Is it your sense, given your line of work, that crimes, where the perpetrators are armed with legally owned firearms, is now a higher proportion?
Yes...and no. Sometimes the proximity to firearms feeds into the rashness of the decision to end their own life. I have no stats to support this other than antidotal (I'm not sure you can ever measure this). However, I know that this was the issue with my step-brother. He was having significant health issues and suffering from depression. One late late, he was drunk and arguing with his wife. During the height of the argument, he reached down the picked up a pistol, pointed it to his head, and pulled the trigger. Once he realized he had shot himself in the head, he showed obvious signs on regret on his face, then he died. I 100% know that had he not had his pistol, he would not have died that night. Who knows what the future would have been for him had he not done that. I do know that another form of suicide takes more effort with a higher chance of survival. Sometimes there is no stopping a suicide, sometimes rash decisions are only amplified by the ease of the trigger pull.
"Legal" = "Not prohibited" so yes, a MUCH larger of "non-prohibited" persons are committing crimes with firearms these days. A non-prohibited person with a firearm that is not listed in NCIC as stolen = legally owned firearm.Is it your sense, given your line of work, that crimes, where the perpetrators are armed with legally owned firearms, is now a higher proportion?
I suppose the spike in gun sales in 2020 could account for it if a larger portion of the gun buyers were democrats.
People who are suicidal will tend to find a way to do it. But this guy didn’t seem to be suicidal, other than in the moment, albeit the depression was probably a factor. Booze was a factor. The argument was a factor. The gun was obviously a factor. Would you have the same confidence with any other of those factors? Obviously the gun was the biggest factor. Without that how else could an instinctive action in the heat of the moment end so abruptly, conclusively? Maybe a knife? Or stepping off in front of a train if that were available?
Do you think this has changed? That lawful gun owners are now committing crimes at a greater rate?
Is meant to create panic in the sheeple…
Got it. Thanks
The gun is one of the few tools that once you pull that 8lb trigger, life will change at 1200 ft per sec. Is it the gun's fault? Of course not. It is but a hunk of steel/plastic. It is the WILL to use it that is the issue. However, that WILL may only last moments. Suicide by firearm can be completely impulsive and literally can happen as soon as you can grab it and pull the trigger. Thought to death can take just a couple of seconds. Suicide by OD takes planning (find the pills, choose the pills, or gather the pills), ingestion, absorption, then either significant illness or death. Death could take hours (may pass out quickly though). Hanging takes MUCH more planning. Choosing the means and the location, much more involved. Lets face it, impulsive people will gravitate to the quickest answer to their problem. We are seeing this with road rage, verbal disputes, etc as well. It's been a loooooooooong time since I've seen a suicide attempt, let alone completion, by knife/razor.
I've been lucky in that regard. I deal with depression (some days better than others) but I have never tended towards suicide or violence. I think the act of doing that, while at the time will be painful, the depressed person will eventually realize you did it because you care. KNowing someone cares is so huge.
Something we don’t have happen here much is suicide by train. But I suppose if you’re in a busy train station, it’s the same dynamic. A thought that only lasts a few seconds could bring about a conclusive end. Not many ways are that abrupt. You have to have the means available. Gun is near by or you happen to be at the train station or on a bridge or in a car. Or on a busy street Nd step in front of a bus.
Jumping can be another.
That night we got about a foot of snow and it was hovering around zero degrees. He wasn't driving anywhere. They fought all the time. He was prone to impulsive actions then always regretted them. Ok, not 100%. I'm 98% sure if he didn't have his pistol sitting near his couch in the middle of his drunken argument, he would have lived another day. Now, what the future held after that, I don't know.
