TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/071789/07178900.025

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.5 KB | 102 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 61

Suicides: The Gun Factor


    Perhaps the most startling fact to emerge from the grim
gallery on the preceding pages is the pervasiveness of suicides
-- 216, or 47% of the week's total gun deaths. That proportion
was actually below average: for at least three decades, suicides
have generally accounted for more than half the nation's annual
firearms fatalities. And while the overall U.S. suicide rate
climbed from 11.9 to 12.8 per 100,000 people from 1980 to 1986,
the percentage of suicides committed with guns has also been
rising. In 1986, 64% of the men and 40% of the women who
committed suicide shot themselves.

    Suicide is a complex phenomenon, influenced by religious,
cultural and psychological factors. Men are far more prone to
it than women are, and in the U.S. whites are more likely to
kill themselves than are blacks. While international comparisons
are difficult because the varying stigmas attached to suicide
produce under-reporting in certain countries, one point is
unchallenged: the U.S. leads the world in gun use for
self-inflicted deaths. In 1986, 7.5 people per 100,000 in the
U.S. used firearms to kill themselves; Switzerland was second
with 6, followed by France with 4.9 and Canada with 4.7.

    Yet experts see no certain connection between national
suicide rates and the availability of guns. While the U.S. has
a disproportionate number of suicides by firearms, it falls
only about midway on the World Health Organization's most recent
list of overall suicide rates in 33 industrialized nations. At
13.2 per 100,000 people, America's record was far worse than
that of Ireland (9.2), Italy (8.3), Spain (6.9) and Greece
(3.8). But Hungary (45.5), Denmark (27.1), Finland (27) and
Switzerland (22.8) make the problem in the U.S. seem
inconsequential by comparison.

    Although the national differences have not been adequately
explained, some researchers see American suicides as being more
heavily influenced than in the past by drugs and alcohol, which
lead to more spur-of-the-moment self-killing. One recent trend
in the U.S. has been a sharp increase in suicides among people
under 24. Although some of the older victims in TIME's survey
seemed to plan their deaths -- leaving wills or notes about
their illnesses, for example -- many of the younger ones acted
after arguments. Girls shot themselves in front of their
boyfriends, husbands killed themselves after their wives left
them, desperate men shot their spouses in quarrels and then
turned their weapons on themselves. The happenstance of an
impulse and the ready availability of a gun were the fatal
combination.

    Guns add a dimension of harsh finality to suicide attempts.
Psychologists find that most people who attempt to kill
themselves do not really wish to die. Many suicide methods,
including drugs, carbon monoxide poisoning from car exhausts or
simply swimming away from a shore, allow people to change their
mind or to be discovered and rescued. According to some experts,
for each successful suicide, there are at least 20 attempts. But
one study has found that when people use a gun, the rate of
death is 92%. Says Tulane University sociologist James Wright:
"Everyone knows that if you put a loaded .38 in your ear and
pull the trigger, you won't survive."

    The mental state that prompts suicide, usually some form of
depression, is often treatable. Psychologists contend that
suicide must be discussed more openly and viewed without shame
so that potential victims will seek treatment. Werner Spitz, a
professor of forensic pathology at Wayne State University,
regrets that "people are ashamed to admit a relative committed
suicide, seeing it as a blemish on the good name of the family."
Since suicide can be contagious, many families rightly fear that
a son or daughter, a brother or sister, may be inclined to
imitate the act of self-destruction. But "depression is a
disease," says Detroit psychiatrist Karole Avila. "The way to
rip away the veil over suicide is to destigmatize it."

    Atlanta's Rhoda Berliner is an example of how the
availability of guns can make a difference. She had been
undergoing therapy for recurring depression. Despite a
comfortable income, the 63-year-old divorcee was so afraid of
poverty that she twice tried to kill herself with pills. Each
time, her family discovered her soon enough to save her. But on
Saturday morning, May 6, she found a swift and certain
alternative. She went to a shopping center and bought a handgun.
Since Berliner knew nothing about weapons, the salesclerk loaded
the pistol for her. She took the gun home and shot herself. At
that point, there was no time, and no way, for anyone to help.

    After the tragedy, her son Stephen Nodvin, a research
ecologist in Knoxville, wrote a moving three-page plea to his
Congressman. He conceded that his mother might have found
another way to end her life, but said her depression would
probably have been cured had a gun not been so easily available.
He protested the casual way in which she was able to acquire the
fatal weapon: "No waiting period was enforced, no mental or
criminal checks were made, and the salesperson even loaded the
bullets into the gun. Mom died that day because of the totally
irresponsible attitude that we Americans have developed about
gun use and ownership." Every week, more American families are
exposed to that irreversible lesson.