Gun shop owners' help sought to stop suicides

[Rob Boudrie]

It makes me sad to hear of people wanting to end their lives. All of these people need psychological help desperately, but even that doesn't help all the time.

I would suggest not quite all. There is a huge difference between someone who is suffering clinical depression committing suicide, and someone who is in the advanced stages of a terrible disease with no hope for anything except continued decline, pain and suffering.

 

[Blitz1]

MA moonbat, progressive liberal, effs are moving up to NH in droves, beware.

 

[Bob P]

"OK, so what you're telling me is if a customer comes in and asks me 'what's the best gun to use to kill myself' I shouldn't sell him one and should suggest he get help. OK, can do but what if it's a gun I've been trying to unload for a while? Hello? Hello?..."

 

[TacticalInstructor]

Suicide training

I understand the healthy skepticism about this initiative, but this effort is a non-governmental, individual-based, self-regulated attempt to reduce suicides. Isn’t that exactly what a free people prefer?
Is there something wrong with people who know/study suicidal behavior, helping educate Gunstore Owners to the telltale signs of a suicidal person? Giving the Gunstore Owner a better informed assessment regarding their choice (the sale) they already have?
Yes, some people are going to kill themselves regardless of what’s available. But suicides that involve firearms are constantly used against us, hence it is in our best interest to try reducing firearm related suicides BEFORE the heavy hand of government mandates more laws that crush our freedoms.

 

[Moderator]

But suicides that involve firearms are constantly used against us, hence it is in our best interest to try reducing firearm related suicides BEFORE the heavy hand of government mandates more laws that crush our freedoms.

The government will try to "crush of freedoms" with or without a change in suicide statistics.

 

[Admin]

I understand the healthy skepticism about this initiative, but this effort is a non-governmental, individual-based, self-regulated attempt to reduce suicides. Isn’t that exactly what a free people prefer?
Is there something wrong with people who know/study suicidal behavior, helping educate Gunstore Owners to the telltale signs of a suicidal person? Giving the Gunstore Owner a better informed assessment regarding their choice (the sale) they already have?
Yes, some people are going to kill themselves regardless of what’s available. But suicides that involve firearms are constantly used against us, hence it is in our best interest to try reducing firearm related suicides BEFORE the heavy hand of government mandates more laws that crush our freedoms.

An informed assessment?

The last thing I want Jimbo gun store owner using his EXPERT opinion on my attitude to alert the state that he thinks I may commit suicide at some point...

If someone has made the decision to kill themselves they will simply find a gun shop that will sell one or they will find a private sale. This is nothing more than liberals and Fudds thinking they are finding ways to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

It's 10 percent of suicides. 10 f-ing percent...

 

[cekim]

An informed assessment?

The last thing I want Jimbo gun store owner using his EXPERT opinion on my attitude to alert the state that he thinks I may commit suicide at some point...

Practicing medicine without a license...

It's a rathole no matter how you cut it. Tell gun shop owners they should not do sales to "shifty people" and then someone sues them because "shifty" happened to be this race, ethnicity or that on some random day. So, they are afraid to use their judgment...

Best to focus your energy elsewhere on this issue rather than training gun shop owners to practice psychiatry without a license IMUO...

 

[MassMark]

Yeah, because FFL's are so great at being intuitive on people's intent...I spent 17-years training to recognize the signs of suicidal ideation - it is not that simple....

 

[Admin]

From the article.

including posters and brochures for gun shop customers that would highlight suicide risk factors.

Highlight the risk of suicide??????? Was that just thrown in there for a gag?

 

[terraformer]

This craps already happening. I travel a lot and I have been turned away from ranges before because I am alone. I show my license and they don't care. Some places won't let individuals shoot at rental ranges, period.

 

[MassMark]

From the article.



Highlight the risk of suicide??????? Was that just thrown in there for a gag?

I see one poster on an FFL's wall, it will be the last visit I make..FFL's have ZERO business assessing anything other than the function of the wares they sell... Stupid. Any dealer who actively engages in this program should be ashamed of themselves...

 

[TomH]

Gun shops don't even know the gun laws in their state most times, do we really want them judging someone's mental disposition? I mean, it's common sense for them to use common sense and gut instinct but really...

