This is very big news:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local…

Chicago police have apprehended suspects in the Hadiya Pendleton killing.

Japans suicide rate is sky high sans guns. Someone pubished a suicide manual. If you want to die, you will find a way.

More Austerity Cuts Coming To The States

You’d expect after years of austerity cuts to public services, state politicians would think of new ways to raise revenue from those who can afford it — the wealthy and corporations. Not so. The cuts that began as a consequence of the 2008 recession are set to continue; raising revenue from the wealthy is “off the table” for Republicans and Democrats alike.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/14498-mor…

@2 wrong. Suicidal impulses, if they are thwarted, don't usually return. Contradicts popular notion but supported by the evidence. I'll find the data and post a link.

I stand somewhat corrected. According the the NIH, a third of people who attempt suicide will try again within a year. Over time, 10% "who threaten or attempt" will be successful. Access to a gun makes the likelihood of death much higher.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/…

re: "Guns make you stupid." I had never contemplated the spiral of stupid that could result from excessive gun use and inhalation of lead fumes. It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

"Republicans are filibustering..."

Nobody could've predicted. Glad the Democratic leadershit did their duty and rolled over when it came time for serious filibuster reform...in 2013, 2011, and 2009.

The world is overpopulated. If someone wants to commit suicide, let them. Who gives a shit if they use a gun or not?

Why would you try to convince someone they NEED to stay alive if they don't want to? Mind your own business and let them mind theirs.

And if there's a problem with suicides, it's clearly a mental health issue, not a fucking gun issue.

@5, they often return, but they are treatable in the meantime. And the vast majority of suicide attempts occur within FIVE MINUTES of the idea occurring. Impulsive, indeed. That's why suicide fences work. The safest place to keep your gun is to not have one.

The Illinois Senate is debating on marriage equality NOW:

live stream: http://new.livestream.com/blueroomstream…

live blog:
http://capitolfax.com/2013/02/14/live-se…

another live stream:

http://www.ilga.gov/senate/audvid.asp

I was wondering since the media never publishes the stats, has anyone jumped since the fence was installed on Aurora Bridge?

For a very funny (and very insightful) take on the Hagel filibuster, read Charles Pierce's Esquire blog:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Th…

@10

Yeah, don't do anything to keep your kids alive, just "mind your own business" if your teenager ever wants to die. Fucking twat.

Anybody who thinks the way you do would have had an abortion, not raised a child. Anybody who is that much of a misanthrope wouldn't bother to comment here at all. You'd be busy killing yourself. Which proves you're only here to spread misery and make others hate themselves as much as you do.

@13 yes, but they didn't hit rich people's houseboats or businesses, so they won't tell us.

I continue to not see the humor in the Rubio drink of water (though Conan at least put SOME spin in an effort to infuse some new blood in it.)

Here's a clip of Obama flubbing a portion of some health care related speech he was giving, perhaps related to a tele-prompter mis-hap, then hilariously "re-mixed" into slow-motion by some republicans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx8…

I saw this video shared on idiot republican friends facebook pages as an example of comedy. Man, they thought it was fuckin' funny as shit! It's not though; it's partisan childishness and serves no purpose other than to dumb down the rhetoric to similarly childish levels. Dude was thirsty during a speech and grabbed a drink from a bottle of water that was poorly positioned.

abortion, suicide, both are legal in washington, though the legal suicide takes a few hoops. Indifference to those that kill themselves is not equal to encouraging your teen to hang himself, or chuckling at your neighbors teen suicide.

@17 I agree--this Palinizes Democrats. Rubio's take on the weather (/climate), women's rights, government investment in science, the cause of the financial collapse--those are all legitimately hilarious. Troubling that those don't get equal scrutiny.

@15,
Chill out.
Read what @18 said.

I'm neither encouraging suicide, nor reveling in it when it happens. Since I haven't ended my life, I don't know why you think I hate it.

But who are you to think you know what someone else wants more than they know it themselves? Who are you to force someone to live if they really want to die? You need some humility.

@ 8 You the the Dems will always be in the majority, talk about living in the real world.

@20, yeah, who are you to treat someone's illness? What if that guy WANTS cholera?

Suicide is a mental health problem, which is a PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM.

Remember when all the gun nuts were saying "oh, it's not about the guns, it's about mental health, we have to do something about mental health, never mind what exactly, just stop talking about guns"? Yeah. Turns out you actually meant "We must not do anything about mental health, either; being mentally ill is a personal choice."

You're a contemptible boob.

