Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

What document was written in 1066?

You do like to dodge and weaver Firefly however this thread deal with mass killings by mentally ill people and steps that might make our children safer from such events and if you care to cover other subjects as you had told me a few time start another thread.

Nancy Lanza Was Deluded to Keep Guns at Home With Troubled Adam
by Michael Daly
Dec 19, 2012

She may have thought teaching her shut-in son to shoot was therapeutic. But Nancy Lanza—and 26 innocents—would be alive today if she hadn’t been so reckless, says Michael Daly.

Tuesday was artisan-beer night at Nancy Lanza’s favorite bar, My Place. She likely would have been setting off for there had she not been so deluded as to keep guns under the roof she shared with a troubled son.

She seems even to have imagined that firing guns was therapeutic for young Adam Lanza. She reportedly told a friend that it helped him become more focused and confident.

“How about bowling?” a detective said on hearing this after the massacre.

She is reported by CBS News to have bought the assault rifle first, in March 2010. She and Adam must have looked like two figures out of an NRA fantasy when they visited an outdoor range, mom and son sharing quality time and bonding by blasting away.

She may have delighted in finally finding something to get him outside his room, persuading him to do something physical and real rather than just withdrawing into the cyber-realm of his computer. She may have been too relieved to consider where it could lead and what might be the real appeal for him.

Adam does not seem to be the kind of hardy soul who would go in for outdoor shooting in winter. And the only conveniently located indoor range, Shooters in Danbury, is mainly for handguns.

Perhaps that is one reason why Nancy purchased the Sig Sauer automatic a year later, in March 2011. She might have timed the purchase so the paperwork and the rest would be complete in time for his 19th birthday, in May. Or she might have just bought it for herself.

She purchased a second handgun, a Glock, in January. The manager at Shooters refuses to confirm or to deny whether Nancy and Adam ever visited there. The range’s website reports that those who do shoot there are videotaped, so perhaps that is the video the chief medical examiner has said was recovered in the case.

One question worth asking is whether the father had any idea that Nancy kept guns in the house and had taken Adam shooting. Peter Lanza gave his ex-wife custody and a good financial settlement, but alimony is not the end of responsibility.

Adam reportedly broke from his father in 2010, when Peter began seeing other women, well after the Lanzas’ divorce became final. If that is true, Peter’s recent remarriage could very well have fed Adam’s rage.

Perhaps by chance that was the same year Nancy bought the Bushmaster. A mother raising a son on her own always has to think of what she might not be giving him that a father would, even more so if the son is troubled. Part of Nancy’s purpose in getting her son into shooting may have been as misguided as Bushmaster’s now infamous ad slogan, “Consider your Man Card reissued.” She may have felt that Adam’s had yet to be issued at all. She may have even imagined that getting one could help him find himself.

Adam may indeed have felt a rush of power when he took the Bushmaster up in his hands, but he proceeded to prove that this power had nothing to do with manhood. He used the weapon to murder unarmed adults and helpless little kids. He might have kept doing it, but at the approach of cops who might shoot back he ducked into a room and killed himself. Maybe he chose the elementary school in part because the high-school entrance has a security kiosk manned by a guard.

Perhaps. Might. Maybe. There is still so much supposition, and the soul-searing certainty is still so impossible to accept: 20 magical youngsters and six proudly devoted adults were slaughtered with that Bushmaster by the son who had already killed his mom and then shot himself, reportedly with the Glock. The Sig Sauer is said to have been in his pants pocket.

Something else is certain: the murdered innocents would still be alive had Nancy not acted as if firearms were no more dangerous than bowling balls...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/19/nancy-lanza-was-deluded-to-keep-guns-at-home-with-troubled-adam.html

If you want to make children in this country safe from gun violence, stop denying the "tools" that are enabling such violence--they are not knives, not bombs, not gasoline--but guns. And these lethal "tools" are inadequately regulated.

Guns, Lies, and Suicides
01/11/2013
Michael J. Tansey.
Psychologist, author

In the resurgent national debate regarding gun violence, the overriding focus -- understandably -- has been on homicide. I am aware of no discussion regarding suicide and guns. And yet the Center for Disease Control estimates that in the U.S., there were approximately 37,000 suicide fatalities in 2012, of which about 19,000 were from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, resulting in an estimated 50 million in medical and occupational costs to society, and inestimable damage and despair for the surviving families and loved ones. Tragic, though not heinous, 19,000 is more than double the 9,000 homicides by gunfire. A closer look at the characteristics and methods of suicide reveals a glaring similarity as well as a critical difference when compared to homicide.

