politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Seems to be a big deal when you start talking guns and mental health, but with all the fixations on "mass shootings", they lose this little stat:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
"In 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC. That figure includes gun murders and gun suicides, along with three less common types of gun-related deaths tracked by the CDC: those that were accidental, those that involved law enforcement and those whose circumstances could not be determined."
54% of those deaths were suicides. 26,368.
(43% murder, 3% "other", accidents, etc.)
Also in 2021, 38,358 men committed suicide compared to 9,825 women.
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/suicide-data-statistics.html
3.9:1, if almost 4x more women than men were dying for any reason, it would be a national crisis. "Something would have to be done!"
Mental health for men? Silence.
People aren't silent about men successfully committing suicide at a higher rate to women. You hear about it all the time. However, it isn't an issue about men being overlooked, like you imply. Women attempt suicide at a higher rate. Why didn't you discuss that? Is it being ignored?
The fact of the matter is suicide by firearm is the worst offender. Attempted suicide needs to be prevented for everyone equally, but firearm ownership should be more restricted, and there should also be tools out there to get your firearms away from you temporarily if you're feeling suicidal or depressed. Men are more likely to own firearms, which is the issue that needs addressing to fix the disparity, not men being ignored.
Real question here. I don't know how the number of attempts is calculated. If a single person attempts unsuccessfully 3 times, then is that recorded as 3 separate attempts? Or is this recording the number of unique people who have attempted suicide any number of times?
If it's the former then it may be an indicator that women prefer methods of suicide that are less likely to succeed, but it is much harder to tell how many individual women actually attempt suicide compared to men.
Also, if a person is suffering enough that they're seriously contemplating suicide, is taking that option away from them really the right thing to do? There's also the issue of any such system being abused. It's easy to imagine law enforcement using this as a way to disarm groups and individuals for political reasons.
For the first part, I'm not sure how it's counted.
For the last, I think we need legalized assisted suicide. I don't think suicide should be taken on a whim, but I do think it should be legal for people suffering, and they should have access to painless methods. They should first be checked to see if there's anything we can do to help them though. (All of this should be paid for through taxes, not by the person suffering. Elon Musk has more than enough money to cover this for everyone.)