@21 The real world included a non-anonymous talking filibuster, which worked just fine for decades because it forced cowards to defend their obstructionism.

People like you will always make excuses for their tribe being the gutless wonders they are. Fear of the Republicans being in charge (you know, that magical time when Democrats grow a fucking spine!) is one of the tried and true methods. "Realism" is another one of those great meaningless talking points. Good job.

@22
"Suicide is a mental health problem, which is a PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM."

Not until it becomes contagious like the flu.

And, again, Goldy seems more interested in the statistics than the people.
He can't name them.
He does not know why they committed suicide.
He could not even identify them in a crowd.
But as soon as someone else sanitizes their deaths, he is happy to use them as statistics.

There is a reason that The Stranger is not running a list of all shootings in the area.
That reason is that it would contradict their message.

@Fnarf,

Bull. I've always been in favor of more restrictions on guns. I've never said we can't restrict guns or even talk about them because we have to focus on mental illness... we can do more than one thing at a time. Make more gun laws AND improve mental illness screening and treatment.

Comparing cholera to suicide is silly. There are people who legitimately want to die. Really and truly. They don't want to be alive. Why the fuck should they be forced to remain alive in a life they don't want?

@24: I think Goldy would be able to identify the victim of a suicide within a crowd of people just as well as you or I would. Here's a clue: the suicide victim is the dead one.

Unless you're meaning identifying the suicide victim(s) within a crowd of dead people. Since the dead do not naturally congregate in crowds, that means you have zombies, and that's a separate issue.

Interestingly enough, I have removed plastic bags from peoples heads, cords from around peoples necks, and physically restrained someone who bit through the veins in their wrist. I have worked with the mentally ill for years and done more to prevent suicide, than Goldy or any of the gun control nuts. Their anti-gun agenda is not about saving lives, it never has been, they seek only to restrict the civil rights of those who they do not agree with. It is not about guns, it is about control.

@25 because they're mentally ill. How many suicides are genuine euthanasia rather than the result of severe depression? Very few. That you keep repeating the same ill-informed, irresponsible nonsense doesn't give it any more credence.

@27

...and Five Large turned 20 dead children into $5,000 profit. Cash money right there. That's more than any of you can say.

Question! Was this about "control"?

An intervention in Israel preventing soldiers from taking their guns home on weekend leave, a time when many soldiers’ suicides occurred, helped reduce the suicide rate among them by 40 percent.

It looks a hell of a lot like Israel wanted fewer suicides. What's the control angle? Why? Who benefits?

Besides the soldiers who didn't die. You mansplain it for us, Five Large.

Oooh don't forget this one. Looky at big man Joe Arpaio's keep kids safe gun security posse. Except one of them is a kiddie diddler. This is the mind set of the guns for safety crowd. Let's loose a armed child sex predator amongst the children of Maricopa county AZ. Keep the kids safe, I reckon, so's you can fuck em later.

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/g…

Take a look gun nuts. I'm not sure how you see yourselves, but this is who you are.

@30

Yes all gun owners are support Joe Arapaio and are child molesters.

When an African American male mugs someone in the Central District means that all blacks are criminals?

Is it kinda like how all homosexual males spread AIDS?

You bigots are all the same regardless of what progressive cause you profess to support.

@29
So, I have actually prevented suicides and saved lives, what have you done besides push your agenda on the backs of dead children?

@31

You're ignoring the fact that Israel cut the suicide rate among soldiers by forty percent because you prevented some suicides blah blah blah? That's your reason?

You think when the public reads that Israel cut their soldiers' suicide rate by 40 fucking percent, they're going to write that off because some anonymous guy on the internet claimed that he is a big action hero who saved somebody from suicide?

See, first, it makes no fucking sense. Second, you have a history of making up exciting stories what star yourself as the conquering hero, and they're not credible. You walk like a fraud, talk like a fraud, and you are a fraud.

Go make some money, Five Large. Go sell a gun.

@31 Hahahahahahaha! Nice false equivalency! Go fuck your gun instead of a kid, coward.

@28
"That you keep repeating the same ill-informed, irresponsible nonsense doesn't give it any more credence."

Let's look at some numbers, okay?
From Goldy's quote:
"... 30,000 annual gun deaths ..."
"... nearly two-thirds are by suicide ..."

So about 20,000 suicide-by-gun in a year.
So, are guns the preferred method of suicide in America?
No.
According to the CDC:
"An estimated 1 million adults (0.5% of the U.S. adult population) reported making a suicide attempt in the past year."