 

[ScottS]

Suicide training

I understand the healthy skepticism about this initiative, but this effort is a non-governmental, individual-based, self-regulated attempt to reduce suicides. Isn’t that exactly what a free people prefer?
Is there something wrong with people who know/study suicidal behavior, helping educate Gunstore Owners to the telltale signs of a suicidal person? Giving the Gunstore Owner a better informed assessment regarding their choice (the sale) they already have?
Yes, some people are going to kill themselves regardless of what’s available. But suicides that involve firearms are constantly used against us, hence it is in our best interest to try reducing firearm related suicides BEFORE the heavy hand of government mandates more laws that crush our freedoms.

First, I hope you mean "Suicide Prevention Training" or maybe "Suicide Recognition Training." Very few people would really benefit from "Suicide Training."

Second, Elizabeth Fenner-Lukaitis (Two last names: Red Flag Number 1) is from state's Bureau of Behavioral Health. How is that somehow "non-governmental?" This isn't some private citizen looking to increase awareness. It's a bureaucrat looking to build an empire.

 

[Bill Nance]

No one is responsible for suicide except the person who does it. PERIOD. And do-gooder busybodies trying to insert their notions of what I "ought to be allowed to do" with my own life need to sit down and STFU.

The idea that you can and should protect people from themselves is as American as apple pie. We've been doing it in this country since the founding. Hell, look at all the liquor/blue laws. But it was always an affront to personal liberty and it hasn't changed. I find it ironic that the two groups most interested in interfering with what I ingest, which adult I sleep with or what "equipment" I may choose to use in my bedroom or how I raise my kids are the religious right and the fringe left. One wants to save my soul whether I want it saved or not. The other one wants me to be healthy -or they'll kill me.

 

[cekim]

This craps already happening. I travel a lot and I have been turned away from ranges before because I am alone. I show my license and they don't care. Some places won't let individuals shoot at rental ranges, period.

Yeah, the FL incidents didn't make any friends of the single out-of-town guy wanting to rent a lane/gun...

MassMark - FFL's have long since learned to play footsie and cuddle "the man"... So, if .gov tells them to put up a sign stressing the importance of owning 9 cats - you can bet you'll see that sign up in 99.99% of gun shops outside of Kentucky...

 

[cekim]

The other one wants me to be healthy -or they'll kill me.

A healthy [STRIKE]slave[/STRIKE]worker is a productive [STRIKE]slave[/STRIKE]worker...

 

[Eye5600]

So will they be contacting car dealers for the percentage of people who asphyxiated themselves with exhaust?

Difficult to do in the age of catalytic converters. At least so I understand.

I find the dismissive tone of these comments pretty discouraging. A healthy majority of gun deaths are suicides. If you want to improve the gun death statistics, you should have an open mind.

 

[cekim]

Difficult to do in the age of catalytic converters. At least so I understand.

I find the dismissive tone of these comments pretty discouraging. A healthy majority of gun deaths are suicides. If you want to improve the gun death statistics, you should have an open mind.

The dismissive tone is that this is a waste of energy on addressing a very real problem.

The only thing worse than ignoring a problem is wasting time trying to solve it the wrong way.

As with crime, the issue is people, not the things that they use.

 

[terraformer]

The dismissive tone is that this is a waste of energy on addressing a very real problem.

The only thing worse than ignoring a problem is wasting time trying to solve it the wrong way.

As with crime, the issue is people, not the things that they use.

Exactly, the state of MA has a similar suicide rate to the rest of NE but it's gun suicides are a fraction of NH, ME, CT, RI, etc. Why? Because instead of using guns they use pills and booze, jump off highway overpasses or any number of things that are readily available.

Guns aren't causing people to kill themselves and they aren't making it easier.

 

[Bill Nance]

Difficult to do in the age of catalytic converters. At least so I understand.

I find the dismissive tone of these comments pretty discouraging. A healthy majority of gun deaths are suicides. If you want to improve the gun death statistics, you should have an open mind.

Let me set you straight: If I decide to end my life it is NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS. Do you fail to grasp that people end their lives routinely for substantively very good reasons? Has it never occurred to you that many people suffer from incurable chronic illnesses that make life damned near unbearable a good portion of the time? Are these people "mentally ill" because they simply get tired of waking up to another day of misery with no prospect of anything to make it better? Or are they making an entirely rational, conscious decision?

The answer is you don't know. No one does except the individual that is making the decision.

I'm sick to death of hearing people who don't even know the people involved, or worse, know them and won't get involved personally to attempt to help, trying to get everyone else to intervene on others' extremely private decisions. I have known several people who have committed suicide. Most of those I think were tragic. But two of them were decisions I might have made myself in the same situation.

The callousness you hear is not a lack of caring, it's a reaction to the compassion Nazis who think they know what's best for other people and insist on being busybodies. MYOFB

 

[Eye5600]

Let me set you straight: If I decide to end my life it is NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS.

