Opinion
New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- Going over hundreds of pages of documents and sifting through the who’s doing what, where, and when, things pop out for later consideration.
Last month I was looking over AmmoLand’s recent articles and happened upon one by the esteemed David Codrea. Codrea, a prolific writer on 2nd Amendment issues put out a piece on December 1, 2020 entitled: “Gun Prohibitionists Exploiting Suicide to Advance Disarmament Agenda”.
No pun intended, his article put up a red flag in my mind. I was musing over the same exact subject but with a different context. Codrea pulls important statistics and brings up things we need to be aware of. For example, he cites:
“In Japan, more people died from suicide last month than from Covid in all of 2020,” CNN reported Sunday. “In 2016, Japan had a suicide mortality rate of 18.5 per 100,000 people, second only to South Korea in the Western Pacific region…”
David also notes the new push from Handgun Control Inc (Rebranded as Brady) and quips:
They’ve come up with a well-funded, multi-media “End Family Fire” campaign, that not only stumps for compulsory storage but also uses suicides to further the citizen disarmament agenda.
What is noticeably absent from the “End Family Fire” webpage is the premier program put out by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), Project ChildSafe.
If Handgun Control Inc (Brady) had any real interest in this subject, they’d be teaming up with the NSSF, because they already have and have had, the go-to program on this subject. NSSF has put a lot of work into suicide awareness and also keeping firearms out of the hands of both children and disqualified persons. Unlike Brady, NSSF puts their money where their mouth is and has distributed over 38,000,000 gun locks, for free, for citizens to use and secure their firearms.
Calling Brady, come in Brady. Are you giving out locks? Do you have what it takes to put your money where your mouth is?
The answer to that is a simple “no”. They Don’t have what it takes. Instead, they are a group intent on stripping people of their rights, while tap-dancing on their namesake’s tragedy.
Information that I think is important to bring to light comes from Giffords. I was reviewing their “50 State Fact Sheet” report from 2019, released in early 2020.
The current statistics which have been unilaterally accepted state that 2/3rds of all gun deaths are suicides. Drawing from Giffords fact sheet, I looked at the states that have a less than 50% death rate due to suicide by firearm vs total deaths due to firearms. This number would be far enough below the 66% threshold of the national average. What this bar does is point to a very interesting list of violent states. Naturally, if the suicide numbers are at 50% or below, the firearm deaths due to murder and accidental shootings would be equal or greater than, thus close to or above a majority. Check out these percentages concerning the firearm death rate due to suicide vs total firearm deaths:
- Illinois has a rate of 40%
- Louisiana 47%
- Maryland 40%
- Mississippi ranks at appx 50%
- New Jersey 40%
From that list, you can garner a who’s who of States that have the most dangerous cities. Illinois, with Chicago, the murder capital of the US at one point. Louisiana, with New Orleans and Baton Rouge ranking high. Maryland, with Baltimore, conceivably the current most dangerous city in the country. Mississippi, having Pascagoula, their most “dangerous city” (but not nationally noted in comparison to other cities). And New Jersey, the mac-daddy of crime and violence with Trenton, Camden, and Newark.
With the exception of Mississippi and Louisiana, the above-mentioned states have some of the most restrictive gun laws. 3/5ths of the states with the lowest suicide deaths via firearms have some of the most draconian gun laws, with Louisiana and Mississippi hovering at nearly 50%, and the others a clean ten points lower (with nearly 2/3rds of gun deaths attributed to violence).
Let’s look at one comparison, 576 people killed a year via firearms in Mississippi versus Illinois 1,310. By the numbers, Mississippi is 43% the number of total gun deaths of Illinois, with Mississippi having a much higher firearm suicide rate.
In stark contrast to the above, New Hampshire, with what I consider freedom-friendly laws, id.est. Constitutional Carry, no limits on magazines, only a NICS check needed for purchase, no limitations on modern sporting arms, etc.
