University Diaries » Suicide by Gun: 99.44% Pure.

No, that’s Ivory Soap. Suicide attempt by gun is however 90% sure to kill you, which is also an impressively high figure.

[A]ccess to a gun made my dad eight times more likely to die by suicide, primarily because firearms are the most lethal suicide method, according to a 2020 study by researchers at Stanford University. When a gun isn’t available, suicide attempts are typically “not fatal, and most people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a future suicide,” the researchers wrote. Owning a gun, in other words, can turn an intrusive thought into a death much faster and more effectively. It is impossible, then, not to place some of the blame for my dad’s death on the gun, and to wonder if he would be alive now if he hadn’t inherited it from his grandfather thirty years before...

In the early 1990s, the rates of gun-induced suicides and homicides in America were about equal. But in the three decades since, gun homicides have fallen sharply while the gun suicide rate has remained steady. In 2022, the rate of suicides involving guns in the United States reached the highest level since officials began tracking it more than 50 years ago...

Of suicide attempts using a gun, nearly 90% result in death, while only 4% of suicide attempts by other means are fatal. Because suicidal crises are often short-lived, restricted access to the most lethal self-harm methods saves lives. In states with the strongest firearm safety laws—including background checks, waiting periods, and secure storage requirements—gun suicides fell over the past two decades, while states with the weakest laws experienced a 39% increase…

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=79392

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Archives

Categories