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Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

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Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#241
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you can show a country's (i.e. Australia's) suicide rate plummeting shortly after banning guns, I'm going to have a hard time believing it has a big an impact as you claim. There are lots of first world countries in EU and Asia where guns are banned that have suicide rates comparible to or higher than the US's (and I have a hard time believing guns are the only thing standing between the US being comparible to…

- After the UK phased out coal gas for central heating, which provided a quick and easy death, overall suicides dropped markedly: [0]. - When Sri Lanka replaced a common pesticide which made it easy for farmers to commit suicide with another one that was not as toxic to humans, suicide rates fell by half: [1] - Many different bridges which were popular suicide sites installed bridges and found that overall suicides d…

Per your links:

- The coal gas phaseout's associated decrease in suicide rates principally affected men; women more readily jumped to other alternatives (as indicated on the graphs). It also principally affected England and Wales (Scotland showed far more modest decreases in suicide among men, and effectively no change among women), which prompted the authors of that paper to exclude Scotland from their conclusions due to the anomalous data; it's possible that Scotland didn't phase out coal gas as quickly, but the drop in suicide-by-CO-suffocation seems to support the idea that Scotland and England/Wales were under the same conditions.

- Per the chart in the Sri Lanka article that breaks down poisoning v. "other specified methods" v. "other means", poisoning actually increased (even ignoring the spike in 1983), and most of the reductions were in the "other means" category (which was completely eliminated by 2005). The "Data for risk factors in suicide" section also details various other factors that are more probable than banning a specific kind of poison (namely: the civil war that was raging in Sri Lanka during almost all of time period when suicide rates fell, consistent with the article's remark that suicide rates do typically fall significantly during times of war).

- The Montreal article only concludes that suicide specifically by jumping did not displace to other jumping sites. It makes no conclusion around other means of suicide (and while suicide rates did fall in general, the article states that this trend began 5 years before the installation of the nets on the studied bridge).

EDIT: in general, I don't feel like any of those sources do an adequate job of isolating these potential causes from other factors; they do demonstrate at least some correlation, but - as the saying famously goes - correlation != causation, and there are numerous other factors that tend to drive suicide rates, especially socioeconomic and cultural.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on any of those numbers misses the point: people are killing themselves for actual reasons , and addressing those reasons (namely: by actually maintaining a robust mental healthcare system, and by doing what we can to end or at least significantly reduce poverty) will cause all suicides to decrease in frequency. Also, you know what takes even less willpower than passing a background check (or stealing/borrow…

It’s pretty easy to get access to a gun in the states, it’s not like we have the lock box policy that Germany has (responsible gun ownership laws are ironically faught against by the NRA). Most kids use their parents’ gun, no background check required. Getting enough pills to do yourself in without a prescription is super hard and not very reliable. Most OTC drugs will cause you to vomit long before you die. Anyways,…

> Getting enough pills to do yourself in without a prescription is super hard and not very reliable.

It's actually ridiculously easy in the US, especially when combined with alcohol (probably easier than illicitly obtaining a gun, given that far more Americans have pills laying around than guns). Reliability is another story (but - again - increases with alcohol). This also assumes that even kids (let alone adults) don't have access to prescriptions (which would be a poor assumption, given the ongoing opiate addiction crisis and American doctors' tendencies to write morphine et. al. prescriptions up the wazoo, as well as the fact that sometimes kids get sick, too).

And that ain't even mentioning illegal drugs; heroin and methamphetamines are pretty commonplace in the US, as are accidental overdoses (and given that suicides do tend to be spur of the moment, it's possible - probable, even - that suicide by illegal narcotics - be they illegally-obtained prescription drugs or hard recreational drugs - goes substantially unreported and instead lumped in with accidental overdoses).

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can own a machine gun today - they just cost as much as a car.

You still have to get a license and those are expensive and not easy to get.

It’s a transfer tax, not a license, and it’s $200.

