Senior men have higher rates of suicide than average, and firearms were involved in more than three-quarters of those deaths in 2021, according to a CDC report
Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) is only legal in 11 US states.
At best, it requires a diagnosis for a terminal illness with 6 months left to live.
Individuals with an Alzheimer’s or Dementia diagnosis are precluded from being able to make that choice, even if the diagnosis is recent and they still have most of their faculties.
We could be doing so much more to allow people to go out on their own terms and die a good death. It doesn’t have to be traumatic for family members, whoever discovers the body, or those who will inevitably clean up the aftermath.
Ever see the show Shameless? Very dark comedy throughout, mostly light hearted content. One episode had me balling. One of the main characters is having memory issues. They were sort of working their bucket list that reunited them with a friend that also had memory problems. The friend mentioned their spouse dying. Main character asks how they remembered. They had it written down on a post-it note on the fridge.
If I had to relive my wife dying every day because I forgot, just put me down.
My wife has a dementia patient for the past year who doesn’t remember being married and having children. She says he proposal to her about once a week. Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think?
We put dogs down every day because they have incurable diseases or are suffering.
I had to put my dog down a few years ago because she was so old she could no longer get up or control her bladder or bowels, and I felt guilty for letting it get that far. I still remember the look in her eyes when they gave her the pain killers to knock her out, she looked so relieved.
I don’t understand how I get to make that decision for a dog, but a grown human, in most places, can’t make that call for themselves and go out in a peaceful and controlled manner. If I knew I was going to die painfully in a few months or a year, I’d definitely take an overdose or nitrogen asphyxiation over the disease. When dogs have a better way out than people, something is seriously wrong.
Too many people think the point of society is so you have others to take advantage of.
There unfortunately isn’t going to be a perfect answer here. I think most people would agree that a 17 year old in perfect health but depressed shouldn’t be able to die and I think most people would agree that 95 year old with a week to live in serious pain should be able to.
Where the line is, who gets to decide, and what criteria they use is always going to be something debatable. I generally think it should be decided by medical review boards and the most important criteria should be consent.
I think others have mentioned this, but I’m disturbed that the article seems more concerned about guns than about the way our society and culture fails older men.
Sure it gets a mention but omg guns.
Get rid of all guns and gun suicides will plummet! It’s just obvious! Can’t you see that?! The problem is GUNS GUNS GUNS. After all, this is an anti gun article, right?! Wait… Why does the article mention suicide?
The idea of stopping suicide by removing the means is absolutely sick when you think about it.
Removing the means of suicide is the crudest, least helpful method of suicide prevention.
Get rid of all guns and gun suicides will plummet!
Shouldn’t you guys be somewhere crying out mental health in the replies to yet another mass shooting article?
Sure you can kill yourself other ways, and society isn’t great to older men, or men, or women, or infants, or whatever…but guns deliver instant death that is just barely on this side of the line of premeditated.
The rise in suicide rates also coincides with lax gun laws if you have read anything about the subject.
Think about the last time you had a long, lonely night, it was miserable, right? What if you had an instant way of ending it all right that moment at the height of your torment, and that method was within arm’s reach?
Guns can easily turn a bad night into a person’s last night. Expand outreach for mental health and work on improving society in other ways, sure, but continuing to provide ubiquitous, instant means to kill yourself and others does zero to solve any of society’s ills.
What a load of horse shit.
Wedging guns is nothing but disingenuous.
Suicide is caused by depression. Not guns, Depression.
Higher male suicide rates is caused by the fact that men ACT on it more than women. This is well studied and understood by even first year university students in social studies. The only way to stop it from occurring is before men and women ACT on it. Address the cause depression, and it will improve outcomes.
Programs like, “Black dog institute”, “Are you OK”, “Mens shed Associations”, or best yet, clinical help, Break the stigma of men reaching out for help.
Higher male suicide rates is caused by the fact that men ACT on it more than women. This is well studied and understood by even first year university students in social studies.
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social studies isn’t a fucking college level course, you talking about sociology?
