Seattle Times columnist uses vet's suicide to push anti-gun bigotry

Columnist uses vet's suicide to push anti-gun bigotry

But this isn’t about suicide prevention and Large knows it. His own words make that perfectly clear. The suicide of Orrin Gorman McClellan is a convenient smokescreen. If this were really about suicide, Jerry would be writing about former Gov. Booth Gardner’s effort to legalize assisted suicide, whose advocates sanitize it as “death with dignity.”

http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seat...ist-uses-vets-suicide-to-push-antigun-bigotry

Or try this:

http://tinyurl.com/2eog5dz

100% agree. Large's column was pathetic. I actually cut and pasted it into a Word document, and replaced "gun," firearm," etc with "menorah." The result was amusing, if not completely sensible! It did illustrate the mental gymnastics required to blatantly discriminate against the right to self defense while still claiming to be in favor of the rest of the Bill of Rights.

close-minded people annoy me.

J_Douglass said:

close-minded people annoy me.

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Couldn't agree with you more.
Looks like you are new to the forum from your number of posts. Welcome! There's a great group of people on here; most are also very knowledgeable as well. I have learned a lot from reading the threads. There's also a lot of lively discussion; lots of diverse opinions. Enjoy the forum!

Ruby said:

Couldn't agree with you more.
Looks like you are new to the forum from your number of posts. Welcome! There's a great group of people on here; most are also very knowledgeable as well. I have learned a lot from reading the threads. There's also a lot of lively discussion; lots of diverse opinions. Enjoy the forum!

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Yea, posted a welcome thread but it quickly got buried in the new posts button. Currently in Iraq coming back to the states in a couple months.

When one wants to end their lives there are many methods available to them. Yes, a gun is one of them but by no means the only one. Pills, Jumping from High Places, Razor Blades (for cutting wrists), and even Automobiles. Ever wonder about those One-Car Accidents where there was no apparent cause? Like Dave, I have seen my share. In my younger years I worked for an Ambulance Company in Seattle(before the Fire Department got into the business) and saw the results of many successful suicides. Women seemed to choose pills and wrist slashing while men chose firearms, hanging, and Cars. Went to several accidents where the driver hit objects like bridge abutments, large utility poles, and even larger vehicles headon. No sign of the driver hitting the brakes before impact or any other sign of the cause. The "tradition" was to call it an accident so as to not impair the heir's ability to collect on any Life Insurance.

What about the Space Needle. Something caused the City to erect an "Anti-Suicide Barrier" on the observation deck. Now there is one being installed on the Aurora Bridge.

Using the writer's logic in attacking the availablity of guns, we should also include any medication that, when ingested way in excess of instructions, can cause death, razor blades or sharp knives, Cars, and objects that people can jump from or hang themselves from.

People who want to "check out" will find a way, period. If someone wants to eliminate suicide, deal with the causes, not the implements. They will have about as much luck in totally eliminating it as we all would in trying to eliminate stupid newspaper writers.

Suicide vs Suicide attempts

Attempts are never successful, that's why they are called attempts.

Good article, Dave.

Anybody notice that the socialists carefully overlook the fact that their exalted mental sciences--pyschiatry and psychology--completely failed to prevent all these suicides? If the therapies of their favorite science were as effective as faithfully accepted, there would be no need to howl about gun accessibility.

I have met people that meant to kill themselves, and I have met many more that "attempted" to kill themselves. I will give you two examples.

1) A friend of mine pops a crap load of pills then calls 911. They attempted.

2) A friend took a revolver, put it to their chest, over their heart and pulled the trigger. They meant to. Only problem is the round missed their heart, went through their lung and they ended up lugging an oxygen tank around for a few months. They got mental help in the mean time.

I will give you another one. A guy in Utah drives up into the Wasatch mountains. He is drunk, wife left him, lost his job, etc. He pulls to the side of the road, slits his wrists then passes out from the loss of blood. It is evening by then. He wakes the next morning. Apparently he left the truck windows rolled down and in the night it snowed a few feet. The cold somehow preserved him until the next morning where he was found stuck in the snow.

The sadness of this whole thing is that everyone's too busy fighting about the pistol when in fact everyone should be busy trying to console the family, and help other people who feel suicide is the only option.

This is not intended as a jab at either Dave or that other guy. I'm just saying I don't see "guns cause more suicides," I see, "War veteran committed suicide after returning from war."

Citizen said:

Good article, Dave.

Anybody notice that the socialists carefully overlook the fact that their exalted mental sciences--pyschiatry and psychology--completely failed to prevent all these suicides? If the therapies of their favorite science were as effective as faithfully accepted, there would be no need to howl about gun accessibility.

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Being both a veteran as well as a VA employee I feel that I must qualify this response. Yes there have been numerous times that both the VA as well as mental health services in general have failed not only veterans but civilians as well. (vietnam vets come to my mind first in this category). However I have personally witnessed that the vast majority of failures on behalf of either one of these services (VA or mental health) is due to the INDIVIDUALS failure to attempt to initiate services.

