Suicide Prevention Advocates & NRA cooperate

[+OverSword]

From the article:

Jennifer Stuber is an associate professor of public policy at the University of Washington, where she co-founded the organization Forefront: Innovations in Suicide Prevention.

It wasn’t the hardest phone call I’ve ever made, but it was certainly awkward. I was cold-calling the National Rifle Association. Because the NRA is well-known for offering gun safety training, I wanted to know whether the organization had ideas on how to reduce the number of firearm suicides. Half of all suicides in the United States are by firearm, and roughly two-thirds of all firearm deaths are suicides. Given the NRA’s opposition to virtually all gun regulation, I knew this was a touchy area.

A far harder call was the one I received from a Seattle police officer a few years earlier. The officer told me that my husband had ended his struggle with anxiety and depression with a single bullet. Suddenly, I was a 38-year-old widow and a single parent of two young children. I was left wondering how this had happened and whether it could have been prevented. I was deeply angry at myself, at my husband, at a treatment system that failed him and at a society that made it easy to buy a pistol. I wasn’t the best person to try to start a conversation with the NRA. No wonder it took me a few years to make the call.

But I learned a couple of surprising things from that call and the many follow-up meetings with a local NRA lobbyist and the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation.

First, they were not just willing to talk but also willing to listen. There was a simple reason for their openness: They are no more immune from the pain of suicide than anyone else.

Source

Edited April 8, 2016 by OverSword

[Dark_Grey]

Given the rate of drug addiction, both prescription and street, and the number of clinically depressed people, I often wonder why we as a society aren't focused on being happy. After all, isn't that the driving force of everything we've created here? Capitalism, jobs, advertising, cars, cell phones...and yet the vast majority of us are not happy. This society has failed us on a grande scale. If the vast majority of people do not live happy, fulfilled lives, I'd say it's time to really think about where we've gone wrong because this society is not fulfilling it's role in our lives.

[+and-then]

Given the rate of drug addiction, both prescription and street, and the number of clinically depressed people, I often wonder why we as a society aren't focused on being happy. After all, isn't that the driving force of everything we've created here? Capitalism, jobs, advertising, cars, cell phones...and yet the vast majority of us are not happy. This society has failed us on a grande scale. If the vast majority of people do not live happy, fulfilled lives, I'd say it's time to really think about where we've gone wrong because this society is not fulfilling it's role in our lives.

I agree that we should take a long hard look but it should be at ourselves, not society - at least initially. Far from being fulfilling, the message we're sold from childhood to strive for "more" or "better" is the problem IMO. At least regarding possessions.

[EnderOTD]

is there a link to the article?