So if you want to focus on preventing suicide then focus on preventing suicide.
But when you focus on guns used in suicide you are ignoring approximately 980,000 attempts while decrying 20,000 cases where you do NOT know the specifics.

@33

Ohh internet toughguy, watch out! Say that to my face and see what happens. Naw you would just stair at your shoes like every other fake ass liberal progressive.

I fail to see how a comparison of painting an entire diverse groups of Americans with a broad brush statement is a false equivelency. Looks like the fact you are a civil rights hating bigot remains.

You seem to be focusing on child molestation, is that your fetish? You anti-guners do tend to be sick fucks interested in holding power over others. You also like to have your victims disarmed as phngli explained yesterday.

@32
What have you done to prevent suicide, I have 3 years workign mental health and 7 in ER. Again you have done fucking nothing. Your only solution is to speak of undermining the rights of others so you can feel better about your own inaction, seems you are the fraud. Haybe if you get back on your meds you can get a job that actully contributes to this society.

@34
Uh oh, you know how how they feel about facts, and math.

@34

Because 85% of gun suicides are successful. Guns kill people. Ropes, bridges, pills, they kill some people, but not like guns do. The lethality of suicide by gun was determined by paying very close attention to those large numbers of attempted suicides, and noting how few of those involved a gun.

What is your plan to "focus on preventing suicide"? What is the gun nut plan to focus on mental health? I keep hearing all these attempts to change the subject, but what is the plan?

@35

Five Large don't back down. Point out powerful evidence that reducing access to guns reduces suicide, and what does he do? Changes the subject. Point out he's changing the subject, and he doubles down. Never give up. Keep your eyes on that next $5,000.

What is your logic here? Let's say I did claim to be a mental health worker who had saved lives (like you're pretending). Would that have any bearing on the success of Israel in preventing suicide? Or that fact that the US states with the most guns have the highest suicide rates?

See how delusional that is, Five Large? "I worked in an ER, and that let's me ignore facts!" Who the hell wants to be treated in an ER by somebody with no grasp of reality? Seems doubtful. A guy who thinks 2+2=5 is going to dose you wrong.

Your bragging is not convincing, and the point you're trying to make with your pretend heroics is inane. Anybody, with any kinds of life experience, can see the evidence showing access to guns increases suicide. The evidence is independent of you or me, Five Large.

@37
Yea guns make suicide easier, no fucking shit genius. No one is going to argue that they don't, this is like goldys old "I am not against guns I just want to show that they are dangerous" no shit guns are dangerous. Though it seems the tone changed once you guys got some dead children to prop your political points on.

If we seriously want to prevent suicide we need to look a lot further than banning guns. We need to look at making real change to improve the mental health of our citizens. Diet and exercise would be a huge step, so would having the availability of counseling. So would having a society that doesn't make people feel isolated and hopeless.

But you do not care about saving lives, you care about the destruction of the civil rights of those who do not hold your world view.

@38

I'm on board. What's the mental health plan? What's the diet and exercise plan? And the plan to make sure nobody is isolated and hopeless? And is this going to come close to the forty percent reduction in suicide that Israel achieved? Based on what evidence?

Did you check the mental health status of the guys you sold guns to? Any of them isolated? Hopeless? Work out and eat right?

@39

You are cherry picking again 40% reduction in suicides of active military personnel on leave, not a 40% over all suicide reduction. There seems to be a high rate of suicide among military personnel everywhere, I think that part of the problem is that we train people to be soldiers but then do not retrain them to again be normal citizens. Of course combat stress and military culture are another factor among many. Again it also must be kept in mind that Isreal is not culturally like the US, nor is any country like the US. I get the feeling you haven't traveled much nor do you have much experience in serving the mentally ill population.

The main things thing that need to be done for mental health is education and access. Most people do not know the resources that are out there, nor can they recognize their symptoms, nor can their friends and family. In most cases mental illness, especially depression, is often a temporary treatable event. I usually straight up tell patients "Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. Access to care also needs to be improved, as well as removing the social stigma that comes with seeking treatment for a mental illness. Some things can be legislated but many depend on us changing our individual attitudes towards mental illness.

