One of the most amusing aspects of the gun debate is watching gun nuts profess to be experts in a wide variety of areas that they have no clue about. I'll concede that most gun fanatics know the names of all the different parts of a gun, but they tend to be pretty ignorant outside of that small realm.
Which is why so many pro-gunners end up saying dumb things like "people who want to kill themselves will find a way to do it no matter what the means". This ,of course, goes against what experts on suicide have found in study after study -- for example, see the links from the Harvard School of Public Health below. Really, it says more about the pro-gunners than it does about suicide -- it shows that most pro-gun advocates really are not interested in the facts, they will simply say anything in order to support their political views.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/
Most efforts to prevent suicide focus on why people take their lives. But as we understand more about who attempts suicide and when and where and why, it becomes increasingly clear that how a person attempts--the means they use--plays a key role in whether they live or die.
"Means reduction" (reducing the odds that an attempter will use highly lethal means) is an important part of a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention. It is based on the following understandings (click on each to learn more):
Many suicide attempts occur impulsively during a crisis.
Intent isn't all that determines whether an attempter lives or dies; means also matter.
90% of attempters who survive do NOT go on to die by suicide later.
Access to firearms is a risk factor for suicide.
Firearms used in youth suicide usually belong to a parent.
Reducing access to lethal means saves lives.
Firearm access can be a politically-charged topic. This website, however, is designed to introduce a non-controversial, "lethal means counseling" approach to reducing a suicidal person's access to firearms and other lethal means.
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