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Comment by aatd86 | Hacker News Reader

Access to weapons is also a problem. That could have been a transient event he would have recovered from.

In my life I met two people who survived botched suicide attempts without using firearms. When someone decides to do it, they will try, and there are things worse than dying.

> When someone decides to do it, they will try, and there are things worse than dying.

Science disagrees. Many attempts are impulsive and a minor hurdle can be enough to stop them.

To have been stopped by a minor hurdle one must necessarily have started. It seems like you mean to disagree with the idea that "there are things worse than dying" and I expect they meant being maimed can be thought of as worse than being successful, due to the long-term personal consequences.

This argument makes sense semantically, but not in practice. Consider these two people

"I should kill myself" grabs gun and fires

"I should kill myself. I'll go buy some poison pills tomorrow." feels better the next day and never actually does

I cannot believe you actually wrote that. With your comment it seems like you're saying that it's pointless to hide the guns ie not keep them close. But then you also said that those two people survived. Have you heard the saying: Opportunity makes a thief. It's similar here. Except that it's not a theft, it's a suicide. I wouldn't dare to write what you wrote, knowing that someone might read it and take the cue to _not_ do any precautions before their trip.

Yes, when I had a bad concussion from a car rollover, I had bouts of suicidal thought. I got rid of my double edge razor blades and kept my knives away. As my brain healed so did my mind. Better not to have terminal condition tools around if you don't need them.

Couldn’t agree more. I’m disappointed that I didn’t include this in the original comment because it was definitely in the back of my mind. As far as I know roughly 2/3rds of the firearm deaths in the US are suicides.

If anything this event further radicalized me into the gun control argument. I have shot a few and they’re fun and all, but at the end of the day it’s impossible to detach the form from the function. They are killing machines. Something as powerful as a firearm should absolutely have a regular psychiatric evaluation attached to it if you insist on owning one.

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