A record number of nearly 50,000 Americans took their own lives last year, and naturally, the media blame firearms.
A main “driver” of suicide is “the growing availability of guns,” Jill Harkavy-Friedman, senior vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention told the Associated Press.
Here’s the “logic” from the far-left AP to back that up. “Suicide attempts involving guns end in death far more often than those with other means[.]”:
A recent Johns Hopkins University analysis used preliminary 2022 data to calculate that the nation’s overall gun suicide rate rose last year to an all-time high. For the first time, the gun suicide rate among Black teens surpassed the rate among white teens, the researchers found.
“I don’t know if you can talk about suicide without talking about firearms,” Harkavy-Friedman said.
The easiest way to expose the stupidity behind that thinking is to apply that same anti-science logic to something else:
The increase in car accidents is caused by the availability of cars.
The increase in drunk driving is caused by the availability of liquor.
The increase in paper cuts is caused by the availability of paper.
The increase in the number of bathtub drownings is caused by increased access to bathtubs.
People fall down the stairs because stairs are everywhere.
Good heavens… People are not committing suicide because the firearm calls out to them to commit suicide. The reasons behind suicide are countless and complicated.
According to this report, suicides increased steadily starting in 2000. Well, Americans have had easy access to guns since 1776. Here’s an idea… Let’s look at what actually has changed since the year 2000 that might negatively affect a person’s state of mind.
How about the proliferation of social media?
How about the increased acceptance of marijuana use and the explosion of designer drugs?
This report says, “[W]hite men, in particular, have very high rates” of suicide. Okay, one big cultural change since 2000 has been the growing embrace of openly denigrating and dismissing white men as a bunch of toxic Nazis who love rape. Worse still, the only way to avoid being lumped in with awful “white men” is to surrender your penis to the social justice mob like Stephen King and Mark Ruffalo do daily.
Listen, I don’t know what’s causing this. What I do know is that our culture is moving away from God when it’s faith in God that delivers what people need most: purpose, direction, and an answer to the eternal question of what it all means. Most of all, faith promises something other than oblivion.
We’re also moving away from family when nothing sustains a person more than raising, protecting, and caring for a family. Loving and being loved—that’s true fulfillment. Instead, our culture is determined to turn young women into sluts, young men into porn/videogame/drug-addicted metrosexuals, and babies into environmental crimes that kill your dreams.
I’ll tell you what obviously isn’t decreasing the suicide rate: all this toxic talk about self-love, self-care, and liberation through pleasure. Trust me; few people are as miserable as narcissists.
The idea of killing myself is beyond comprehension, but I can’t imagine the despair I would live with without my faith or my wife.
I also own a dozen guns, and not once has one tempted me to kill myself. What’s more, owning guns is good for me. Guns help to fulfill the purpose of self-reliance and protecting my family. If the government confiscated my guns, it would increase my unhappiness through a sense of helplessness. But no one wants to talk about that.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.