The suicide component of the gun debate

[freshwest]

60. Since we don't live in Logan's Run, I doubt suicide will ever be offered in a neutral format.

If you or anyone is preparing for death as I have the last few years and fully grasp the inevitable humiliation the end of life entails for most of us, there are steps to be taken.

DNR orders, Power of Attorney, Living Wills, Will and Testament and a paid up policy for the funeral home to come, clean and transport remains. Turning my home into a crime scene would be devastating to all who live here afterwards, as there are clauses about deaths that future occupants do inquire upon.

In my situation, I have total say so and am making sure that when I become incapacitated, my wishes will be carried out. To shoot myself because of pain that cannot be treated, would hurt those I leave behind.

So I do not get to go out on my own terms, which I wish. If I had no one who would be hurt by knowing I'd taken a violent means and not said goodbye, which would be a slap in the face and not allow closure, I'd possibly take my own life.

That would be private, but our lives are never lived in private except for stolen moments, and to leave others wondering what amount of pain I was in to have hated my life so much and not regarded their feelings, why I did not say good bye, would hurt them.

I know families where a relative took their life and the 'spirit of suicide' affected the remaining living, made them wonder why they were going through their own problems and suffering, and had to endure and some attempted suicide. After all, if So&so did it, why not?

Is this the legacy one wants to leave to those we love, who may not understand? That we turn them away from our grief and sorrow, and leave them a bloody mess to clean up? That being almost as hurtful as doing it in their face, to destroy their view of life and us and even the value of life itself?

These are the questions I had to ask myself when contemplating such an end ot life. I have seen much in this world I did not want which blighted my joy of life and made me wonder why I should bother. Each person has their own burden, so why would I pass this on?

It is said that 'the love that we withhold is the pain we carry' from one life to the next. If there is a chance we may continue on as an energy or whatever, why would you want to return to face the same traumas and pain again, until you found peace for not overcoming it now?

I'm using the generic 'you' as I hope you are not speaking of yourself. It is also said, and I know the feeling of liberation that considering suicide brings, a freedom one does not want to give up, to be at that doorway. To be at that crossroads and have the luxury of choice is tantalizing. It is hard to go back and work on a life broken by pain, loss or deprivation of what one expected and worked for. It takes humility, which coupled with love for those we care for, is not a burden or weakness.

By saying you want an easier path to death, it sounds like you have made up your mind to take that last freedom and go on your own terms, regardless of the cradle of life that you now live within. To be contemplating death is to discount life, it's said. But I can't tell anyone what to do, but I would not keep a gun about whose only use is to kill myself, for the reasons stated above.

It almost sounds, although I am sure you don't really mean to say there is a therapeutic use for a gun. I remember being in a lot of pain with no cure, thinking 'But they shoot horses, don't they?' It seems more humane, but we are not livestock, we are beings who live in a whole. A death by gunshot cannot be a private matter, the vibration of that last sound will reverberate in many lives. Is that what we want to do?

Make some better plans, is all I would say to the generic 'you' I am speaking of. I'm not judging or dismissing pain, but I have felt that feeling of release, that desire to have it all over with, while still capable of choosing life or death and not dying under the care of someone who I may not trust and who may or may not respect me as person.

That's all I can thing to say about suicide by gun or death in general. I googled when I was answering this, and found many webpages on how to kill oneself, there are many ways that don't involve guns.

So this isn't really a practical use for gun ownership.