Guns, Mass Killings and Suicide

This has been an exploration in some of the worst humanity has to offer.  It has not been fun. It has been exhausting and I have had to walk away from it more than once.  It however, is important. I have explored mass killings across the last century all over the world.  I have tried to understand the differences between events, nations and motivations. The aftermath of the collection of killings in 2012 from Aurora to Idaho to Newtown has spurred massive reaction.  Some now embrace guns even more to protect themselves from these men and others think disarming everyone would solve the problem.  Notice I said, "men".  It is indeed a uniquely male behavior.   Others believe that we have a mental health awareness issue in the United States coupled with lack of good treatment -- It is true that nearly all killers of this kind are mentally unstable. Others claim that if we had God in our society we would be better off.  In part this is correct -- but it will surprise as to why.

I also took time to reach beyond the United States and see what the world is doing.  I wanted to see if what is happening here is unique to our society -- I wanted to know if something was really "wrong" with Americans.  I found that we are fairly normal as a nation.  In sorting and sifting through data I found an alarming trend -- nearly all of the killings that fit the profile of Newtown, Aurora and Columbine end in either suicide or suicide by cop.  Given a little more time before apprehension, probably all of them would end that way.  No one has talked about this as a suicide mission. 

In my very first written response to this last event in Newtown I pointed the finger at mental illness rather than guns. It is accurate to do so. I was tempted to say that if we had better skills and willingness to identify and profile mentally ill young men we might be better off.  That might be true to an limited extent -- in a nation that celebrates "being different" I asked how different is too different.  I also pointed out that living in a free society we embrace risk.  We are not going to stop these events with better mental illness treatment or taking guns away from law abiding Americans.  What we can do is explore them and realize that while they are horrific, awful and heartbreaking they are not new and they are not "American".

To profile this person one must approach it as an individual who is suicidal and thus include in research global suicide trends.  This was also grueling and not particularly enjoyable. These types of killings are what could be classified as "revenge killings". They are mostly carried out by young adult males who feel they have been marginalized by society and are mentally challenged in some capacity.  Their targets are either people they are acquainted with or know and who have "hurt them" as in Columbine or they are people who represent (to them) people who have or might hurt them. These killings also have another characteristic.  They can be carried out in part for attention.  Because these men feel invisible they carry out an act so grand and so awful, even when they die, they will never be forgotten.  There is a sick glory in that for them.  We are a nation craving fame and we see horrible people becoming famous for no reason.  Were that not so none of us would have ever heard of a Kardashian or someone named "Honey-Boo-Boo".  When people like that get famous for essentially being idiots a socially outcast young man might look for his own way to be famous. How an event like this could not make national headlines is unimaginable.  Right now there is a mentally unstable young man who is seeing all the coverage of a formerly invisible young man he identifies with.  He too can be remembered for eternity.

I have heard people too say "we have taken God out of our society" -- in a way they are correct.  The United States is not a deeply religious nation any more. They are saying we have taken morals out, we have taken the best good vs. evil example we have out when we no longer yearn for heaven and no longer fear hell; we have taken "rules to live by out".  Laws are not the first line of defense of moderating behavior. Illegal or legal isn't what controls human behavior -- it is a deeper, inner set of values that make people behave.  There are a million times we could all break the law (there is no way to watch us all, all the time) and NOT be caught -- but most of us don't.  Not because it is an illegal act -- but because it goes against our moral fabric. 

What is missing in all of the outcry I have heard to date is a hard analysis of these events.  Who commits them? Why do they commit them?  It is also very important to note that not all mass killings are the same.  School-place and workplace killings have the most in common. Then there are politically, religious and racially motivated killings.  Each type of killing, including the weapon used in the killings matters.  They are different.  So now we dive into the data and attempt to analyze it.  Hold on to your hats this is fascinating but difficult.

First let us take a look at gun deaths by nations.  This is where the anti-gun folks think that the United States has an epidemic of gun-deaths.  We do rank number ten on the list but you will notice that the vast majority of our nation's gun deaths are not homicides.  Note the nations that rank ahead of us and their relationship between guns and homicide.

