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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the 1-(800)-273-8255-National-Suicide-Prevention-Lifeline dept.

Experts and laymen have long assumed that people who died by suicide will ultimately do it even if temporarily deterred. Now Celia Watson Seupel reports at the NYT that a growing body of evidence challenges this view with many experts calling for a reconsideration of suicide-prevention strategies stressing “means restriction.” Instead of treating individual risk, means restriction entails modifying the environment by removing the means by which people usually die by suicide. The world cannot be made suicide-proof, of course. But, these researchers argue, if the walkway over a bridge is fenced off, a struggling college freshman cannot throw herself over the side. If parents leave guns in a locked safe, a teenage son cannot shoot himself if he suddenly decides life is hopeless.

Reducing the availability of highly lethal and commonly used suicide methods has been associated with declines in suicide rates of as much as 30%–50% in other countries (PDF). According to Cathy Barber, people trying to die by suicide tend to choose not the most effective method, but the one most at hand. Some methods have a case fatality rate as low as 1 or 2 percent,” says Barber. “With a gun, it’s closer to 85 or 90 percent. So it makes a difference what you’re reaching for in these low-planned or unplanned suicide attempts.” Ken Baldwin, who jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in 1985 and lived, told reporters that he knew as soon as he had jumped that he had made a terrible mistake. "From the instant I saw my hand leave the railing, I knew I wanted to live. I was terrified out of my skull." Baldwin was lucky to survive the 220 foot plunge into frigid waters. Ms. Barber tells another story: On a friend’s very first day as an emergency room physician, a patient was wheeled in, a young man who had shot himself in a suicide attempt. “He was begging the doctors to save him,” she says. But they could not.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:43AM (#156571)

    Go ahead, pull the other one.

    This study examined the increase in the rate of suicide by hanging and an apparently simultaneous decrease in the rate of suicide by firearm as hypothetical evidence that Australian males have substituted one method of suicide for another.

    This one [nih.gov]is peer reviewed, unlike the Washington post.

    The problem is getting worse even with strong gun controls.

    Deaths by suicide have reached a 10-year peak.
    The most recent Australian data (ABS, Causes of Death, 2012) reports deaths due to suicide at 2,535.
    The overall suicide rate in 2012 was 11.0 per 100,000, compared to the 2011 rate of 9.9 per 100,000

    From an actually Aussie source. [lifeline.org.au]

  • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:34AM

    by art guerrilla (3082) on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:34AM (#156599)

    i read a headline blurb that suicide among 40-65 in the US has gone up 40% in the last 7-8 years...
    not surprised, the economic crash-that-wasn't-a-crash has destroyed a lot of lives, and made a lot of misery through no fault of the people effected... *and* they are essentially powerless to reverse their fortunes...
    just another unaccounted for 'externality' in unrestrained kapitalist imperialism...

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:18PM (#156712)

    > This one is peer reviewed, unlike the Washington post.

    The study referenced in the wapo article is peer reviewed.

    The study you linked to does not say what you think it says. It only looked at suicide rates up to 1998.
    In other words that study ended rate when the gun buyback was completed.

    > From an actually Aussie source.

    I'm sorry what? You know that's not peer reviewed, right?
    Raw data without analysis is practically guaranteed to mislead.

    If these two 'refutations' are the best the pro-gun types can do, then all you've done is provide justification to distrust your reasoning.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @06:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @06:10PM (#156817)

      The buried reference was not in fact peer reviewed but self published in it's own institution's journal, then referenced elsewhere in peer reviewed journals. This is a perennial problem and anyone that has a pos-tgrad education knows it.

      According to you the fact that a 2003 paper did not use data after 1998 is not a problem.

      Raw data without analysis is practically guaranteed to mislead.

      And analysis without raw data is intended to mislead, just as you have been citing, using, and making.

      I am not a "pro-gun type" as you say. Even if I was, that is no reason to thoroughly dismiss someone's reasoning. I believe in rationality, facts, and finding answers instead of accepting what is told to me. You have given away your bigotry. That you stereotype and show prejudicial discrimination against those you perceive to not follow along with an anti-gun narrative (even though that is not even my point, just that suicide rates are shown to be independent of guns) is an ethical and logical reason to question your morality and thought process.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @08:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @08:09PM (#156873)

        The buried reference was not in fact peer reviewed but self published in it's own institution's journal, then referenced elsewhere in peer reviewed journals. This is a perennial problem and anyone that has a pos-tgrad education knows it.

        Your claim is false.
        http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/2/509 [oxfordjournals.org]
        "The Review is a refereed journal, published twice a year." [oxfordjournals.org]

        According to you the fact that a 2003 paper did not use data after 1998 is not a problem.

        Your logic is insipid. It is not a "problem," it is irrelevant to the point you were trying to make.

        I am not a "pro-gun type" as you say

        Well alrighty then.
        You are just a blatant liar.