“There have been almost 1,000 seizures at this point and in many of the affidavits you read these stories of how desperate people feel. The problem with guns is there’s no going back from a gunshot to the head. If you take an overdose of pills, you can change your mind and call for help.” – Dr. Michael A. Norko, Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services director of forensic services in More guns seized by state since Sandy Hook [at stamfordadvocate.com]
I feel safer already….
“Since Sandy Hook, a lot of people are saying, `Is there somebody in our lives who has guns and behavioral issues?’ ”
Nope, nothing eerily national socialist about that…
Yeah. Reads like California’s new law.
Is there anyone in our lives that has rope… or a car… or a knife… or OTC medicine… or a belt… or a bridge nearby…
Confiscate all the bridges!
No no comrade bridges are fine. Confiscate the land under the bridge or the gravity that pulls you to it. We as a world suck at root cause.
Umm. Workin’ on it.
Aren’t “they” building a huge net under the Golden Gate bridge to “catch” all of the jumpers, now? Google “golden gate net system”. Too bad former California Democratic Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco could not be “confiscated” in time. Wait…
Combine that with the TSA’s “If you see something, say something” campaign, and we’ve gone past the Third Reich to the Stasi, where half the country was informing on the other half.
You can learn your way out of being ignorant… but being stupid seems to last forever.
No. Ignorance is a choice. Sometimes one can trip over information they can’t deny and chose to stop ignoring the truth, but it’s rare.
It’s only a choice if you’re aware of the ignorance. If one is not willing to consider the possibility of ignorance, there is truly no hope. That’s the pitfall that MDA and others of that ilk fall. They believe their intellect is higher than it actually is and that their “reasoning” is infallable, prudent, absolute, and unquestionable.
I don’t believe these people are stupid, they know what they’re doing, but they are willfully ignorant. They know what they want to know and nothing more.
Dph- that is a disease effecting the whole country. It is the only way the biased-news industry can survive.
“If you take an overdose of pills, you can change your mind and call for help.”
Not always, and not all gunshot wounds to the head are fatal. Consider the fate of Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Sobel, of Band of Brothers fame.
Seems to me we have a lot of headshot survivors in the real world who go into politics.
So it’s fine to swallow a whole bottle of pills because there may be some sort of magical reset/refund button like on a vending machine. It’s no wonder why people with mental issues feel hesitant to seek help. If this is how this mental health administrator thinks, I wouldn’t believe for a second he has a remotely orbital understanding of mental health, regardless of whether I owned a gun or not.
But nobody is coming for your guns. [/sarc]
FOAD
What a sick bastard. He would prefer people jump off tall buildings or douse themselves in gasoline to meet their maker. If a person is serious about suicide, they will do it. My sister did it with a 10 foot length of hose stretched from the exhaust pipe of a truck into the cab. Should we outlaw tall buildings, gasoline, and hoses. Perhaps we should outlaw ropes, wires, and sharp objects. Perhaps we should fence off all large bodies of water and cliffs. Trust me, I know this: If someone is really committed to the act of suicide, there is not a thing you can do to stop them other than locking them away in a padded room.
Did anyone bother to read the story at the link? I hardly find the examples given as dangerous people but required filler for an anti-gun narrative.
Yeah, I read it, and I can see how we might wish to get some of them clear of their guns, of course that would be after due process, a chance to defend themselves in court, and some manner of finite, defined sentence. Nasty neighbors and a judge who is an idiot with no concept of the US Constitution, together making up and enforcing their own unwritten feel-good laws do not make me comfortable.
1. People can be shot in the head and live, espeaically the forehead, bullets can bounce off the skull even at close range.
2. People who take pills and call for help aren’t serious about death, it’s a cry for help. But, when you put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger you’re very serious about suicide. And if you’re that serious, nothing will stop you.
Because there is somehow a correlation between ready access to guns and suicide rates (see: Japan). Ugh, the ignorance of basic social science, it burns. Suicide rates are cultural, no correlation to the tools available.
Suicide is pretty straightforward, either you really want to succeed, or you want people to believe you were ‘really’ trying – as a cry for help/attention/whatever.
People who really want to die, but are just bad at choosing effective ways to off themselves, will continue to try and try again, until they succeed. The other ‘attempts’? They were never really committed to the act, except for maybe a second. They chose a method that would give them the chance to be saved, because they were temporarily depressed/whatever. Those are the only people who will not go right back to the plate to take another swing.
Anyone, it seems, can get the police to confiscate anyone else’s guns in the “Constitution State.” Oh, sure, the article assures us (or tries to scare us, depending on the reader’s predeliction), the owner could get them back, in a year, after hiring a lawyer,who had better not be a hoplophobe or he may neglect to inform his client that it’s even a possibility.
Your rights, you will not need them.
A gun that works all the time is an ASSET not a PROBLEM.
Easier to pass gun laws than address the societal problems or mental health issues.. That’s why he’s so smart and we are aren’t ..
Who the hell are these people that they think THEY have the right to intervene when someone wants to die? It’s none of their damn business. More Nanny State mentality.
I know right. Seems to only way to die around here is to shoot at cops or go on a mass shooting spree.
You just might be on to something right there.
Wow… ignorant would be a polite way to address this guy. So let me get this straight, people who down a bottle of pills or cut themselves are somehow better off because we might be able to pump their stomach or get them to a hospital in time to save their lives? WTF? Im pretty sure they wanted to kill themselves just as badly as the guy who put a glock19 in his mouth. Their chosen method doesn’t change how deeply depressed, alone, and hopeless they felt, and pretending like they are better off because they chose the wrong tool to do the job, without addressing the reason they got to where they were only increases the likelihood that they will try again and maybe succeed.
