—
If you are part of the suicide prevention movement, you are likely aware of the fact that work to attach a suicide deterrent system to the Golden Gate Bridge commenced recently. While reading the piece about this seminal event by Samantha Schmidt published in the Washington Post, I found the exchange pictured below in the comments online.
I replied to “Kompromat” as follows:
I’ll grant that the claim about finding other means to die by suicide is contradicted by empirical evidence, but I’m curious what scientific studies you’re referring to regarding the other two claims. More than 1500 Americans die every single month due to suicide via a firearm – a death toll of over 1.7 million lives lost over 80 years. Claiming that $200 million is “too high a price” to pay to save hundreds of people from dying by suicide, when thousands or tens of thousands of lives might be saved if this money was directed to firearms means restriction programs seems like a reasonable claim. Unfortunately so too is the claim about life being too painful for too many people to endure.
If/when a suicide occurs at the Golden Gate Bridge after the net is completed, it will surely be the most sensationalized suicide in US history, won’t it? This event, if/when it occurs will also be the most demoralizing, and most costly, financially speaking, for the suicide prevention movement, I imagine.
I think spending over $200 million dollars on this net sets the stage for a suicide prevention movement calamity. The net will be 20 feet below the bridge, right? Imagine a suicidal person at the ceremony commemorating the net’s completion. Imagine this person has a ten foot metal cable concealed under her clothing. One end of the cable has a fastener capable of being quickly attached to the bridge’s railing, the other end is looped around her neck.
Surely, the installation of the net at the Golden Gate Bridge increases the chances of a horrifically tragic event like this happening. The only reasonable reason to spend over $200 million on this project is to create a suicide means restriction symbol.
It seems reasonable to claim that given:
1. the fungibility of money,
2. the relatively minuscule number of lives lost to suicide at the bridge versus suicide by firearms nationally (58 every single day) and
3. the patent increase in the likelihood of the most sensationalized suicide ever, occurring at the bridge, to ill-effect to the cause of reducing the suicide rate…
that a suicide prevention investment of this magnitude for this purpose is so myopic that it’s a moronic misappropriation of money.
Make no mistake, if I could snap my fingers, and cause suicide deterrent systems like the one being built at the Golden Gate Bridge to magically exist under every single bridge on Earth where a suicide has occurred, I would.
That said, surely a life lost to suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge is not more valuable than any other life lost to suicide, right? In the work of stopping suicide, it’s an absolute value numbers game, isn’t it?
The resources at our collective disposal to prevent suicide are scarce. For example, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the largest private national non-profit involved in the fight to stop suicide has an annual budget that’s only about $18 Million. The AFSP is going after reducing the suicide rate in a strategic way to make the best use of the limited financial resources it has at its disposal. They have a practical plan to reduce the U.S. suicide rate by 20% by 2025. A primary focus in that plan is to aggressively address lethal means restriction as a way to save lives. The most common way to die by suicide in this country is by firearm, and the AFSP has recently started working directly with the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Their collaboration has led to a breakthrough firearms lethal means restriction program.
The AFSP is working with representatives from local gun shops, shooting ranges and hunting clubs to educate retailers and the firearm-owning community on suicide prevention and firearms. The pilot program, involving community-based AFSP chapters in four states, is the first time a national suicide organization has collaborated with gun retailers, range owners and the firearm-owning community about suicide prevention and firearms. Many of the strategies of the pilot program will utilize co-developed resources through a new partnership between AFSP and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry. “One of the first areas identified through Project 2025, our initiative aimed at reducing the annual suicide rate 20 percent by 2025, was a critical need to reduce the number of suicides using a firearm. But, we know we can’t do it alone,” said AFSP CEO Robert Gebbia. “We will work alongside firearm retailers and range owners and the firearm-owning community to better inform and educate them on warning signs, and what to do if someone may be at risk for suicide.”
I will stipulate that there is a non-zero chance that if the suicide deterrent system at the Golden Gate Bridge is completed that not one single human being will ever again die by suicide at or on the bridge or the net. That said, given my personal experience with suicidal thoughts and behavior, as well as my experience with other extreme states of highly creative consciousness, I doubt that the net will be the end of suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge. It would surprise me if the completion of the net is not followed by a suicide at the bridge, assuming that its completion is not marked and forever marred by one.
Dying by suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most predictably sensational ways to die by suicide on Earth. Investing in a suicide deterrent system with a price tag of $204,000,000 is a sensational way to deal with a sensational problem. Not seriously considering how such a sensational act may presage the most sensational suicide of all time seems myopic to me.
I call on all of my brothers and sisters in this movement to save lives to consider thinking more critically and analytically about how we apportion the scant financial resources we have at our disposal to cause the suicide rate to go down as quickly as possible.
Previously published on On Wellness.
—
If you or someone you know is in crisis or having suicidal thoughts please reach out. You are not alone. Here are some resources.
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
—
Photo Credit: Getty Images