Table 1.1

NATIONS IN THE WORLD WITH THE HIGHEST 

GUN-RELATED DEATHS

Nation                  Deaths/100K    # HOMICIDES     % HOMICIDES

El Salvador          50.36                     50.36                    100%

Jamaica               47.44                     47.44                    100%

Honduras            46.70                     46.70                    100%

Guatemala          38.52                     38.52                    100%

Swaziland            37.16                     37.16                    100%

Colombia             28.11                      27.10                    96.5%

Brazil                   19.01                     18.10                    95%

Panama               12.92                      12.92                   100%

Mexico                11.14                      10.00                    90%

United States     10.2                        3.7                        36%

Fifty-six percent (56%) of ALL gun deaths in the United States are SUICIDE.  Look at the list in the picture -- sit and think a while.  The nine nations that lead the US in gun-related death are not nations most of us would trade places with.  They are tough places to live. They are clearly dangerous.  Your quality of life would most certainly be far inferior to your quality of life now -- even if you are on welfare and food stamps in the United States.  Notice -- they have virtually NO suicide death by firearm because nearly 100% are homicides -- they have plenty of firearm related death.  In the beautiful, tolerant and glorious United States of America over 60% of all gun deaths are suicide -- so the vast majority of the gun-related deaths in the U.S. are not crimes.  This only amplifies the reality -- It is not a "gun control issue" in the United States - maybe it is a MENTAL HEALTH issue in the United States.  Stick with me -- the exploration into suicide rates will make sense.

Now let's examine whether or not the U.S. does have a suicide epidemic; let's dig deeper and look at worldwide suicide rates -- regardless of method.  The US ranks number 38th out of the 107 ranked countries in the world for suicide.  So this is where the mental health lobby jumps in.  To see that in the United States that 60% of all gun deaths are suicide seems alarming -- it would seem that maybe the suicide rate would go down if we had fewer guns. Read on.  Note below that not a single one of the nations listed with higher gun-related deaths (and remember that with most of these countries nearly all of their gun-deaths were homicides) has more suicides than the United States.  Not a single one of them.   Following are the most recent suicide numbers of various nations up to the United States at 38th:

Table 1.2

SUICIDE DEATHS BY COUNTRY (per 100,000 people)

