The book "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell does an excellent job of explaining how access to convenient means of suicide increase rates, which contradicts the common argument that suicidal people will find other means to die if guns are less accessible. It turns out suicidal behavior is often situation and time specific, and removing tools for self harm means better chances of improvement.
Can confirm (for many, many years... actually still continuing but I'm better than I was years ago) - however with a half-decent, supportive family, and safety precautions, firearms can be a great tool to grow up around, to learn about from family members who are knowledgeable, and later protect yourself too.
Now mine weren't supportive and didn't do much to educate me, so this is theoretical from my pov, but they did do a good job at securing them, and explaining why; I maybe-likely would not be here otherwise. Today I own a 9mm pistol for self-defense, bought after the pulse shooting, and have taken it to nearby ranges a few times. Need to go more often, keep in practice...
But yeah. Given shitty parents + shitty safety measures (and/or shitty teachers and faculty that put additional burden on a young individual; fuck you to hell and back, [redacted] Elementary School and [redacted] High School, and all your shitty staff that didn't give a fuck about the abuse I took), firearms can be a terrible thing to have. The source of the problem (as far as this article is concerned) is the shitty parents/school/support network, that causes unnecessary suffering; but unsupervised children/teens getting their hands on a weapon for any reason can be deadly, even out of curiosity. Safety is just as important!
Just don't be a shitty parent, mmmk? It's really not that hard. And lock your shit up when not in use.
Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a pretty good parent. It doesn't matter if the school doesn't cooperate. We've had to go down to a single income so I can be my daughter's "learning coach" in the (public) online school we've put her in because she was severely bullied and the school would do nothing. She was having a lot of feelings about self-harm and she's only 13. Yes, she's queer. We are 100% supportive of her in anything she wants to do in terms of love or sex as long as no one is hurt. It's not enough.
I'm just glad there's no gun in the house.
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