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"Guns a factor in older white male suicide-study,"
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
"Guns a factor in older white male suicide-study," say anti-gun "researchers" KABA NOTE: Perhaps these geniuses would care to venture a guess as to why Japan's suicide rate is higher than America's even though access to firearms is strictly prohibited. Perhaps they'd also care to PROVE a causal relationship between guns and the desire to off yourself, too. If guns cause people to commit suicide, shouldn't America's suicide rate be radically higher than all other industrialized nations combined?
Guns a Factor in Older White Male Suicide - Study
July 01, 2002 12:07 AM ET Email this article Printer friendly version
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=DDIH32W1KWUX2CRBAEZSFEYKEEATIIWD?type=topnews&StoryID=1149999
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Access to guns and a lack of social support make older white American men seven times more likely to kill themselves than black women of the same age, researchers said on Monday.
Scientists said people over 65 account for 19 percent of all suicides, although they make up only 13 percent of the population. A team of psychiatrists and geriatrics experts from across the country set out to find out why.
"There has been a lot of attention paid to suicide in younger life," Dr. Yeates Conwell, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of Rochester in New York who helped organize a series of reports, said in a telephone interview. But suicide among older people has "been a neglected area," he said.
The suicide rate for people aged 15-24 is 13 per 100,000, and the overall suicide rate is 10.6 every 100,000, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
According to the series of studies published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the suicide rate among people over 65 was 15.9 per 100,000 people in 1999, and most of the fatalities were men.
In 1998, the suicide rate for white men aged 65 or older was 33.1 per 100,000, compared to 11.7 for black men of the same age and 4.85 for white women. Only 20 black women over 65 killed themselves in 1998, too few to measure statistically.
Researchers have not completely explained why people over 65 commit suicide more often than younger adults, but found a range of factors, including access to handguns, religion, social support and disrupted sleep -- a strong indicator of depression.
HANDGUNS IN HOME A FACTOR
One of the reports found that people with a handgun in the home were more than twice as likely to kill themselves as people of similar ages and lifestyles who did not have access to a handgun.
For the gun study, the researchers interviewed friends, families, employers and others involved in the lives of 86 people who killed themselves. They compared the lives of the suicide victims with the lives of 86 similar people living close by who were still alive.
A handgun was used in 71 percent of suicides among men over the age of 65, Conwell and colleagues found. Rifles and shotguns did not seem to affect suicide rates.
"This is a generation that is very comfortable with guns for sport such as hunting. Many lived through World War II or the Korean War and are familiar with firearms, so the presence of a gun is not unusual," Conwell said.
"But it becomes a serious issue when the person develops a depression. If someone is clinically depressed and has a firearm, that's a very dangerous combination."
Depression and other mental illness is a factor in 90 percent of all suicides, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Conwell said friends and loved ones should be aware if an older person seems depressed or suicidal, and perhaps act to remove guns from the home while he or she gets treatment.
He said people may have to be nursed through treatment at first, because depression can make a person feel hopeless and the patient may not believe treatment will help.
RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL TIES
Another study found that being involved in religion may protect against suicide.
Joan Cook, a geriatric psychologist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, found blacks who had strong religious and social ties were the least likely to have suicidal thoughts.
This is reflected in the very low suicide rate among African-Americans, especially women, she said.
Cook's team interviewed 835 public housing residents in Baltimore.
"We found that 90 percent reported they obtained a great deal of support and comfort from their religion, and that this support from religion and friends was related to overall lower mental health problems -- including thoughts of suicide," Cook said in a statement.
Conwell, who helped put together the studies, said it was not religion per se that acted on a person's will to live -- it was everything that goes along with religious involvement.
"It is spirituality, it is being engaged in a variety of different ways," he said. "Certainly social support seems to protect. There are a lot of ways to get that."
