Men’s Rights activists like to remind people that men commit suicide far more often than women.
But that’s not because men are many times more miserable than women. In fact, women are far more likely to attempt suicide than men. They simply don’t succeed at it as often as men do.
The reason for this is simple: men tend to choose more lethal methods of suicide than women. And that often means guns. Indeed, most gun deaths in the US are the result of suicide, not murder.
Could we reduce the number of suicides by making guns harder to get hold of? A new study in the American Journal of Public Health suggests the answer is yes.
Researchers Michael D. Anestis and Joye C. Anestis from the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg looked at the effect four different kinds of gun control legislation — waiting periods, universal background checks, gun locks, and open carrying regulations — had on suicide rates, finding that
[e]ach law was associated with significantly lower firearm suicide rates and the proportion of suicides resulting from firearms. In addition, each law, except for that which required a waiting period, was associated with a lower overall suicide rate. Follow-up analyses showed a significant indirect effect on overall suicide rates through the proportion of suicides by firearms, indicating that the reduced overall suicide rate was attributable to fewer suicide attempts, fewer handguns in the home, suicide attempts using less lethal means, or a combination of these factors. States that implemented any of these laws saw a decreased suicide rate in subsequent years, whereas the only state that repealed 1 of these laws saw an increased suicide rate.
This isn’t the only study suggesting that restricting access to firearms could dramatically lower suicide rates.
A 2013 study by researchers Justin Briggs and Alex Tabarrok at George Mason University found that in the United States from 2000 to 2009, each “percentage-point decrease in household gun ownership leads to between 0.5 and 0.9 percent fewer suicides.”
And the effect has been seen in other countries as well. Australia saw an 80 percent reduction in suicides by firearm after adopting stricter gun control laws and instituting a large-scale gun buyback program in the 1990s; there was no rise in suicides by other means.
This last finding may strike some as the most puzzling one. If someone is intent on killing themselves but no longer has a firearm in the house, wouldn’t they just attempt suicide in some other way? Surprisingly the answer is generally “no.”
As Briggs and Tabarrok noted in a Slate piece explaining their findings,
contrary to the “folk wisdom” that people who want to commit suicide will always find a way to get the job done, suicides are not inevitable. Suicides are often impulsive decisions, and guns require less forethought than other means of suicide—and they’re also deadlier.
MRAs who are serious about reducing the number of male suicides — not just using male suicide stats as a cheap debating point — need to start talking seriously about gun control.
Here’s a video from VOX with more information on the subject:
@ikanreed
Who can that be? Let’s see now, shall we?
1. The citizens of Montreal and Toronto wanting revenge on Rooshy boy for laying waste to their cities.
2. The Jooz, Miss Sarkeesian is Jooish so she probably called up her ZOG (Google it) friends to crush the Revolution and enforce SJW/Mangina-ist repression. (After she got her ass handed to her at those gaming awards)
3. Various SJWs and Manginas who’ve learned to hack and want blood.
4. All of the above.
@Pandapool:
Looks like in the US it’s mostly men that own guns, although it evens out a bit when you talk about whether a person has guns in their household. I don’t think great statistics exist, though, because I think there are laws against gun owner registries. Score one for the modern NRA.
But generally speaking, like in the UK, in the US men tend to use more “final” suicide methods like guns and therefore tend to die more often as a result of suicide attempts.
@rugbyyogi:
Adding to Pandapool, and echoing the OP, women actually “attempt” suicide more often. It’s just that they don’t tend to actually die from the attempt as often.
The only “point” MRAs have regarding suicide is that there is a gender difference in suicide, and men tend to die more often as a result. Past that, they seem incapable of looking at the stats for “why” and how to address it, claiming that it must be because of feminism somehow. Or they just bring up the stat to appeal to a general idea of men “suffering” without going into specifics in order to legitimize the idea of an MRM in the first place.
The topic is fraught with difficulty in the US, far more than I used to realize. The NRA has morphed into an extremely powerful lobbying organization and has basically set the tone of debate with regard to gun control for the past few decades. Politicians can’t even talk about gun control properly without the NRA whipping up crowds of angry and scared gun owners like Redditors faced with the possibility of a hate sub being banned.