Whereas the NRA would have us believe that the solution to our alarming homicide rate is more good-guy guns and greater accessibility, that argument has been refuted beyond dispute when it comes to suicide. A recent landmark review by the Harvard School of Public Health begins with, "Every study that has examined the issue to date has found that within the U.S., access to firearms is associated with increased suicide risk." Based on hard scientific data, the unanimous verdict is in. Period.

From a multitude of statistics, I will cite a few that seem especially revealing:
•In rural America, where guns are a far more accessible part of the culture, people ages 10-24 are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to commit suicide, overwhelmingly by gunfire.

•1.1 million people attempted suicide in the U.S. in 2012. A suicide attempt by gunfire is nearly always fatal. Only one in sixty suicide attempts by all other means combined is fatal.

•A 2012 study found that suicide has surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. Gunfire is the fastest growing method.

•A 2007 study compared 39 million people from the 15 states with the highest gun ownership versus 40 million people from the 6 states with the lowest gun owner prevalence. There were 9,749 firearm suicides from the high-prevalence states versus 2,606 from the low-prevalence states. Both groups had approximately 5,000 or so non-firearm suicides.

•The oft-quoted study of sweeping gun control regulation in Australia, following the 1996 mass murder of 35 people by a lone gunman, resulted in a 65 percent annual drop in suicides by gunfire with no increase in suicide by other methods. A successful gun buy-back program reduced the rate still further by as much as 74 percent. These results only slightly exceed the drop in homicides by gunfire (59 percent), again with no increase in homicide by other methods.

Although statistics can be misleading, the universal consensus is reminiscent of similarly damning studies that demonstrated the irrefutable link between cigarettes and cancer. As NRA point-man Wayne LaPierre likes to say, a gun is only a tool. Precisely the point. Just as a jackhammer is an infinitely more effective device than a household hammer at breaking up concrete, a gun is indisputably more effective in the business of killing oneself than all other methods combined. Uncontained accessibility sets the stage for tragedy to occur.

But there is a critical difference in suicide versus homicide by gunfire. Improving mental health care availability would likely have a very significant impact on lowering suicide rates as opposed to virtually zero positive effect in preventing homicides. In previous posts, I have insisted that the notion of profile-predict-and prevent strategies as a way of curbing mass murders is nothing more than a comforting illusion. Chasing a mirage. A counterproductive distraction and waste of resources that plays right into the hands of the NRA leadership. Many of the recent mass murderers were known to have severe emotional problems ranging from the predatory psychopath to the floridly psychotic. Many had been in psychiatric treatment of some sort.

Over the course of my 35-year career, working with over a thousand patients and supervising the treatment of scores of others, there is only one instance I can recall of an individual who revealed passing thoughts of taking out a contract on the parents of his former girlfriend. His reference was fleeting and, in my judgment, not credible. We were able to talk this through, he grieved his loss and moved on. Had I rushed to the phone to report him to the authorities, the therapy would have been over, his anger would have become much worse, and any propensity for actual violence would have been exacerbated.

The number of people who seek therapy because of explicitly homicidal urges is virtually non-existent, although many seek help for problems with rage, uncontrollable temper, alienation and bitterness, often with very successful therapeutic outcomes. But it is simply impossible to predict reliably whose rage will combust into homicidal action. In my personal experience, three young males stand out who would not have surprised me if had they exploded and actually killed someone, yet there was never anything explicitly homicidal revealed, nor did anything tragic occur.

The story is very, very different when it comes to people who feel like life is not worth living. They regularly come for help when it is available. The success rate is extremely high. Clinicians who work with severely depressed people hope to be fortunate enough to make it through their careers without a patient committing suicide. But even with suicide, it is impossible to predict with any certainty who will leave the office and take their life.

I have lost one patient to suicide a few years ago. I was thoroughly stunned and shocked, as was the medicating psychiatrist. We both viewed the person as virtually immune to suicide for a variety of reasons I will not go into. Of the hundreds of suicidal people I've worked with, this person I considered one of the least likely to act. I was dead wrong. As with homicidal behavior, there is good clinical judgment, but no reliable way of predicting.

For suicidal people, access to guns is lethal; access to mental health care is life-saving. Similarly, access to guns increases the risk of homicide. But in stark contrast, expanding mental health services with the goal of profile-predict-and-prevent, essentially for the purpose of psychiatric incarceration, will make matters far worse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-j-tansey/gun-control-suicides_b_2450362.html

It is about the guns...and it's ridiculous for you to pretend it isn't.

