Reply #61: "Suicides are more likely to be successful when guns are involved" More likely than WHAT? [View All]

[Euromutt]

As far as I'm aware, suicide attempts by jumping off bridges and other high places or in front of oncoming trains have a fatality rate that's about the same as using firearms; all work about 90% of the time. Self-strangulation/asphyxiation (i.e. hanging) is effective almost as often. So how does Hemenway come by that statement?

The most likely explanation is that he's taken all the non-firearm methods of suicide, averaging out their fatality rates and comparing that to the fatality rate for firearms. Of course, that would include the methods known to be less reliable that people use when they're not genuinely trying to kill themselves, but want to issue a cry for help, thereby masking the ones mentioned above, which generally work very reliably.