For example, the VA has a program set up for ANY vet of ANY length of HONORABLE service to call in when feeling depressed/suicidal, this program connects them IMMEDIATELY to a counselor who will talk with them and call in emergency services IF needed, then will fill out a form and electronically send it to the VA Medical Center closest the vet. Upon arriving in the morning the VA patient advocates check their system and receive any vets in their local area who contacted the crisis line WITH contact information. The patient advocate follows up that SAME DAY with the vet and attempts to encourage the vet to seek FREE treatment for whatever condition they are facing (counseling therapy or mental health incarceration as needed).

This is a very efficient and effective program from what I have seen, however it does have ONE fatal flaw. It requires the vet to make contact first, otherwise how would anyone that could help (VA) know the vet is having problems?

Unfortunately this vet was one of the ones who failed to reach out to his fellow servicemen in the time he needed them the most. The loss of a vet in the community is as great as the loss of an active duty service member.

On a side note, during my orientation, which included suicide awareness and prevention, it was specifically noted that the numero uno factor contributing to suicide is gun ownership (I strongly disagree with these figures as they focused on vets in this study who are by their very nature and training avid gun owners). Then the instructor went on to say (direct quote here btw) "I am not saying guns are bad, I support whatever amendment that is that says we can have them, but it is a contributing factor to suicide."

Needless to say me in my infinite wisdom handed the instructor the only OCDO pamphlet I own and told him that it would probably be a good idea to educate himself on the laws and responsibilities of this state and country. I highly doubt he even looked at the pamphlet but at least I did my part and attempted to correct this guy's incredibly illogical and uninformed ways....

devildoc5 said:

SNIP On a side note, during my orientation, which included suicide awareness and prevention, it was specifically noted that the numero uno factor contributing to suicide is gun ownership...Then the instructor went on to say (direct quote here btw) "I am not saying guns are bad, I support whatever amendment that is that says we can have them, but it is a contributing factor to suicide."

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No offense, Devil. I say this not to contradict you, but to invite your attention to something you may have overlooked.

The bold-face text is one of the surest sign of incompetence in the psychiatric profession. If the so-called doctors fully understood the internal mental fireworks that go hand-in-hand with suicide, they would have no need to assign partial causation to an outside inanimate factor.

It is not too unlike an auto mechanic blaming gamma rays for a rough-running engine that he personally lacks the skill and knowledge to set running smoothly. Of course, people and engines are far different. But, if a psych understood depression and suicide well enough, he would be able to cure it, and thus would not need to assign any degree of causation to inanimate objects.

For someone in the vicinity of the practice to assert that guns are a contributing factor is ludicrous. What did they blame it on before guns were invented? The rivers where people drowned themselves? The knives they used to cut their wrists? The ropes they used to hang themselves? I personally knew a teen who gased himself in his parent's garage with the family car exhaust. Are the psychs going to add automobiles as a contributing factor to suicide?

Simply put, the suicide obtains the gun (his causation), puts it to his head (his causation), and pulls the trigger (his causation.) No causation originates from within the gun in any way.

No argument here whatsoever. Just a sort of clarification on my position.

That being said, and having worked for an EXTREMELY brief period of time in the mental health specialty I would say that the way most psychologists TEND to look at it is "if they own a gun they have more easily accessible means to commit suicide."

Kind of the same way that a cheeseburger wont kill you but it obviously will not help too much in the cholesterol area of things.

If you have a runny nose it could mean any number of things. If you have a runny nose AND fever AND cough AND muscle soreness AND headaches it means you have the flu. Same type of thing where if you add enough things together you will get the desired result....

Also if you re read what I posted the study the "used to demonstrate their point" is one that specifically focused on veterans and gun ownership.

I am sure that many of the vets here can assist me with this but a very LARGE majority of vets own guns. Either because of their training in the military and their familiarity with guns via this training or via their upbringing as the way most civilians obtain their love for guns (the ones that have a love for guns that is). Most vets ALSO have a significant amount of trauma that they either have, or are attempting to deal with.

Once again I am not agreeing in any way with what was said, I even tried to help dispell some of the myths and outright lies preached, however the way it is looked at in the medical field (psychology included) is that no one symptom or cause is significant, but if you add a few together you will start to see a trend.

Add guns + stress of everyday life + post traumatic stress disorder + depression and you have a higher LIKELIHOOD to commit/attempt suicide. However the part they are failing to take into account is if you add +knives + stress + PTSD + depression you still come out with an increased likelihood. Same applies to rock climbing vets.

So I guess to make a long story short I can see where they WOULD form that hypothesis about guns, however I also see the fallacy of it as they are failing to take into account other means of suicide to include knife or rope, amongst others.