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how do you even measure “acting on it” more often? I’ve read several things that said that women attempt suicide more often than men, but men more often “succeed”… Largely because of the means they choose
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guns don’t cause suicide depression does is the same shitty argument that assholes like you have with guns don’t kill people, people kill people
Guns are integral to quick, thoughtless suicide, and if you actually look at the statistics vs the policy or do any actual reading it’ll tell you the same despite the gun industry trying to prevent research in the area to increase gun sales.
Yes depression is a problem that ought to be dealt with, but it helps nobody to provide lonely, depressed old men with ubiquitous access and fetishization of instant death.
And lastly, go fuck yourself and your whole tone.🖕
- social studies isn’t a fucking college level course, you talking about sociology?
Depending on where you live it is college or ts university, first year
- how do you even measure “acting on it” more often? I’ve read several things that said that women attempt suicide more often than men, but men more often “succeed”… Largely because of the means they choose
Death, well established and not studied enough
- guns don’t cause suicide depression does is the same shitty argument that assholes like you have with guns don’t kill people, people kill people
Its sad how obsessed you are with guns, really sad
Fact America is not in the top 20 countries for suicide. I would like to think because its quality of life, but like all things its more nuanced.
Guns don’t cause suicide, depression (the big killer) results in suicide and its causes are many. Access to suicidal means may help with a little bit of time sometimes; best case scenario. However if the cause is never addressed the end result will always be the same so just conflating the issue and the cycle continues on.
Australia got rid of guns in 1996.
The only person fetishizing guns and suicide is you! Stop wedging the desperate to your disingenuous cause,.
The only person fetishizing guns and suicide is you! Stop wedging the desperate to your disingenuous cause
You got me, I’m actually a desperate, anti gun lobbyist…a position that pays equally well to a George Soros professional protestor. /s (because you’re an idiot)
Edit: fucking article itself says most involve guns and people are like 🙉🙈
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Fr in amarica wel fix everything but the thing creating the problem. Baning guns ain’t gonna make people less depressed, less isolated, less valiant and the only people that feel safer are people who didn’t have issues to begin with.
This is a really sad state of affairs for older guys.
Imagine a guy who gets to 55+ and takes a look at his life and realize he’s not where he wants to be and it feels like there’s no chance to restart. Maybe he just didn’t get into the housing market in time or start his 401k. Maybe some health issues or divorces blew out his savings.
These are the guys who were out of college right before the world was flipped upside down by technology, so I’m sure a lot of them never thought they had to catch up to keep their career running.
It would be really hard to not see it as a personal total failure, and to be frank their family and peers might see it that way too if they know. It probably feels like standing at the base of Everest when he should have the summit in sight.
His peers are either feeling depressed like him or they are jetting around on holidays most of the time.
Guys are taught most of their life to stuff the emotional things, so the future feels hopeless because he’s in a bubble and doesn’t understand how common this feeling is.
I hope we can find more ways to let guys like this, and all people, know that this feeling is temporary and there is a lot of hope waiting at the next turn.
Maybe he needs a bit of a boost from some antidepressants and someone to talk with who can help him let it all out. Or maybe he just needs a society that sees him as someone with something left to give, who still has jobs to be done, and that’s enough.
So?
We value capital here, not human life.
As an American, shouldn’t our glorious free capitalist market celebrate these depleted capital batteries taking themselves out of the equation and lowering the tax burden on our beloved job creators requiring social supports once they can no longer make them money as fast food employees or store greeters?
What kind of Americans would put value on human life that can no longer generate private shareholder value? Smh, ya’ll need to find supply side Jesus.
To be fair though, the common method is as American as
apple pie baseballvast homeless tent cities. 🇺🇸🎶 Oh say can you seeee…today’s mass shooting on teevee… 🎶🇺🇸TRUE DAT! no, my capslock isnt on.
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Well see, capitalism isn’t about productivity. It’s about maximizing capital. More consumers means more spending, and more money moving to people maximizing capital. So… Capitalism hates the death of consumers and loves procreation even more.
But you’re only a consumer if you have money to spend. If you’re broke, you’re out of the market.
To be fair, each additional person is a net gain for society’s wealth on average.