A second, as much as I hate to say it, is making it easier to put someone on a involuntary hold for psychiatric evaluation. I have seen MDs throw patients out who are screaming that they want to die, this is wrong. In Washington holds for evaluation and treatment are hard to do, currently we have to wait for the King County Mental Health Professional to do a hold for treatment, the wait is generally between 4 and 20 hours. In the mean time patients can not be given medications like sedatives or antipsycotics because they must be lucid and unmediated when the KCMHP arrives to interview them at an unknown time in the future. I am not one to rely on drugs as the sole means of treatment, but properly applied they can reduce stress and fear speed recovery and prevent further psychological damage to the patient. another problem is we don't have the facilities to house and treat the holds that we currently have. When Psych facility fill up we are leaving patients in restraints on medical floors, and this is wrong, it is not the way to treat peoples illnesses.

As for diet and exercise, again education is key. I think that starts in the schools, teaching our kids healthy habits rather than cutting PE programs. Processed foods have been shown to have a direct link to depression. Vitamins, specifically of the B and D variety and exercise have both been clinically proven to elevate mood. Those on government assistance have a higher rate of mental illness than the general population. A good step would be to put a ban on using EBT cards to purchase processed junk foods, it would have the added benefit of cutting taxpayer funded profits for companies like ADM, Conagra and Monsanto, who dominate the processed foods market. We also need to bring back Home Ecc. and teach people how to cook for themselves. People who have skills and value their accomplishments are less likely to fall into depression.

I also must mention that pretty much every case of mental illness or suicidal ideation I have seen has a comorbidity with alcohol and/or drug abuse. So take that as you will.

Again many things can not be solved with a law, simple things like having healthy relationships with those around us can help prevent and treat mental illness, the government is not there to baby sit us, we need to look out for ourselves and each other. We need to be honest and reach out to and be supportive of people we know that could be having problems. The group I shoot with is very supportive, we go camping and combine hiking with shooting and are friends who look out for one another.

As for my selling guns, I mostly sell to friends, and those who weren't became friends.

Here's my issue with the anti-gun crowd here:

The way you make your arguments is sadly familiar to the way the anti-abortion crowd and the anti-drug crowd make their arguments...

You believe you're correct, and you're mad as hell that some people don't see things the same way you do. You have some legitimate points, but those get drowned out by your anger and self-righteousness.

I don't own guns and I don't forsee ever owning one. I don't think guns make people safer. I dislike the NRA and think they're corporate lobbying shills who (like all lobbies) really only care about themselves and their bottom line. Nevertheless, because I try to see the issue from both sides, I'm labeled a "gun nut" by people here who are, apparently, so blinded by rage that they've completely abandoned rationality in favor of ad hominim attacks.

It's sad.

No wonder the NRA is winning, even though they're a minority... they've got their opposition fighting with each other.

I'd like to see tougher gun laws enacted, but seeing the reactions from just a few people here? Those laws will never happen. Never. Because you are so polarized in your beliefs you're doing your enemy's work for them. The NRA is laughing at you. And you deserve it.

@40

Here is a story from a year ago, citing the reduction as 30% over the previous 3 years. That's the overall suicide rate, not just reducing suicides while on leave. The whole point is that the soldiers didn't go and find another opportunity to kill themselves.

Furthermore, the “availability of arms,” an IDF spokesperson said, represents an all-too-convenient solution to soldiers in distress and has therefore prompted the IDF to “significantly reduce the number of career and enlisted soldiers who are allowed to bear arms.”

Is the reason that you hate to say making it easier to lock somebody up because you don't like the civil liberties implications? Because that becomes a tool to institutionalize every annoying person? Every rebellious teen? All to save your precious guns?

All civil liberties must be balanced against others. One person's freedom of expression can inhibit another person's right to privacy. Your ideas for improving mental health care have merit, but you're blocked by this ideological strait jacket: you'll happily see people locked up as long as we don't touch anyone's guns.

Instead of locking somebody up, would you give a doctor the power to have someone's guns taken away? That's a much smaller infringement than taking away all of their liberty by institutionalizing them.

Or what about gun licenses, with a mental health criteria? This would avoid drastic infringements on liberty that could happen if you give doctors or courts greater power to commit people. How many thousands, millions even, would be locked up under your scheme? I can envision any number of nightmare scenarios. It could become like the Soviet Gulags. All because you won't give an inch on guns.

Cooler heads will realize that we have to balance all of these liberties, and not elevate guns above all other rights. Otherwise you make the error of maximizing access to guns at the expense of taking away every single other liberty of many other people.

@35 Bluh bluh bluh Say it to my face bluh bluh bluh. What are you going to do? Shoot me? I'd be worried if I thought you could whip your pseudo-cock out without shooing yourself in the knee.

Oh nice "know you are but what am I." Riposte. Just like the frightened child you are.