"With powerful firearms comes greater risk. Adam Lanza's murder-suicide shows us the frightful price of misjudging that risk. In a June 2011 story, “New perspectives on suicide prevention,” I wrote about the three elements of the “interpersonal theory of suicide,” advanced by Thomas Joiner PhD of the University of Florida....This theory holds that a suicide is the result of three factors:
- a perceived sense of burdensomeness—that one has become ineffective or burdensome in the eyes of loved ones;
- a perception that one is isolated and no longer “belongs” or is needed;
- and an acquired capability to hurt oneself....
"Even without a mental health diagnosis, people who have suffered numerous traumatic childhood events (measured by Adverse Childhood Event or “ACE scores”) also face a significantly higher suicide risk, as members of Congress learned in a December 5 Capitol Hill briefing. Those with ACE scores of 4 or more—roughly 1 in 6 Americans—are about 12 times more likely to attempt or commit suicide than the general population. Those with ACE scores of 6 or higher face an exponentially higher risk—30 to 51 times greater than the general population. (Sadly, high ACE scores, unlike serious mental illness, do correlate with a higher likelihood of perpetrating violence toward others.)...."
http://www.behavioral.net/blogs/dennis-grantham/too-high-price-pay
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