Two-thirds, more or less, of all so-called gun deaths are suicides. While the anti-gun left likes to pretend that makes suicide a gun issue, rather than a mental health one, the truth is that guns are used for suicide far more often than anyone is comfortable with.
So, how do you remove guns from the equation while respecting gun rights?
While Democrats want to create a list that bars people from buying guns because they're suicidal, but then remove themselves whenever they want--something that is about as effective as a wet fart is at keeping your undies clean--Republicans are offering something a bit more useful.
They want to make it easier to hand your guns over to someone else for safekeeping.
A bill under consideration in the Ohio House of Representatives attempts to address that problem by expanding the options for gun owners to safely store their weapons outside the home if they or a loved one is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Senate Bill 273, introduced by Sen. Kyle Koehler (R-Springfield), would allow gun owners to temporarily store their firearms with licensed firearm dealers and law enforcement agencies. The bill would make the process anonymous and would also protect dealers who agree to store such firearms from civil liability.
Tony Coder of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation said any amount of distance between a person experiencing thoughts of suicide and a gun can make all the difference.
“If we can make just even a little bit of a stumble or a roadblock between that person making that decision and having to actually drive to a firearm facility, that might be a way that folks can kind of catch their senses and say, ‘Wait, what am I doing? I gotta go get some help,’” Coder said.
What makes this different from the Democrats' proposal is that this is voluntary on every level. It's not about taking away anyone's gun rights, even if they claim they want them taken away.
As it stands in many states, people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts can hand their guns to a friend for safekeeping until they're feeling better. I've actually held a friend's guns before because they were going down that road and didn't want to make a permanent decision over a temporary problem.
This expands the option to include willing gun stores, which also means that those who have no friends willing or able to take the guns still have an option.
Yes, this is also voluntary, like the Democrats' bill to allow people to put their name in the NICS database, but it doesn't have the chance of screwing up your gun rights long-term because someone fat-fingered your request to be removed.
At worst, someone sells your guns against your desires and owes you some new guns or some money, if not both, and that's unlikely to happen. Private enterprises are typically more efficient than the federal government, after all. Look at NASA versus SpaceX as an example.
I think we'd all like to end suicides once and for all, and while this isn't really a solution to suicides, it does at least help people put a bit of distance between guns and themselves in troubled times.
If they couple that with getting some help, so much the better.