They have a whopping 90% death rate via firearms from suicides vs total firearm deaths, the largest in the nation!?
What can this tell us? It tells us that the Live Free or Die state does not have many murders or accidental deaths from guns in comparison.
It tells us that when it comes to guns, a New Hampshire resident is more apt to use a firearm on themselves than another individual 90% of the time.
New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland, with the lowest percentages, 40% – High crime, restrictive laws…Versus New Hampshire, with 90% – Low crime, non-restrictive laws.
In a previous article, I noted that the CDC has been trying to come up with new and creative ways to dip their hand into the “gun control” arena. From a Freedom of Information Act document, 20-01880-FOIA, we can read an article that was circulating in October of 2019. The article “Gun suicides: America's unseen public health crisis” by Dr. Jonathan Fielding of UCLA, right at the start states;
“We’re facing an increasing epidemic of gun deaths in America…”
The article was sent to Abbigail Tumpey, the Associate Director for Communication Science, Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, at the CDC, perceivably from a newsletter subscription distributed by Fielding. Tumpey sent the article to several people, to note, Michael Iademarco, MD, Director of Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services. Unfortunately due to the CDCs unwillingness to distribute a proper FOIA, what was said in the correspondence between these high-ranking individuals has been blacked out by the government highlighter (redacted). But be on alert, the CDC is talking about “gun control”.
The fact of the matter is, states with restrictive “red flag” laws, promoted to mitigate and stop suicides, the instances of suicide via firearm have gone down…but the overall suicide rates went up. I’m not going to beat a dead horse on that subject, but the following excellent articles fully outline the issues on this topic if you wish to read more:
- “Against Suicide, Not Guns” by Dr. Robert B. Young
- “Suicide and Guns: Maryland Study Debunks Itself” by Dean Weingarten
- “Suicides Are Going Up, Not Down, In States With ‘Red Flag’ Laws” by Cam Edwards
And
- “CT Dems Want To Expand Red Flag Gun Seizure Law” by Cam Edwards
If Brady, Giffords, the CDC, et.al. were so concerned with the scourge of “gun violence” and zeroing in on the new “suicide epidemic”, they would team up with Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership or groups like Walk the Talk America. These groups address these topics head-on and do so without trying to ban every gun under the sun. Instead of focusing on the tool, these groups focus on the situation.
On a personal level, of the 7 people I know of, off the top of my head, only 2 used firearms to take their own lives. A rundown:
- Purposeful illicit drug overdose (who was a drug addict)
- Attempted suicide via hanging, which left the individual braindead
- Setting up a charcoal grill inside a bathroom, closing the door, and suffocating on the smoke (who suffered from chronic depression)
- Attempted suicide via overdose of prescription medicine (who was an alcoholic)
One suicide that I never received the details of
- An individual that used a handgun to kill himself (who was an alcoholic)
- An individual that used a rifle to kill himself (who was a veteran)
This is what these anti-freedom groups should be doing, they should be asking themselves:
Why do so many people want to take their own lives and how can we help them?
Instead, they go straight to, let’s take away the firearms, leaving people a million other ways to take their own lives.
No doubt we have a suicide problem in the United States, conceivably the world. We’d be grossly saccharine and naive if we thought the removal of firearms from society would stop people from taking their own lives, the numbers don’t show that to be true. Policymakers need to look to the quality of life issues and the expansion of our mental health system.
Mr. Codrea is right to ring the bell, sounding the alarm. These groups are zeroing in on suicide as a new vehicle to usurp our rights. 2021 (and beyond) is going to be the year of the Extreme Risk Protective Order (ERPO), in my estimation.
John Petrolino is a US Merchant Marine Officer, writer, author of Decoding Firearms: An Easy to Read Guide on General Gun Safety & Use and NRA certified pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructor living under and working to change New Jersey's draconian and unconstitutional gun laws. You can find him on the web at www.johnpetrolino.com on twitter at @johnpetrolino and on Instagram @jpetrolinoiii .
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