From earnings and potential earnings, people are. The elderly are the worst consumers by far, any piece of shit proud sociopathic capitalist will tell you that.
Worst? Well, it depends. 🙂 When the elderly are so fucking far gone, their minds are gone, and they require to be put into a home…if they happen to have built up wealth…it is extracted from them pretty quickly. They’re a consumer on steroids, providing jobs & income to others. A decent nursing home where I live will run $70K annually, and that doesn’t cover medications. Divide that by 365, their family is shelling out, at bare minimum, $191 every single day for them to “live”. That’s a lot of cash!
And thats a lot of terrible!
Leftists can’t do math, or they wouldn’t be leftists.
True dat.
You really don’t need to talk that way.
I genuinely wish I didn’t.
But Alas, this cruel nation makes respect impossible for me, and in lieu of any power, my only solace is making mockery of our unrepentant oppressors and this exploitation camp of a “society.”
Everyone saying it’s ridiculous to prevent people from killing themselves needs to keep in mine that these rules are generally in placw to prevent vulnerable people, including and especially the elderly, from being convinced to kill themselves so junior can inherit their house. People are bastards and absolutely will take advantage of more lax euthanasia laws to rid themselves of “troublesome” or “useless” people.
But I want my kid to inherit my house. I’ll be damned if I piss it away on a bunch of entities compelling me to stay alive so they can drain everything I’ve accumulated. Fuck them. End me while there’s still something left.
Ban guns that will fix the mental health problem…
Sarcasm for those unable to spot click bait. Might as well have titled the story “Death the leading cause of suicide among elderly men”…
we should ban rope as well just to be safe
Evolution has never stopped. Humans are simply creating new selection pressures. Humans are cruel to each other so that some will kill themselves. This will remain the case until cooperation becomes a dominant survival strategy.
Idk… sounds too much like social Darwinism
Damn dude. I think this too and it’s crazy to see someone else explain this.
Yes but evolution is natural, this rat race that pushes people to suicide it’s entirely fabricated.
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Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. There’s alot of stuff I don’t agree with op on but I believe he is entitled to an opinion and is entitled to share that opinion and so are you
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Guns are life. My rule to live by is “Love, Hate, Guns, and Ammo.”
None think about having to clean up all their blood and brain matter left over. Suicide is so selfish.
Calling people who suffer from suicidal ideation or committed suicide selfish is exactly like calling kids with down syndrome idiots.
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Yikes.
It’s also selfish to force people to suffer due to our personal moral scruples. Allow assisted suicide.
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Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia are curable, are they?
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Alzheimer’s, if caught early, can be cured.
-YoBuckStopsHere
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"Current Alzheimer’s treatments temporarily improve symptoms of memory loss and problems with thinking and reasoning.
These Alzheimer’s treatments boost the performance of chemicals in the brain that carry information from one brain cell to another. They include cholinesterase inhibitors and the medicine memantine (Namenda). However, these treatments don’t stop the underlying decline and death of brain cells. As more cells die, Alzheimer’s disease continues to progress."
-literally your own source
Not so easily as you say.
I try not judge these folks too harshly, they must be in incredible pain.
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And that’s the whole problem. Medical help is so expensive you need medical help after medical help.
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No, they’re not in pain? Really?
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Someone who doesn’t want help is not going to seek help. Your “solution” is as insane as telling a schizophrenic person to just stop listening to voices. Your understanding of mental illness is both offensive to those of us who suffer from it and just simply ignorant. Until you get a degree in psychology, maybe you shouldn’t be lecturing other people about what they should do about their mental illnesses.
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Yes, they do want help. They always want help.
Is this in your expert psychological opinion?
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Wall Street is selfish. Taking more profit than you need is selfish.
These people were desperate. Many likely due to rampant American capitalistic selfishness forcing them to subsist on catfood so business crooks can have 2 vacation homes and 5 expensive cars instead of everyone benefitting from market prosperity.
Selfishness is America’s brand, but being driven to put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger isn’t selfishness, it is largely a consequence of other’s selfishness. Our suicide rates are extreme in the supposedly “developed” world because selfish people demand everything and we let them do it at societal expense.
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