RANK     COUNTRY        MALE     FEM.       AVERAGE           YEAR

1             Lithuania         54.6       11.6         31.6                     2011

2             South Korea     41.4       21.0         31.2                    2010

3             Guyana            39.0       13.4          26.4                    2006

4             Kazakhstan      43.0       9.4            25.6                    2008

5             Belarus            No Gender Data     25.3                     2010

6             Hungary           37.4       8.5            21.7                    2009

7             Japan               33.5       14.6          23.8                    2011

8             Latvia               33.8       4.0            17.5                    2009

9             China              *No Gender Data     22.23                  2011

10           Slovenia          29.3       3.0             17.2                    2010

11           Sri Lanka         No Gender Data     21.6                   1996

12           Russia              No Gender Data     21.4                   2011

13           Ukraine            37.8       7.0            21.2                   2009

14           Serbia/Mont.   28.4      11.1           19.5                    2006

15           Estonia              20.6       7.3          18.1                    2008

16           Switzerland       15.7       6.5         11.1                     2007

17           Croatia              30.2       10.0        19.7                    2002

18           Belgium             26.5       9.3         17.6                    2009

19           Finland              25.7       8.1         16.8                    2010

20           Moldova             30.1       5.6         17.4                    2008

21           France               23.5       7.5         15.0                    2009

22           Uruguay             26.0       6.3        15.8                    2004

23           South Africa       25.3       5.6        15.4                    2005

24           Austria                20.9       5.7       12.8                     2009

25           Poland                 28.0       3.8       15.4                     2010

26           H.Kong(China)   19.0       10.7       14.6                    2009

27           Suriname            23.9       4.8       14.4                     2005

28           Czech Republic   22.1       4.1       12.8                    2010

29           New Zealand      20.3       6.5        13.2                    2008

30           Sweden               21.4       9.2        15.3                   2011

31           Cuba                    19.0       5.5       12.3                   2008

32           Bulgaria              18.8       6.2        12.3                   2008

33           Romania             21.0       3.5         12.0                  2009

34           Norway               17.3       6.5         11.9                  2009

35           Denmark             17.5       6.4         11.9                  2006

36           Ireland                19.0       4.7         11.8                  2009

37           Bosnia/Herz.      20.3       6.3         13.3                  2011

38           United States     19.2       5.0          12.0                 2009

* I found no specific gender data on China relating to how many per 100K people.  I did find percentages of male vs. female suicide. This will be discussed later.

Japan, China, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Cuba, Austria, Finland, France all have higher suicide rates than the United States.  Switzerland practices universal conscription, which requires that all able-bodied male citizens keep fully automatic firearms at home in case of a call-up.  Switzerland also does hold the European record of gun-related suicide.  But Japan has a higher suicide rate than Switzerland and it is an increasingly alarming social issue for that nation. Japan has severe gun control laws. Common methods of suicide in Japan are jumping in front of trains, leaping off high places, hanging, or overdosing on medication.  Rail companies will actually charge the families of those who commit suicide a fee depending on the severity of disrupted traffic. It is estimated that approximately one person every 15 minutes commits suicide in Japan. Recently, a number of suicide websites began to present information on how to make a home-made hydrogen sulfide gas from a deadly concoction of normal household chemical detergent with a liquid cleanser. A single breath of this high-density, colorless gas, which smells like rotten eggs, can apparently cause dizziness, headaches, and in the worst cases, brain damage and suffocation.

Authorities had expressed particular concern because of the gas' danger to neighbors. Recently, at least four people who died from inhaling the gas were not actual suicide victims, and dozens of others have been treated for nausea and headaches.  These suicides affect a large number of people other than the person hell-bent on dying.  Both Japan and Switzerland have higher suicide rates than the United States.  On average seventy-eight percent (78%) of all worldwide suicides are male -- only twenty-two percent (22%) are female. Comparatively speaking in the United States seventy-nine percent (79%) of all suicides are male as compared to twenty-one percent (21%) female -- fairly close to the worldwide average and well within any margin of error so ostensibly it could be completely average.

World suicides, regardless of nation, economy, size and culture are overwhelmingly male.  The forty nations with the highest suicide rates run 64% for males in Hong Kong and 36% females but it is impossible to clarify how to separate Hong Kong from China as China does not release specific data on the mainland.  In the non-Chinese countries the lowest for male suicide is Sweden at 70% and the highest is 91% male is Slovenia; most of them hover in the mid seventy (70) to low eighty (80) percent male.  These are vastly different cultures, with vastly different crime rates, mental healthcare systems, economies -- in fact the thing that might make them the MOST similar is their male to female suicide ratio.  So what can be done?  Can anything short of genetic and social engineering be done?  Is this simply an organic element of what it is to be male and what it is to be female?  Is there really a "solvable" problem or are we just jumping up and down, waving our arms around and pretending we have powers that we really don't? 

In China, the frequent outlier in human-related statistics, suicide is said to be the leading cause of death among women 15-34 and their suicide rate higher than males; it is the ONLY place in the world where this is true. In China a woman's suicide is usually based in economic woes and social/marital status.  So it would seem that the "natural world order" is that males are inherently wired to commit suicide more than females and only China -- with its draconian customs and utter social control-- has achieved enough social control to buck what is possibly the organic norm.  It would seem that to alter the trend or the norm worldwide or even in the U.S. would take herculean law changes and massive overhaul of a total society. 

It doesn't matter if it is the United States, Japan, France, Guyana or Lithuania. I don't want to be like China and they are the ONLY nation who has succeeded in "tipping the scales" between male and female suicide rates.  Few states, much less nations keep tabs on murder-suicides so I have no information to offer there.

