I’m going to try very hard not to get lost in the weeds on this one. That’s easy enough when you’re bandying firearms-related statistics about. The antis are masters at taking numbers out of context to further their civilian disarmament agenda. It’s important to stay focused and clear. So let’s keep this really simple. Here’s the graphic money shot and lead from the story on gun suicides at dailycamera.com:
Gun deaths have outpaced motor vehicle fatalities in Colorado since 2009, but data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment indicate the state has passed yet another milestone in death statistics.
For the first time in 2012, suicides by firearm alone surpassed motor vehicle fatalities, with 457 Coloradans dying in fatal car crashes and 532 taking their own lives using guns.
Gun suicides experienced their biggest increase in the past 12 years between 2011 and 2012, jumping up nearly 20 percent.
The important fact to keep in mind: the United States Census Bureau pegs Colorado’s [legal] 2013 population at 5,187,582. So 532 firearms-related suicides–regrettable and tragic all—represents an extremely small percentage of Colorado’s total population. Around .0001 percent. This is not exactly what I’d call “something must be done about firearms” territory.
Especially remembering that laws designed to prevent firearms suicides can have negative unintended consequences. Like making it harder for people to own or access firearms for self defense. You know: infringing upon their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
The next part of the article examines possible reasons for the jump in CO suicides in general and firearms-related suicides in particular. It also suggests reasons for the Rocky Mountain State’s decreasing traffic fatalities. And then, deep into the article, we learn this:
The fastest rising causes of injury death in the state, in order of percentage increase, are poisonings, which includes drug overdoses; fatal falls, which predominantly affect the state’s growing senior population; and suicides.
In 2012, 673 people died from poisoning or drug overdose, 679 sustained fatal injuries from a fall, and 1,053 died from suicide, a nearly 44 percent increase since 2000 — adjusted for Colorado’s population growth.
Katharina Buchholz circles back to the firearms-related suicide stat, which she is just as well, given that we now learn more Colorado residents died from drug ODs and fall injuries than car accidents. Or firearms-related suicides. But that’s not quite the spin she puts on the new info . . .
Gun suicides didn’t take the biggest chunk of the increase. Fatal, self-inflicted gunshot wounds increased by nearly 29 percent while suicides by other means increased by nearly 64 percent. Gun-related and non-gun-related suicides are approximately equally common. While other types of suicide increased most rapidly between the years 2000 and 2001, gun suicides experienced their biggest jump between 2011 and 2012.
So even though an increase in “gun suicides” are the big story here, in reality they aren’t growing as fast as other forms of suicide. In other words, firearms aren’t the preferred means of suicide in the state and the relative death figures are declining. But that doesn’t matter, since we’re looking at raw numbers with no context for a sensationalist article.
By now, your head must be spinning. Suffice it to say, the article moves on to non-numeric “solutions.” Here be dragons.
Douglas County Coroner Lora Thomas agreed that removing guns temporarily from a suicidal person was a step that shows friends or family members cared.
The only problem is that the state—with the help of the NRA and the NSSF—aren’t hanging fire while friends and family perform a firearms-confiscating suicide intervention. In the wake of mass shootings by deranged killers the powers That Be are working to integrate the mental health care system with the FBI’s criminal background check system.
The result will be state-instigated firearms confiscations. Which will make it far less likely that people with mental health problems—who want to keep their gun rights—will seek treatment. Which will lead to an increase in the number of untreated, armed mentally ill people and, potentially, a rise in the number of firearms-related suicides.
Experts Breitzman and Thomas agreed that gun suicide, like all suicide, has a multitude of causes and many prevention strategies, none of which should be disregarded.
“For people on either side of the issue, it’s still an either-or approach,” Breitzman said.
Huh? Do they mean either the government takes the guns or not? If that’s the choice, not.
I work with a guy who loves the M1 because of the video game. He never touched one in real life until I let him see mine. I like the article, although I do have to call BS about 100% of Americans hunting in the 1770’s. I doubt the average NY, NYorker or woman hunted even then.
