Gun suicides outnumber murders 2 to 1. That says nothing about what the suicide rate would be if you took guns out of the picture. Someone going the gun route isn't a cry for help and obviously they don't care if it's a mess.
What else is highly effective and messy? Jumping from someplace high. There are lots of high places. I'd much prefer they go the gun route because jumpers sometimes land on someone as most such places that are readily available are in urban areas.
Suicide is a mental health issue, not a gun issue.
There's evidence that the availability of the means of going through with suicide affects how many people do it.
> Suicide in the United Kingdom declined after coal stoves were phased out, removing a means of suicide by carbon monoxide that had been available in many homes. Tylenol (or acetaminophen) overdoses in England and Wales fell by 43 percent after legislation passed requiring that the medication be sold in “blister packs” where you have to pop out each individual pill; that simple switch from big bottles was enough to save lives. When the Israeli Defense Forces stopped letting soldiers bring their guns home over the weekend, suicides fell 40 percent, primarily due to a drop in firearm suicides committed on weekends.
And if someone does decide to try to kill themselves, guns are more likely to be fatal:
> About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death. (Drug overdose, the most widely used method in suicide attempts, is fatal in less than 3 percent of cases.) Moreover, guns are an irreversible solution to what is often a passing crisis. Suicidal individuals who take pills or inhale car exhaust or use razors have time to reconsider their actions or summon help. With a firearm, once the trigger is pulled, there’s no turning back.
This isn’t true, suicide isn’t zero sum. If you remove easy ways of committing suicide, that method drops substantially, but overall suicides ALSO drop.
“ In the early 1960s, asphyxiation with domestic gas accounted for nearly half of suicides in England and Wales.3 The conversion of the British gas supply to North Sea gas, which was free of carbon monoxide, essentially eliminated domestic gas suicides in England and Wales and, moreover, was accompanied by a steep decline in the overall suicide rate (a 30% decline in England and Wales between 1960 and 1971, and a smaller decrease in Scotland), driven by the fall in gas suicides.”
Additionally, in the case specifically of guns, they’re more impactful for suicides BECAUSE they’re so effective. In the US they account for 1% of suicide attempts, but 50% of suicide deaths.
What else is highly effective and messy? Jumping from someplace high. There are lots of high places. I'd much prefer they go the gun route because jumpers sometimes land on someone as most such places that are readily available are in urban areas.
Suicide is a mental health issue, not a gun issue.