On the other end of the spectrum in suicide rates are the countries with the lowest…this list includes: Haiti (THE LOWEST and virtually a zero suicide rate), Honduras, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Grenada, Jordan and Kuwait.  They are about as different from the United States as one can imagine.  The mental healthcare in these countries is virtually non-existent and here is the kicker -- most of these very low suicide rate nations have a very HIGH level of faith and active religion.

Table 1.3

COUNTRIES W/ HIGH RELIGIOUS 

PARTICIPATION & LOW to NO SUICIDE

NATION               DOMINANT RELIGION                PRACTICING %

Haiti                      Roman Catholic                               80%

Honduras             Roman Catholic/Evang.                 47%/36%            

Egypt                    Islam                                                  80-90%

Syria                     Islam                                                  87-90%

Pakistan               Islam                                                  95-98%

Grenada               Rom Cath./Prot.t/Ang.           53%/33%/13%

Jordan                  Islam                                                  90%

Kuwait                  Islam                                                  85%

According to the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, death by suicide is considered a grave or serious sin. The chief Roman Catholic Christian argument is that one's life is the property of God and a gift to the world, and to destroy that life is to wrongly assert dominion over what is God's. Your life is not yours to take from Him. Islam, like other Abrahamic religions, views suicide as one of the greatest sins and utterly detrimental to one's spiritual journey.  Killing yourself might really make your afterlife suck.

In the U.S. 73% of us identify as "Christian" and 20% say they have no affiliation, however only 9% of us say that our faith is our number one priority -- in the true sense of devotion for a Believer, one's faith must be number one because all else hinges on it and the grace received from it.  I don't believe that these statistics say that religious people are BETTER people, that is often NOT the case -- what it does say is that they think committing "grave sins" against their God will result in bad things for them.  Call it eternal self preservation -- NOT especially "good behavior".  So it would seem that laws against suicide (in many nations it is illegal), mental health support or economic stability are not the major factors in reducing suicide -- devout religion and aversion to cardinal sin is.

Now one last worldwide exploration.  We again examine the nations with the highest gun-related murder rates.  Guess what we find.  Some of the world's LOWEST suicide rates!  If you take all the countries ranked above the United States in gun-related deaths and note that nearly 100% of those deaths are homicides and THEN look at the suicide rates of those same violent nations you will find the average rate of suicide is WAY below global averages.  In Honduras and Jamaica there is virtually NO suicide. The average suicide rate over these murder riddled nations is a very low 7.8 per 100K people (80/20 - male/female) compared to 24.2 people per 100K in the US.  So it would seem that guns are not the corollary here.

Why such depth in suicide and suicide rates?  Why not talk about crime statistics and murder rates? “In a research specifically related to murder–suicide, Milton Rosenbaum (1990) discovered the murder–suicide perpetrators to be vastly different from perpetrators of homicide alone. Whereas murderer–suicides were found to be highly depressed and overwhelmingly men, other murderers were not generally depressed and more likely to include women in their ranks.”  So murder is an equal opportunity endeavor but suicide is not.

So psychologically speaking a mass-murderer (almost all end in suicide either by their own hand or "suicide by cop") like the ones too often in the news lately should be profiled more as being suicidal than as criminal murderers – this in NO WAY minimizes the heinous nature of the crimes they did commit and the lives they stole.  But the essence of the mental profile is vital if we are to attempt to understand.

So a murderer, more often than not, sees HIMSELF or HERSELF as a criminal – they are wantonly breaking the law and murder is against the law and they know it. So a state's or nation's laws do not affect their decision to murder or not murder -- even though it is against the law, they do it anyway.  Not all murderers are mentally ill - they kill for myriad reasons including power, robbery, prejudice, anger or even, it disgusts me to write this, for fun. A person whose base is that of “suicide”, even if they take others with them, does not connect it to a criminal act in their mind in the same way even though it can be a calculated "mission".  It is often from a place of that their victims somehow "deserved it". It is an act of desperation of sorts – all perpetuators of murder-suicide arguably are mentally ill even if only situational.  Again, it doesn’t at all make their crime lesser – it just helps us understand what might REALLY be going on.