All that bullshit about the latest powerful Democrat wanting to take away your guns and cart you off to FEMA camps really takes its toll.
@Alan
That’s why I suggested the different wording. The first way makes it seem that men overall attempt suicide more while the other is more nuanced and doesn’t imply men are more suicidal than any other gender.
@Fnoicby
Actually it’s quite a nasty business and I don’t approve of it. You need to get a botnet of hacked computers that can be remotely controlled to keep accessing the site. It’s a form of cyber-vandalism that affects legitimate Internet use. Oh, and it’s illegal.
The botnet they’re using was probably already in use. It’s done by putting viruses on peoples’ computers which then take them over without the user knowing about it. Nowadays with always on DSL, it’s not always obvious that it’s happening. The machines doing it belong to innocent people around the world who have no idea what’s going on.
Pretty sordid business really. It’s why you should always use an anti-virus program or get a Mac or use Linux (They’re not so easy to hack into).
@Pandapool
It was @NickNameNick who used “gun-nut” <a href="https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/09/02/could-gun-control-drastically-cut-male-suicide-rates/comment-page-1/#comment-804162"here.
Second try.
@Pandapool
It was @NickNameNick who used “gun-nut” here.
@Kirby
That’s a good point. My household has guns but they’re my father’s. He has the key and the gun cabinet is in his room.
I guess what should be looked into is who has the most immediate access to guns in a household, who actually knows where the guns are, who knows how to handle the gun, etc. If it’s more men than any other gender, that may explain why guns are the choice method in suicide than any other method.
The data already shows the more contact someone has with a gun, the more likely they die by a gun so it seems that if men tend to commit suicide more often with a gun, they would likely be in the majority for easy access to guns.
Almost as if we care more about actually helping men and boys than they do, or something. Weird, feminists not wanting hyperdominance over all mannists everywhere?
@weirwoodtreehugger
I totally agree – they can’t actually work towards real change in gun policy, or state that regulation is important (as a movement – individuals may vary). Progressive policies include icky social justice things, and for a lot of them, they see feminism as the very root of progressive thought.
Lower taxes (taxes are unfairly biased to take men’s wealth, whereas women get all the breaks!), more guns (guns are super manly!), fewer regulations (rules are just what tie men down!). Libertarianism, right-wing rhetoric, Christian Dominionism, Objectivism – MRA ‘philosophy’ is boiling away with those things in the same stew.
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view2/3747195/rabbit-stew-o.gif
Yeah, I’d say “gun nut” is pretty ableist. Best if we avoid it.
@Hipsterminator / ikanreed
You missed one!
5. False flag! He’s DDOSing himself to try to make it look like he’s being unfairly persecuted by dem feministas! Are there no depths too low for those depraved females?
Also lizard people somehow, probably.
I’m putting these petitions here so please it would be greatly appreciated to sign and share these.
https://www.change.org/p/ban-ki-moon-get-justice-for-victims-of-mass-rape-in-tabit-darfur
https://www.change.org/p/protect-women-worldwide-4
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/two-sisters-sentenced-rape-demand-justice-india-womens-rights
@Pandapool:
Well, according to this Gallup poll, three times as many men as women claim personal ownership of firearms. So that’s a thing. Maybe that implies that men would tend to have the greater access, since the guns are technically “theirs”?
I’ve already signed the one about the sisters in India, it’s been doing the rounds on facebook. Though what worries me is that those girls want to return to their village where they’ll be in danger for the rest of their lives. Even if their ‘sentence’ can’t be carried out, that won’t make them safe from cast violence.
@Kirby
There we go! If the poll is reliable, 3x men claim ownership of guns so men have 3.5x more successful suicide rates. The .5x is likely the other violent methods, like trains and such.
You know what we should do? Promote less lethal methods of self defense: Tasers, pepper spray, etc. That should reduce the number of guns in the home, which will reduce gun related accidents and deaths. I mean, we have tasers that shoot out prongs now. Why do you need to use a more likely lethal method of defense when you can just shock them, right? That’s the #1 defence to owning a gun RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW.