What was probably an attempt to slander firearms went awry when they pointed out that suicides in general rose by 64% while suicide by guns by 29%. That missing link is usually left out by antis in order to skew public opinion.
This is why 3gun, USPSA, and other action shooting sports need to be pushed. Kids play COD, BF, etc, and becomes enamored with guns in the game. Goes out and buys something or several somethings. Occasionally takes them to the range, or plinking. Eventually becomes bored unless they fall hard into the self defense aspect.
Sport, and perhaps more importantly, direct comparable competition, drives people to excel. I can compare my stage times to the best in the country and it motivates me to shoot more, practice more, get more gear. If not for the competition there would be no drive…it’s really difficult to see who’s more “operator” than someone else.
Before I started competing I would shoot with friends maybe once every couple months and I only had a handgun and a semi 22. Now I shoot minimum 2 matches per month plus practices and have a safe full of guns. And It drives me to get more guns to allow me to compete in different games.
3gun and USPSA are the closest thing to the physical manifestation of Call of Duty, and we should push it hard. I think they should start having airsoft matches 2 gun/3 gun matches at the same 3 gun events, so you can start the kids out earlier.
COD series is the only reason I want a Vector Kriss or an UMP45
I wish there were no suicides by vehicle. Too many people are killed in the process of the selfish act. They should off-themselves safely, and leave the car and firearm for their family to sell off to pay for the aftermath.
Fewer people are accidentally dying than accidentally surviving.
More interesting facts:
In the US there are between 30,000 and 40,000 suicides per year.
Over 25% of them are veterans.
Men commit suicide about 4-5x the rate of women.
White people, American Natives commit suicide at over 2x the rate of Black people, Hispanics, and Asians.
Gay people commit suicide at about 5x the rate of straight people.
It looks like if you are a demographic that large swaths of society condones and expects and instigates to be self-loathing, you have a higher chance of being suicidal. Maybe (in a very generalized sense) if liberals stopped making it ok to shame veterans, men, and white people; conservatives stopped making it ok to shame gays, then suicide rates would go down. American Natives, victims of genocide, I don’t think there’s any way to fix what was done to them.
Can you imagine the “national awareness” campaigns and the media drumbeat that would occur daily if women died on average 7 years before men instead of the other way around?
Thanks for sharing your special story Jessica, I’m sure your grandfather is looking down and very proud of the woman you have become.
Due to the fact that this gun like most modern trash has a junk plasticky receiver and a junk aluminum upper how in the world to they get off charging so much money for it. What a joke, what a rip off. I will stick to the M1A with a forged steel receiver, at least it is quality not modern made junk.
Until there are more states pass right to die laws, there will be continue to be DIY suicides.
There are circumstances that makes suicides a viable alternative. My dad had a good friend, elderly gentleman, wife had passed away, he was going blind, lived alone no children, no close relatives. Shot himself. Left the gun to my dad.
Made in New Jersey? I’d rather buy American. (sarc on)
You guys really need to grab a pc and play some ARMA. It makes everything else feel cheap.
Also Red Orchestra 2 is a little-known title that is great. If your into milsurps you’ll love it.
Oooh I’ve always wanted a lever gun.
That should read ‘.01%’ OR .0001. Not .0001%.
I find Realtree camo rather aesthetically pleasing. I would probably pick something like this up if it struck my fancy. Just like some of the colors on firearms, the point isn’t what is the point? The point is ‘just because’ or ‘why not?’ Practically speaking nothing gained functionally but if you want the look, it’s yours.
Will stick with the .45-70 thanks. A beauty though.
when i was younger, my mentor in the gun business told me a story about finding a Henry wrapped around a tree in the mountains above Helena Montana, it had seven bullets stuck in the barrel. He said that the new immigrants coming to the gold fiields up the Missouri to Fort Benton on steamboats would buy surplus Henrys thinking they really had a rifle, which proved to be pretty much worthless out on the high plains, both for protection against Indians and outlaws and hunting too. This is why Sharps and Springfield 45-70’s actually “won the West”.
It is for the swat team.