TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/071789/07178900.025

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 97 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.