Put a higher tax on bullet and just make tasers in camo and have Batman promote them and BAM! More men owning tasers. I mean, Batman is manly and badass and HE doesn’t use guns. Don’t you want to be like Batman? He’s rich and gets all the ladies and he doesn’t kill people.
Use a taser.
Sleep darts would also probably work.
What? A simple, practical, workable solution to the most “successful” type of suicide attempt there is? What are you, a FEMINIST?
Of COURSE the menzers won’t want to give up all their sweet, sweet bang-bang guns. Because then what would they have to keep women in the kitchen making them sammitches with?
(Or for that matter: a reason to claim men have more sadz than women, because MOAR SUICIDEZZZZZZ!)
Sorry for throwing this off topic, but I found this while browsing:
http://news.yahoo.com/this-california-law-is-helping-men-213035804.html
Small snippet from the article:
Just… ugh. I’m going to shower with a Brillo Pad now.
@Scildfreja
I thought of that one…. for about four seconds. There’s 2 problems there.
1. He would need to be very smart to know how to set something like that up. Alternatively he could be very rich and pay someone in bitcoins to do it. (It’s a job for the Darknet). How much did he make off his World Tour again?
2. He would need to be very stupid to actually do it. With CloudFlare investigating, he would be caught quickly, possibly be arrested and his site would be shut down.
Then again, we’re not talking great minds here.
Also get rid of guns for police officers. A mild form of pepper spray that won’t cause any sort of permanent damage is all the deserve.
Sissy
read the article and then read the comments and now I wish I had a table to flip right now but here’s a gif instead.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18k5j9rhteyn0gif/original.gif
@Hipsterminator,
He’s ‘bright’ enough to try, and has plenty of reddit/4chan-friends capable of it. Conspiracy theories, go!
As for gun regulation … of course guns should be regulated. Yet another one of those things I wonder why we’re having a conversation on in the 21st century. Blegh.
@Hipsterminator, excellent points, of course you are right, sigh. I just got excited that SOMEONE was doing SOMETHING about Doosh V. I wonder how the Montreal police investigation into his doxxing those women is going.
On-topic:
There’s also the Israeli Defense Force experience with suicide-by-gun. They instituted a policy that troops could not take their guns home on the weekends (previously, they’d permitted to do so). Weekend suicide rates plummeted, while weeknight suicide rates remained constant (resulting in a significant drop in overall rates, as well).
There’s two major ‘types’ of suicide motivation–ongoing depression and as a reaction to specific life-trauma. The latter (say, the loss of a spouse or a child) produces a temporary grief–the key word being temporary. If you make it through the worst of that period, then you are more likely to focus on moving on–so delaying suicide there is obviously going to help.
And it helps in the other class, too. My wife suffers from depression, and has told me that even when she might have been suicidal, there’s a weird feedback effect at play. Depression robs you, among other things, of motivation. There’s a fairly tight zone where the depression is strong enough to goad you into acting, and simultaneously weak enough to not make it seem not worth the effort. So if you are pushed through the ‘dark night of the soul’ by anything–even mere inconvenience–you can come out the other side and keep going. Gun possession both lowers the effort AND cuts down on delay; a fatal consequence for someone suffering a brief window of suicidal predisposition.
*********
It’s not a ‘joke’ image; it isn’t meant for comedy or humor. It’s an artistic representation of the fact that guns in a home make it vastly more likely for someone in the home to die by gunfire.
Finally:
Glockslinger: You could at least tell us a bit more about that ‘landmark’ study you cite, since David cited several that came to different conclusions.
…So, was just using the term “gun-nut” the only thing anyone besides Alan took away from my comments…? -_-
I’ll admit I didn’t really think too much about whether it was ableist or not and apologize for its usage – I’d have no issue using the term “gun-fetishist” instead. Just as long as it doesn’t become another semantic discussion about a single word or phrase, please – I’ve had enough of those on FB already over something as pointless as using “trope” and “cliche” interchangeably (God forbid!).
@NickNamedNick
We have a strict no ableist language policy so of course someone is going to mention it, like the one person who noticed.