I think it boils down to individual responsibilities, however unfortunate it may be, I can see how they would arrive at their conclusions (no matter how incomplete and inaccurate they may be)

devildoc5 said:

SNIP No argument here whatsoever.

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Good lord, it is even worse than I thought. I just read part of the APA's "resource document" titled, Access to Firearms by People with Mental Illness. June 2009. (link below)

There is something very striking about the second section, The Relationship Between Mental Illness, Firearms, Suicide, and Violence-- if you read the entire section, nowhere do they say what the relationship is between mental illness, firearms, suicide, and violence. Even though that is the friggin title of the section. The closest they come is to say that suicides tend to be more successful if they use a gun. Otherwise, a whole lot of yacking without actually saying anything. And especially not saying anything about the actual relationship between guns and suicide.

Oh, there is this gem. "Many suicide attempts are related to firearms." Yeah, no $****. It is just another way of saying the suicide that selects a gun as his method wants to accomplish his goal and is selecting an effective method in his view. Hmmmm. Maybe I just completed the APA's paragraph about the relationship between guns and suicide for them.

http://www.psych.org/Departments/ED...mentsandRelated/ResourceDocuments/200907.aspx

Don't even get me started on the VA.

If their mental health counseling is anything like their medical practice, the poor guy would have been waiting six hours to talk to a counselor.

I'm STILL waiting for an OK for an MRI for a combat injury so I can get surgery. It's been, oh, almost two years now.

As for the VA....as both a veteran and a former employee of the VA at the Seattle and American Lake hospitals...(SALIVA, as we used to call it, PSHCS officially)...

If you've been waiting two years for an MRI, something is wrong. It just takes a provider putting in an order for the procedure, you schedule it, it gets done. If you've been waiting that long, you need to light a fire under your provider and find out why. If that doesn't work, tell him/her you want to talk to the Patient Advocate. Then, do it. There is no excuse for having to wait two years for a diagnostic procedure like that.

The quality of care at VA hospitals should be on a par with the surrounding community. If it isn't, force it to happen. Remember, Congress critters fund the VA. If the VA is broken, you need to write a letter to the people who control the purse strings. The VA can have all the good intentions in the world, but if Congress doesn't provide the funding, nothing will happen.,

Citizen said:

Good lord, it is even worse than I thought. I just read part of the APA's "resource document" titled, Access to Firearms by People with Mental Illness. June 2009. (link below)

There is something very striking about the second section, The Relationship Between Mental Illness, Firearms, Suicide, and Violence-- if you read the entire section, nowhere do they say what the relationship is between mental illness, firearms, suicide, and violence. Even though that is the friggin title of the section. The closest they come is to say that suicides tend to be more successful if they use a gun. Otherwise, a whole lot of yacking without actually saying anything. And especially not saying anything about the actual relationship between guns and suicide.

Oh, there is this gem. "Many suicide attempts are related to firearms." Yeah, no $****. It is just another way of saying the suicide that selects a gun as his method wants to accomplish his goal and is selecting an effective method in his view. Hmmmm. Maybe I just completed the APA's paragraph about the relationship between guns and suicide for them.

http://www.psych.org/Departments/ED...mentsandRelated/ResourceDocuments/200907.aspx

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that is kinda what I was attempting to convey earlier. The notorious "they" seem to try and say that owning guns means you are gonna kill yourself (such a true true true statement obviously!) but what the are REALLY saying is that someone who attempts suicide with a gun as the means has a greater likelihood to succeed.

Then again I bet people that try it with grenades have an even higher likelihood of success.....

I'll throw this out there since no one else has yet:


Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world, and NO guns....:uhoh:

Metalhead47 said:

I'll throw this out there since no one else has yet:


Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world, and NO guns....:uhoh:

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Obviously tall buildings are a contributing factor. Ban tall buildings in Japan!

oneeyeross said:

As for the VA....as both a veteran and a former employee of the VA at the Seattle and American Lake hospitals...(SALIVA, as we used to call it, PSHCS officially)...

If you've been waiting two years for an MRI, something is wrong. It just takes a provider putting in an order for the procedure, you schedule it, it gets done. If you've been waiting that long, you need to light a fire under your provider and find out why. If that doesn't work, tell him/her you want to talk to the Patient Advocate. Then, do it. There is no excuse for having to wait two years for a diagnostic procedure like that.

The quality of care at VA hospitals should be on a par with the surrounding community. If it isn't, force it to happen. Remember, Congress critters fund the VA. If the VA is broken, you need to write a letter to the people who control the purse strings. The VA can have all the good intentions in the world, but if Congress doesn't provide the funding, nothing will happen.,

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Those issues aside, the VA clinic and hospital I use (Richland and Walla Walla) are excellent facilities. And the people are good people. It's just something higher up that's hanging it up.

I have never heard of the Patient Advocate. I'll look that up. Thanks!