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 07/02/2002 06:39:47
Guns a Factor in Older White Male Suicide - Study
July 01, 2002 12:07 AM ET Email this article Printer friendly version
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=DDIH32W1KWUX2CRBAEZSFEYKEEATIIWD?type=topnews&StoryID=1149999
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Access to guns and a lack of social support make older white American men seven times more likely to kill themselves than black women of the same age, researchers said on Monday.
Scientists said people over 65 account for 19 percent of all suicides, although they make up only 13 percent of the population. A team of psychiatrists and geriatrics experts from across the country set out to find out why.
"There has been a lot of attention paid to suicide in younger life," Dr. Yeates Conwell, a geriatric psychiatrist at the University of Rochester in New York who helped organize a series of reports, said in a telephone interview. But suicide among older people has "been a neglected area," he said.
The suicide rate for people aged 15-24 is 13 per 100,000, and the overall suicide rate is 10.6 every 100,000, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
According to the series of studies published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the suicide rate among people over 65 was 15.9 per 100,000 people in 1999, and most of the fatalities were men.
In 1998, the suicide rate for white men aged 65 or older was 33.1 per 100,000, compared to 11.7 for black men of the same age and 4.85 for white women. Only 20 black women over 65 killed themselves in 1998, too few to measure statistically.
Researchers have not completely explained why people over 65 commit suicide more often than younger adults, but found a range of factors, including access to handguns, religion, social support and disrupted sleep -- a strong indicator of depression.
HANDGUNS IN HOME A FACTOR
One of the reports found that people with a handgun in the home were more than twice as likely to kill themselves as people of similar ages and lifestyles who did not have access to a handgun.
For the gun study, the researchers interviewed friends, families, employers and others involved in the lives of 86 people who killed themselves. They compared the lives of the suicide victims with the lives of 86 similar people living close by who were still alive.
A handgun was used in 71 percent of suicides among men over the age of 65, Conwell and colleagues found. Rifles and shotguns did not seem to affect suicide rates.
"This is a generation that is very comfortable with guns for sport such as hunting. Many lived through World War II or the Korean War and are familiar with firearms, so the presence of a gun is not unusual," Conwell said.
"But it becomes a serious issue when the person develops a depression. If someone is clinically depressed and has a firearm, that's a very dangerous combination."
Depression and other mental illness is a factor in 90 percent of all suicides, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Conwell said friends and loved ones should be aware if an older person seems depressed or suicidal, and perhaps act to remove guns from the home while he or she gets treatment.
He said people may have to be nursed through treatment at first, because depression can make a person feel hopeless and the patient may not believe treatment will help.
RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL TIES
Another study found that being involved in religion may protect against suicide.
Joan Cook, a geriatric psychologist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, found blacks who had strong religious and social ties were the least likely to have suicidal thoughts.
This is reflected in the very low suicide rate among African-Americans, especially women, she said.
Cook's team interviewed 835 public housing residents in Baltimore.
"We found that 90 percent reported they obtained a great deal of support and comfort from their religion, and that this support from religion and friends was related to overall lower mental health problems -- including thoughts of suicide," Cook said in a statement.
Conwell, who helped put together the studies, said it was not religion per se that acted on a person's will to live -- it was everything that goes along with religious involvement.
"It is spirituality, it is being engaged in a variety of different ways," he said. "Certainly social support seems to protect. There are a lot of ways to get that."
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 07/02/2002 06:39:47
Comments
Give a lazy man a job, he'll show you the easy way to do it.
When Clinton left office they gave him a 21 gun salute. Its a damn shame they all missed....
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Little people talk about people,regular people talk about things,and big people talk about ideas.
reasearches never ceases to amaze me.
Suicide in those above 65 is commonly
associated with physical illness--these
"researchers" are saying they don't know
that?
And "religion" is a factor in "preventing"
suicide--duh?!? Most religions have
prohibitions against suicide--which
can explain why "believers" are less
likely to kill themselves...
Sounds like just another lame attempt
to vilify firearms...