of that mushroom he is holding?
NOBODY needs a mushroom that big.
Tom, do you live in Portland?
He must have been on Burnside when he saw the unicorn.
Good one 🙂
I had been wondering if he was partying in the Hawthorne area.
That’s a HUGE mushroom. Just sayin’.
The Canadian Firearms Safety Course includes stats very similar to California’s – 80+% of firearms deaths are catagorized as suicides. Rather than dealing with the underlying causes that might make someone sad or crazy enough to check out early, we get “lock up your guns”.
Like suicidal people don’t know where the keys are.
Huge!
I tried, without success, to look it up by googling ‘psychedelic mushrooms’. I was thinking, maybe this guy took a few bites before writing this article.
He had a dozen of them, now he has one, self explanatory!
Most countries have found that the number of suicides generally shifts to other methods when guns are taken out of the suicide equation. Australia is one. The other issue they ignore is only ~ half of suicides any given year are by guns in the U.S. and women are generally less likely to shoot themselves. Are they going to propose “common sense” Legislation to register bridges etc.? It is interesting that rants and bogus legislation proposed by these types require that they tell you that it is “common sense” so that you will know.
You say “common sense bridge control.” As we reported back in the day, yes. Municipalities are spending big bucks “suicide-proofing” bridges. Go figure.
Portland OR (OR legalized assisted suicide)being one of the cities to erect ugly fences to stop un-assisted suicide!
“Yet 90 percent of those who survive a suicide attempt, by any means, never attempt suicide again. Guns are simply far more lethal than cutting, poisoning or suffocation (including hanging). Means matter.”
So….we don’t care that people are trying to kill themselves, we just need them to be less effective at it???
Robert: Normally I roll my eyes when I see anything relating to using gun control as a means to limit suicide. I’ve always been of the opinion that if someone wants to go, he’s going to go (my mother, after multiple false starts, and a couple of genuine attempts, eventually succeeded in that endeavor) no matter what. And I usually cite Japan (where, by strange coincidence, I spent much of my formative years) and move on. That said, I recently read an almost 30 year old study on suicide and coal gas in the UK that has some potential for application in the gun context. Link is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC478945/pdf/brjprevsmed00022-0018.pdf
As many of the older readers of this site may remember, kitchen ovens once ran on coal gas (high in CO), and in the late 1950s and early 1960s switched over to natural gas (low or CO free). Sticking one’s head in the oven, of course, was a great way to kill yourself back when they used coal gas — you blow out the pilot (or just don’t light it at all) and inhale. It was quick and effective. That doesn’t work as easily with natural gas. When the switch happened suicide by sticking your head in the oven didn’t just drop — suicides overall radically dropped. The hypothesis is, basically, that the ability to access something very lethal, very quickly, leads to snap decision suicides that otherwise wouldn’t occur if an easy and well-known means of killing yourself quickly and without a lot of yuck factor or time to think didn’t exist (guns, coal gas, bridges). And that’s what the logic seems to be on limiting access to guns for these folks.
Do I personally believe it is anything other than a cute argument that gun banners are disingenuously using to further their other arguments? Nope. It’s pretense, and I won’t buy into it. But do I think that suicides would probably fall off if guns weren’t immediately available in someone’s home? If the above study is accurate, then, yes, I suppose they could be expected to fall off. Even if that’s true, it’s not going to change my position on gun control, but it’s at least worth thinking about.
Here is a HARVARD study, posted in a somewhat anti gun university helping prove that suicides are not such an IMPULSIVE thing.
Four out of five people who commit suicide have attempted to kill themselves at least once previously. Joiner, Thomas. 2005. Why People Die by Suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press-google it, you will see!
http://lostallhope.com/suicide-statistics/us-methods-suicide
One of the dirty little secrets anti gunners don’t want to publicly discuss is that suicide by a firearm is 90% to 95% efficient, or that suicide by other means is much less efficient, resulting in an exponentially higher number of damaged survivors as most of the other suicide methods are from oxygen deprivation causing brain damage as a rule, or a fall from high places which is messy and not guaranteed to finish the job, overdoses scrambling the noggin pretty good, should we go describing the what the lack of a tool means for ensuring more people survive their suicides by less effective means?
Roughly stated 90-95% of attempt by, 70% by suffocation, 50% by falls from heights, 2% by overdose/poisoning are fatal.
Sad that increase in damaged survivors all resulting in states of physicality ranging from several months recovery to life time medical care required by their families and the state.
Would you choose to be reminded daily how you failed your family member and now they are vegetables, rather than mourning their loss and then getting on with your life?
So many are due to “THE OTHER VARIABLES” not because the tool existed.