I totally agree that some gun deaths are mental heath problems, some are crime problems, some are accidents. And, I understand that reducing gun suicides has little effect on the overall rate of suicide.

The point I was making is more related to this "none of your damned business" comment. The fact is that if you want to end your life in my living room, it is my business. If I'm a gun person, and you want to kill yourself in a gun store or at a range, it affects me. In general, if you choose to use a gun, it affects me because of the politics involved. So, in my view, any gun person has a vested interest in reducing suicide by gun.

 

[Admin]

If I'm a gun person, and you want to kill yourself in a gun store or at a range, it affects me. In general, if you choose to use a gun, it affects me because of the politics involved. So, in my view, any gun person has a vested interest in reducing suicide by gun.

 

[Kevlar]

Highlight the risk of suicide??????? Was that just thrown in there for a gag?

No, the risk factors (leading to suicide). I'm pretty sure the risks of suicide are self evident.

I totally agree that some gun deaths are mental heath problems, some are crime problems, some are accidents. And, I understand that reducing gun suicides has little effect on the overall rate of suicide.

The point I was making is more related to this "none of your damned business" comment. The fact is that if you want to end your life in my living room, it is my business. If I'm a gun person, and you want to kill yourself in a gun store or at a range, it affects me. In general, if you choose to use a gun, it affects me because of the politics involved. So, in my view, any gun person has a vested interest in reducing suicide by gun.

So, by that theory, since you're a "car person" (I assume you own/drive a car), anyone who kills themselves with a car affects you. So you should have a vested interest in reducing suicide by automobile. Or pills. Or a knife. Or Rope.

As Bill said...

...If I decide to end my life it is NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS...

 

[Admin]

You can add swimming pools, sky diving, scuba diving, riding motor cycles to Eye5600's list. If we can just control everything we will all be alright.

 

[atilla]

if we simply regulate peoples' thoughts we won't have to worry about them contemplating suicide.

if someone is detected to be feeling "down" they can be picked up for "re-education" or "behavior modification". that should sort things out.

 

[Bill Nance]

I totally agree that some gun deaths are mental heath problems, some are crime problems, some are accidents. And, I understand that reducing gun suicides has little effect on the overall rate of suicide.

And some are not "problems" at all. They are entirely rational acts done by rational people. -And until you suffer from an incurable, largely untreatable chronic disease, don't even begin to try and tell me suicide is always irrational. Even in the case of people with mental health issues, some things are just not treatable and the existence of these people is one consisting of very long periods of absolute misery, interspersed by short periods of slightly less misery. So when such a person chooses to end their life is it their "mental illness" or is it a sound decision based on what they have to go through life feeling like?

The point I was making is more related to this "none of your damned business" comment. The fact is that if you want to end your life in my living room, it is my business. If I'm a gun person, and you want to kill yourself in a gun store or at a range, it affects me. In general, if you choose to use a gun, it affects me because of the politics involved. So, in my view, any gun person has a vested interest in reducing suicide by gun.

Everything affects everyone else at some point, at some level. That doesn't give us the right to control other people's actions. You are not harmed by someone blowing their brains out in their basement. The fact that some wacko anti-gunner will use this as a phony justification to interfere with gun sales is not the fault of the suicide any more than it's the fault of a guy who has his car stolen that your insurance rates go up because you live in the same neighborhood.

Why is it that people have this overwhelming desire to control the behavior of others that has little if any direct effect upon them?

You're not my wife, you're not my child. I don't know you nor do I care what you think. What in God's name could possibly give you the idea that you have a right to interfere in one of the most private, intense an serious decisions someone could ever make?

 

[cekim]

You can add swimming pools, sky diving, scuba diving, riding motor cycles to Eye5600's list. If we can just control everything we will all be alright.

Only the things that "affect me" and my self image of course...

I don't ride motorcycles or skydive, so they can continue doing as they please...

[sad2] How far we have fallen that people are so accustomed to having their nose up their neighbor's ass that they can't even smell it any more...

 

[mbz4ever]

"Would you like to purchase a couple of boxes of ammunition along with that shotgun, sir" ?

"No thanks. I don't think I'll be needing that much". "How much would it be for just one shell"?

"you think cheapest .22 will work? or i should go 9mm or .40 SW? what would you recommend?"

"hmm... im not sure what for you planning to use this firearm for, but in any case you cant go wrong with .45acp, btw how many rounds of ammo would you like?"

"aaa not sure, but i think 1 round should do the job"
))