Thank you for sharing because I think you helped me to see a reality that I did not see.

When I think of the people I have known who died by suicide or by murder even if it was accidental the cases that come to my mind had a gun involved and nothing else. That should say a lot even though I kept saying to myself other wise.

with suicides the easy availability of guns definitely makes a difference.

Funny how gun availability has zero impact on suicide rates.

Whereas the NRA would have us believe that the solution to our alarming homicide rate is more good-guy guns and greater accessibility, that argument has been refuted beyond dispute when it comes to suicide. A recent landmark review by the Harvard School of Public Health begins with, "Every study that has examined the issue to date has found that within the U.S., access to firearms is associated with increased suicide risk." Based on hard scientific data, the unanimous verdict is in. Period.

From a multitude of statistics, I will cite a few that seem especially revealing:
•In rural America, where guns are a far more accessible part of the culture, people ages 10-24 are twice as likely as their urban counterparts to commit suicide, overwhelmingly by gunfire.

•1.1 million people attempted suicide in the U.S. in 2012. A suicide attempt by gunfire is nearly always fatal. Only one in sixty suicide attempts by all other means combined is fatal.

•A 2012 study found that suicide has surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. Gunfire is the fastest growing method.

•A 2007 study compared 39 million people from the 15 states with the highest gun ownership versus 40 million people from the 6 states with the lowest gun owner prevalence. There were 9,749 firearm suicides from the high-prevalence states versus 2,606 from the low-prevalence states. Both groups had approximately 5,000 or so non-firearm suicides.

•The oft-quoted study of sweeping gun control regulation in Australia, following the 1996 mass murder of 35 people by a lone gunman, resulted in a 65 percent annual drop in suicides by gunfire with no increase in suicide by other methods. A successful gun buy-back program reduced the rate still further by as much as 74 percent. These results only slightly exceed the drop in homicides by gunfire (59 percent), again with no increase in homicide by other methods.

If they were killed with a knife, would they still be alive?

oralloy wrote:

Funny how gun availability has zero impact on suicide rates.

Funny how you are so often wrong--actually, it's not funny, it's pathetic.

Explain how you interpret the above findings to arrive at your conclusion that, "gun availability has zero impact on suicide rates."

Can you cite any other findings to support your statement?

Or don't you ever bother with facts?

Really, then why does Japan have one of the highest suicide rates?

A recent landmark review by the Harvard School of Public Health begins with, "Every study that has examined the issue to date has found that within the U.S., access to firearms is associated with increased suicide risk." Based on hard scientific data, the unanimous verdict is in. Period.

Come on firefly, if there isn't a gun, people will find other creative ways to take their own lives.

•The oft-quoted study of sweeping gun control regulation in Australia, following the 1996 mass murder of 35 people by a lone gunman, resulted in a 65 percent annual drop in suicides by gunfire with no increase in suicide by other methods. A successful gun buy-back program reduced the rate still further by as much as 74 percent.

•1.1 million people attempted suicide in the U.S. in 2012. A suicide attempt by gunfire is nearly always fatal. Only one in sixty suicide attempts by all other means combined is fatal.

Val Killmore wrote:

Really, then why does Japan have one of the highest suicide rates?

We're not discussing suicide rates generally--we're discussing suicide risk in the U.S. associated with firearms.

A recent landmark review by the Harvard School of Public Health begins with, "Every study that has examined the issue to date has found that within the U.S., access to firearms is associated with increased suicide risk." Based on hard scientific data, the unanimous verdict is in. Period.

And suicide attempts using guns are more usually lethal than other methods

..and, if the gun is easily accessible, it can be an impulsive act, done without any planning.

And murder/suicides in this country are almost always done with firearms.

Would they be less dead if they died from hanging?

What about the people who die from jumping off bridges? Are they also less dead?

oralloy, you cited nothing to support your statement that gun availability has zero impact on suicide rates.

In fact, from that International Violent Death Table, in the article you linked to, the U.S. has the highest firearms suicide rate of any country listed on the table

--and within the United States, gun availability does affect suicide rates and suicide risk in this country.

Suicides by firearms are part of this country's problem with gun violence.

oralloy wrote:

Would they be less dead if they died from hanging?

What about the people who die from jumping off bridges? Are they also less dead?

No, but they are much less numerous.