“In a study of 146 adolescent friends of 26 adolescent suicide victims, teens living in single-parent families are not only more likely to commit suicide but also more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, when compared to teens living in intact families.”
Source: David A. Brent, (et. al.) “Post-traumatic Stress Disorders in Peers of Adolescent Suicide Victims: Predisposing Factors and Phenomenology.” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34 (1995): 209-215.
“Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of suicide.”
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health, Washington, D.C., 1993.
“Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent.”
Source: Jean Beth Eshtain, “Family Matters: The Plight of America’s Children.” The Christian Century (July 1993): 14-21.
“A family structure index – a composite index based on the annual rate of children involved in divorce and the percentage of families with children present that are female-headed – is a strong predictor of suicide among young adult and adolescent white males.”
Source: Patricia L. McCall and Kenneth C. Land, “Trends in White Male Adolescent, Young-Adult, and Elderly Suicide: Are There Common Underlying Structural Factors?” Social Science Research 23 (1994): 57-81
Oh whats this, an organization which specializes in identifying root causes of suicides, still waiting for anti’s to explain again why they dont identify a tool as a root cause? Oh thats right, actual facts from experts is ignored as it doesn’t meet you antis agenda of hate!
http://www.suicide.org/suicide-causes.html
Of course we see in 2005 how there were around 800,000 attempts at suicide in the US,
http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html
So based on the antis claims, the number of suicides attempted in 1991 should have been roughly 2.21% a year based on the increase in civilian firearms divided by number of years (42%/19 years) or 30.95% lower in 1991 to roughly paralell the increase in law abiding civilians firearms.
Having a hard time finding that number for 1991, but since we know the approximate survival rates of the methods used, one should get a close approximation
So we see in…
1991 43.3% of suicides used a firearm (90% fatal) ? total attempts 12.2 rate = 30,766 suicides
2001 55.1% of suicides used a firearm (90% fatal) 750,000 total attempts
2005 52.1% of suicides used a firearm (90% fatal) 800,000 attempts
2010 50.5% of suicides used a firearm (90% fatal) ? attempts 38,364 suicides
Hmmm. we don’t see a direct correlation to % of firearms increased in civilian hands and suicides, much less attempts, and GASP we actually see a reduction in suicide attempts even as the % and numbers of firearms are increasing dramatically!
43.3% to 50.5% = 7.2% increase, yet we have a 42% increase in firearms in the US during the same time, hence no correlation to firearms ownership to suicides much less suicide attempts
Based on the normal rate we should see 1991 attempted suicides to equal 650,000, and 2010 should equal 850,000.
650,000/252,171,000 x 100k = 257.76 suicide attempt rate per 100k people 1991
850,000/309,330,000 x 100k = 274.78 suicide attempt rate per 100k people 2010
Wow in fact the rate of suicide attempts is similar at 6.6% increase, but since facts show since the ongoing war and the increase # of soldiers committing suicide and the baby boomers reaching the age where their largest ever age subgroup of Americans will commit higher suicide rates, geez, you antis are going to have an awful hard time lying that guns cause suicides.
Oh what’s this, a review by the CDC showing the suicide rates of 35-64 yr olds between 1999-2010
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6217a1.htm?s_cid=mm6217a1_w
How is it, that guns were the smallest increase of all the methods, what with a 42% increase in civilian arms, hmmm!
Method (year) # / rate (year) # / rate / % change
Firearm (1999) 7,634 / 7.2 (2010) 10,393 / 8.3 / 14.4%
Poisoning (1999) 3,202 / 3.0 (2010) 4,722 / 3.8 / 24.4%
Suffocation (1999) 2,412 / 2.3 (2010) 4,934 / 4.1 / 81.3%
Other (1999) 1,195 / 1.1 (2010) 1,705 / 1.4 / 22.5%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Geez, US is #33 in suicide rates, behind 32 other GUN ban countries, how enlightening!
Don’t forget to lock up the car keys. I am quite positive a percentage of fatal (or otherwise) car deaths are by a snap decision to end it all by means of speed and bridge abutment. But they are listed as fatal accidents almost invariably. Unless there’s a note, I suppose.
OK, if “stray guns” show up at my back door I’m not going to turn them in to be destroyed, I’ll give them a good home with regular cleaning and plenty to eat.
You beat me to it!
We need a gun shelter to house all those stray guns until they can be placed in a loving home.
I already have one of those!