The supply is limited to what was legally owned as of 1986.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wikipedia article linked above: > Although females attempt suicide at a higher rate, they are more likely to use methods that are less immediately lethal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide#...

I'm asking about methodology as relates to the statistic, not for the sentence in a Wiki.

Then perhaps check out the references the Wikipedia gives?

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't it be legally restricted? You're forced to wear seatbelts for safety reasons, why shouldn't you be forced to keep killers anonymous.

In the US, the 1st amendment and current case law don't support restricting that kind of speech. Only if there's an immediate, specific reaction, can the speech be curtailed, and even then it's difficult. Trying to incite a riot, for instance, can be restricted, as it could have the immediate effect of causing a riot in the area. Saying a mass shooter's name doesn't cause an immediate response, nor can you specifical…

Well then it seems the 1st amendment ought to be fixed if it's that obviously broken.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#246
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they less likely to live in households where there are guns? Men are what, 10x more successful in suicide attempts? It's quite the discrepancy.

Male gun ownership is 62% while female is 22%. Male suicide rate is somewhere between 3 to 5 times higher than female suicide rate in the US. Globally, males are ~2x more likely. Note that women are also ~20% more likely to see health professionals.

Even in the UK, where guns are a rare instrument of suicide, men kill themselves 3-4x as often as women.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#247
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because suicide via firearms is the painless route. If you were going to kill yourself why wouldn't you do it with a gun. You have to be prepared for legislation like this only slightly decrease the number of suicides but drastically increase the suffering of the people that do.

I thought liquid nitrogen was the painless (and cheaper) route

Bullets move faster than nerve impulses. Ergo the brain is destroyed before it has the chance to feel pain. nitrogen gas is slower.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought liquid nitrogen was the painless (and cheaper) route

Bullets move faster than nerve impulses. Ergo the brain is destroyed before it has the chance to feel pain. nitrogen gas is slower.

The cross section of a bullet is much smaller than the cross section of your brain. plenty of people have survived penetrations of the brain. Even if it is fatal, it is not necessarily instantaneous: check out "A Pure Formality", a magnificent movie that will horrify even the staunchest, unflinching atheist.

From wikipedia's page on LN2:

> the liquid-to-gas expansion ratio of nitrogen is 1:694 at 20 °C (68 °F)

(so it can easily displace a lot of air in a small volume and)

>As liquid nitrogen evaporates it reduces the oxygen concentration in the air and can act as an asphyxiant, especially in confined spaces. Nitrogen is odorless, colorless, and tasteless and may produce asphyxia without any sensation or prior warning

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on any of those numbers misses the point: people are killing themselves for actual reasons , and addressing those reasons (namely: by actually maintaining a robust mental healthcare system, and by doing what we can to end or at least significantly reduce poverty) will cause all suicides to decrease in frequency. Also, you know what takes even less willpower than passing a background check (or stealing/borrow…

It’s pretty easy to get access to a gun in the states, it’s not like we have the lock box policy that Germany has (responsible gun ownership laws are ironically faught against by the NRA). Most kids use their parents’ gun, no background check required. Getting enough pills to do yourself in without a prescription is super hard and not very reliable. Most OTC drugs will cause you to vomit long before you die. Anyways,…

Pretty much everywhere has passing trains with easy access to the rights-of-way for pedestrians. Caltrain alone gets double-figure pedestrian suicides a year, plus some vehicular (driving onto tracks and staying there).

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#250
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you link to a source? This is interesting to me but I'd like to know more about their method for arriving at those conclusions. I wasn't able to find the article/study you're referencing.

Perhaps: Thresholds of violence: How school shootings catch on, by Malcolm Gladwell https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/thresholds-of-... Gladwell interviewed about the article on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition: https://www.npr.org/2015/10/13/448182623/how-riots-may-help-...

I think he mentioned it in The Tipping Point as well, which may be in one of your links.
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