This guy went to school for 7+ years to “help” people with mental health issues and the best he has is, well some ways of trying to kill yourself are better than others because you are more likely to get a second chance. What a waste, why doesn’t he focus on trying to uhh I dont know, work with his patients so that they never get to the point that they are so hopeless that chomping on a 147grain hollowpoint is the only way they see out of it all. Or better yet, cut the crap with the whole guns as the boogeyman and actually focus on encouraging people who are struggling to seek help without fear that they will be stripped of their rights without due process. By this guys logic we should all be bound up in padded rooms to protect us from ourselves.
I love the quote of the day posts on TTAG. Short, to the point and very educational.
Shows what people like this guy really believe
I believe it is hard to call for help dangling from a rope too.
If only the government had confiscated all of Robin Williams’ belts, he would still be with us today.
Or not.
You know what? Screw this guy. I had a friend who took his life with pills, he did change his mind and called for help, that help was too late.
Tell his family it was safer for him to have pills than a gun (and yes, those pills were prescribed by a doctor). Instead of worrying about which method a troubled person will attempt to use to end their life and continue the culture war on guns, why don’t we have a culture war on feeling ashamed if you are depressed or your child/sibling/friend has mental issues.
I wonder if his family wasn’t so worried about appearances if the denial they had about his problems would have been removed enough to allowed them to see how troubled he was and get him the help he obviously needed.
I am convinced that if he didn’t have the pills, he would have found another way. I personally didn’t know how troubled he was until afterwards, but it became obvious during the aftermath just how much everyone around him who did know suppressed it all. I wasn’t close enough to have likely been able to have any influence but I do wish I had taken the signs I saw more seriously, perhaps just someone to talk to about it would have been enough.
Well gosh, I guess I’m going to have to do my absolute best to avoid shooting myself in the head. I’m just not sure how I made it this long without the razor-sharp political advice of Dr. Norko.
Arbitrary nonsense. Let’s define a cutoff point out of thin air and establish it as a point of no return and then compare it to guns because we don’t like guns.
The problem with cars is there’s no going back once you fall asleep in your garage with the vehicle running.
The problem with overdoses is there’s no going back once you fall asleep after you have taken the pills.
The problem with knives is there’s no going back once you loose too much blood after you slit your wrists in the bathtub.
Yes, guns can be a faster exit but the suiciders know this. If they are truly resolved they aren’t going to stop and call for help. Those people that took some pills and then called for help weren’t looking to commit suicide. They were looking for attention.
Minority Report?
In before “then I took a gunshot to the head” becomes our version of “then I took an arrow to the knee.”
It’s been said before: if someone wants to end it, they will. That being said, if someone wants to cry out for help, they may take actions that look like suicide but they think they’ll make it through and their family and friends will help. A gun shot to the head ain’t a cry for help. An overdose of pills may be a cry for help.
“The problem with guns is there’s no going back from a gunshot to the head.”
You guys can argue all you want about whether that’s true but EVERY person attempting suicide thinks that it is true. In the extremely rudimentary suicide prevention training I have had they said that people choose the circumstances of their suicide attempt, weapon, chance of being discovered, etc., based on how ambivalent they are about the attempt. Suicide rate don’t vary with gun ownership rates because people who would use a gun will find an equally reliable method for their attempt if they can’t get a gun. If this guy has any mental health training he knows this, so he is lying to progress his political agenda.
I heard about a gentleman who went out to the barn with his gun and one bullet to end it all, but the shot did not kill him. He then crawled on the ground back to the house to get a second bullet and finished the job there. This process probably took an hour. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. We need to work on the wills, not the ways.
“If you take an overdose of pills, you can change your mind and call for help.”
I changed my mind after jumping off a bridge and now I’m fine gravity just stopped.
Physicians in general have a suicide rate roughly double that of any other group. Do we really want these people judging our fitness to defend ourselves? It’s a proven but buried fact that more mental health care, especially anti-depressants, causes more suicide. Better to ban psychiatrists and pills, increase employment, improve the economy. Should cut the causes of suicide in half or better. Guns are the tool, not the motivation.
http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/01/evidence-that-more-psychiatry-means-more-suicide/
If someone wants to kill themselves, who the **** is this guy to tell them if they can or how to do it?
Didn’t you know that the foundation of our legal system–why the Constitution itself–is based on the laws laid down in the Bible? The Republican Party tells me so. And in the Bible, suicide is a mortal sin. Therefore we must save people from suicide lest they be damned to Hell for all creation. It is a moral imperative!
Well if we’re going to get ‘Biblical’ about it, there’s a whole bunch of folks you’re morally required to kill…
All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9)
A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9)
(There’s 40+ more passages about who to kill for being everything from a non-believer, to a bratty kid. throughout the OT. And there’s no NT weasling. Jesus says many times all the OT law is to be followed forever..)
“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)
Once you jump in front of a train or semi-truck, jump off of a high cliff, or drive your car into a concrete overpass at 100 mph, there is no going back.
I have to wonder if people who take a large number of pills are not really determined to kill themselves … because there are other ways that are guaranteed to work.
1-3 months: within three months you are goingg to
be able to learn popuilar songs such as Sweet Home Alabama by
Lynyrd Skynyrd. All the terrific blues vocalists as well as guitarists,
Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, B. Profiles of artist managers, their career plan, and
samppes of mmajor contract sections are also explained
in the book.