Half of those “failed hangings” were auto-erotic asphyxiations
Why are we (as a society) endlessly obsessed with saving every life? Your life is your own, do with it as you please. Suicide is a personal choice, perhaps not a good one, or even motivated by clinical or psychological issues that may be solved otherwise, but still a choice. I have known people who took there own life and it is sad, but they chose that path for whatever reason. Why does our society endlessly blather on about trying to save everyone from this or that? Life is dangerous, no of us are getting out alive. People die everyday, some by choice, others not. Fact of life. We cannot control that. You can control whether you die from smoking or poor eating habits or even hangliding (just don’t do it). But ultimately we all pass on and often we cannot control the how or when. Anyway, liberals want to stop suicides by firearm but has anyone of them said anything about the tragedy of drug overdoses, etc? I’ll bet that claims a heck of a lot more lives than firearms, but that’s ok with them right? Because they are all for legalization of drugs but in the same breath want to strip honest people of gun ownership all in the name of saving lives. Total hypocrisy! Hypocritical on two counts because they press for legalization of drugs in the name of personal liberty but would gladly seize someone else’s liberty regarding guns. They wear me out with their emotionally driven drivel.
Wheelgun
+1
I’m pretty sure, being the control freaks they are, most are against drug legalization as well.
Nice try, but give up on trying to lump all things together simply because you disapprove of them.
Robert writes “… But the idea that the Columbine and Newtown spree killers were “public suicides”—as opposed to, say, spree killers—-is a strange stretch.”
Newton and Columbine may not fit but …
I have been pondering whether or not many mass shootings should be classified as suicides. I’m not an expert on suicide though I have known and dealt a few people that have taken their own life. Those experiences have caused me to think this is valid. So, if I’m wrong here I’m willing to be corrected, with facts (please).
It seems that most suicides have a ‘bitter complaint’ aspect to them. That is, the person committing suicide blames other people or entities for making their life so bad it isn’t worth living anymore. Casting the blame against those somehow perceived as perpetrating grievous, unforgivable acts against them is a way of getting revenge for maltreatment… “Now you’ll be sorry”.
It’s their ‘Statement’ to the world: “This is YOUR FAULT ”
Given the that most mass shooters take their own life after a horrendous act (“now everyone will pay attention to me” ) it seems logical to categorize these acts as suicide.
Yes or no?
At best (worst?) it’s murder – suicide. But the crimes are so heinous that adding the word “suicide” belittles the evil and demeans the victims. IMHO.
Exactly. I found the “rebranding” of these mass shootings as “suicides” offensive and self-serving. A suicide bomber’s intent is not to commit suicide. It is to kill as many people as possible. Who cares what sort of “complaint” mass murderers have? The victims are just as dead.
I wish they would only be less selfish and declare their intention by starting with themselves first.
C’mon. YOU first, then you can do me!
I disagree.
A close friend of mine chose “every pill in the house” as an exit last year. I also had my own dealings with severe depression several years ago after a divorce. I know from knowing this close friend’s good nature and from my own experiences that the difference between “suicide” and “murder-suicide” is the difference between just wanting to get off the ride vs. using your pain as an excuse to take others with you. It’s the same difference as people who carry firearms for self-protection and for the ability to intervene on behalf of others vs. people who carry firearms to threaten, intimidate or hurt people for fun or personal gain.
People who are already hurting enough to consider suicide don’t need to be lumped in with spree killers or even people who take their families with them. We owe it to the good people of the world who are struggling to find reasons to keep going to make that distinction.
So what happened to the “I am not Trayvon Martin’ post? I got the New Post email? I want to read that one since I am not Trayvon either. Nor am I George Zimmerman either but that is a whole other conversation. Will it be reposted?
There were two “I Am Not Trayvon” posts, believe it or not. Nick rightly reckoned the first one wasn’t gun enough. The second one, I reckon, is. But then I wrote it. Coming to a web browser near you soon.
This is why I like TTAG – customer service!
Is the suicide problem in Napa about the guns, or is it about Napa?
Is there too much Napa wine consumed by depressed people with guns?
Alcohol and firearms can be a fatal combination anywhere, even in Napa.
OK – I promise that my guns will be safe that day. Safe from being taken away and safe from going out and committing violence on their own. I will also “remove from circulation unwanted or unused firearms” in my possession. (As it turns out that would be none.)
If “90 percent of those who survive a suicide attempt, by any means, never attempt suicide again” then how can they even pretend that removing firearms from circulation is anything other than a permanent solution to a temporary problem?
Which is what suicide is.
And now… you don’t even have the right to kill yourself, you must stay alive and continually absorb the liberal progressive propaganda and like it.
No. They don’t want you to have the right to kill yourself, true, but it’s because only the STATE has the right to kill you. Which they intend to do, at some point.
Translation from English anti-gun prop to English:
• To increase awareness of the importance of gun safety.
People need to know guns are dangerous.
• To remove from circulation unwanted or unused firearms from those who wish to tender them. These firearms would no longer be subject to theft, misuse or accidental discharge.
Support Gun buybacks at taxpayer expense.
• To publicize the Sheriff’s Office’s ongoing program of receiving firearms and ammunition at any time year-round.
Please give your unwanted guns and ammo to the Sheriff’s office. Ignore the Sheriff’s criticism of your actions.
• To provide trigger locks and/or cable locks to county gun-owners who wish them.
Put these locks on your guns because you are not responsible with your guns and we want you to lock these up. If a criminal breaks in, ask them to pause for a moment while you take the lock off.
• To highlight the fact that suicide is the major source of firearms deaths in Napa County. Removing stray guns may help prevent suicides.
People are actually using guns to commit suicide. They do not have the right to kill themselves and since we haven’t been successful in removing all guns, we need to remove as many as we can under these pretenses.
• To provide a forum for strong, positive public interaction with local law enforcement agencies.
We need to get sheriff’s, LEOs, and populace all on the same page that guns are bad and we need to get rid of them.
This IDIOT is in CALIFORNIA,what do you expect? The land of LIBATARDS.
Betcha,he ,like most the LIBS Know ZIP about firearms.’HEY CAN WE TALK ABOUT NUCLEAR SCIENCE,CAUSE I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT AND I WOULD LIKE TO GIVE YOU MY OPINION.
Cool.
The remainder of the article aside, it’s a fallacy to compare suicide rates in the US with suicide rates in Japan, regardless of the means of committing said suicide. Cultural views of suicide are vastly different between the two nations, making any comparison between the two apples and oranges.
That’s exactly the point. The means (guns, pills, acceleration due to gravity, etc.) are not where we should be spending our time. Social and personal factors are much more important.
“…gun control as ‘gun safety.’”
CA has been the Petri dish for this cancerous movement for quite a while. Currently, AG Kamala Harris and her fellow big city Democrat friends in the Legislature are falling all over themselves to lead the charge to civilian disarmament in the name of “public safety”.
The rest of the national grabbers association will no doubt soon follow the lead of these CA grabbers.
They want to commandeer the term gun safety so we can never say we’re promoting gun safety by teaching proper use of firearms etc… They get a two for one, they’ll be able to say “The NRA doesn’t care about gun safety.” Which will mean both gun control and actual gun safety by then so the masses will have no idea wtf is going on. Clueless suburban mothers that believe in the RKBA and at the same time believe people should be properly educated in firearms will vote for some liberal yoyo who she thinks is talking about making sure people lock up their guns etc… when they really mean they want to absolutely destroy the 2A as far as the courts will let them.
Might I suggest we come up with our own “awareness days” to respond to this? I suggest “Hose up the exhaust pipe day”. Also in the running, “a sh!t ton of pills from the medicine cabinent day,” “kick a grizzly bear in the taint day,” and “auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong day,” (the last one would come with paphlets demonstrating proper technique)
I’m all for the grabbers getting a ‘fall from high place awareness day’. I think they should absolutely pick and day and jump from a high place.
What Kamala Harris,Diane Feinstein Barbra Boxer and all the rest are doing is conducting acts of TREASON against the citizens of America under the laws of the Bill of Rights,the 2nd Amendment and the Constitution.”the RIGHTS of the PEOPLE to KEEP and BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” .So they STEP ALL OVER these truths and no one SUES them. The 2nd Amendment Foundation sued Successfully the State of Illinois and the Supreme Court gave the state till June 19 th to enact both conceal and open carry regulations or face Court Mandated Constitutional Carry.They are begrudgingly complying .We need to support the NRA,GOA and especially the 2ND Amendment Foundation to SUE Calif,New York, and all other States and there self appointed gun grabbers who are “Personally” going to make it “Their Mission” to unarm America and completely go against our Constitutional RIGHTS not Privilege to own and’HELLO’ BEAR ARMS.Which means CARRY.
The Best defense is an Offense and I believe we need to go ON ATTACK on gun grabbers and start SUEING them and Prosecuting them for Unconstitutional Acts against our nations Laws,Who are they and Where do they get off.They don’t have the Right to block freedom of speech or block the RIGHT to BEAR ARMS.Some of them ,not us ,going to Jail should get their attention.
I believe we need to support the 2nd Amendment Foundation and contact them about putting these Self Righteous Political B..tards on the defensive ,like they have done in Colorado with the recall elections.
Also we need to contact our state Dept of Ethics on the unscrupulous ways these people use FRAUD and DECIET to pass these illegal regulations.
They have completely overstepped their office powers and need to realize they report to us ,we don’t report to them.
Wouldn’t it be nice if gun grabbing libtards (democrats) just killed themselves.
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