Mass murderers may fall into any of a number of categories, including killers of family, of coworkers, of students, and of random strangers. Their motives for murder vary. A notable motivation for mass murder is revenge, but many other motivations are possible, including the need for attention or fame. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders (a cooling off period more would denote a serial killer and this typically involves a deliberate methodology). A mass murder typically occurs in a single location in which a number of victims are killed by an individual or more. Most acts of mass murder end with the death of the perpetrator(s), whether by direct suicide or being killed by law enforcement, so one could argue that most mass murderers are suicidal as well.   These acts are also referred to as "rampage killings".

Mass murders are NOT unique to the United States.  Nor are horrific attack on schools and innocent children and educators.  These incidents are challenging to break down and compare.  We can look at them multiple ways.  We can consider locale.  We can examine suspected motive or we can look at mortality rates and finally we can consider method.  All are somewhat pertinent but it is hard to decipher their level of priority to create as close to "an apples to apples" situation.

The most notable distinction between these horrible events seems to be "type" -- not place, not gender, not numbers.  So here is a snapshot breakdown organized in some semblance of order:

WORKPLACE AND SCHOOL ATTACKS: The US has the highest rate of workplace and school attacks in the world.  We put these together because they have so much in common.  They are often revenge attacks -- disgruntled workers or socially outcast young people -- the profile is quite similar. The thing that sets them apart from one another is the age of the perpetrator.  The motivations and subsequent suicide rates are nearly identical. Germany ranks #2 in school attacks.  One of the worst American school attacks happened in 1927.  This was before the stock market crash so it is safe to assume it was not caused by the Great Depression and the economic despondency that stemmed from that event. He used firearms, explosive devices and melee weapons (knives, etc). 

The largest recorded school attack happened back in 1944 by Andrew Phillip Kehoe.  He killed 44 people and injured 58 with guns, melee weapons and explosives. One of the earliest recorded workplace attacks in the United States occurred back in 1928 -- the attacker used knives and firearms to kill 12 people and injure 13.  In both workplace and school attacks the attacker nearly ALWAYS commits suicide.

-- So this sort of event is not new.

-- It is always perpetuated by males.

-- Workplace killers are generally between 30 and 50 years old regardless of country.

-- School killings in the U.S. are almost always perpetuated by males under the age of 25.

-- The vast majority, in fact almost all, of these events, regardless of country, end in suicide. 

RELIGIOUS/POLITICAL/RACIAL ATTACKS: Israel holds the top spot for Religious/Political/Racial killings; France has the second highest rate.  These events involve firearms, explosives and arson. Very few of these events end in suicide.  The last in the United States occurred in 1973 and it has never been a common occurrence in our nation.  These attacks often have both a high death rate and a higher rate of injury. The largest event in history occurred in Norway in 2011 with 242 people killed by firearms and explosive devices.

-- This sort of event is not new

-- It is rare in the US and it always has been

-- It rarely ends in suicide

-- It is nearly always perpetuated by males.

-- The ages of the attackers ranges from late teens to mid 40s with the mean being in the mid 20s to late 30s/low 40s.

DOMESTIC/HOME ATTACKS: The countries that dominate the list for domestic violence/home invasion (meaning it happened in a domestic setting) incidents that become mass killings are China being #1 and the United States at #2. These events use both guns and melee weapons -- in fact more knives, swords, etc. than in any other category.   But this category deserves further breakdown -- some are familicides and some are committed by home invaders.  This is a muddy category.

-- Neither family member killers nor non-family member rampage killers in this category almost ever committed suicide in the U.S.

-- China has the highest death rate in this category whether they are home intruders or family members.

-- These are targeted attacks with fairly consistent death rates between 10 and 15 regardless of country and very, very low injury rates. Death is almost always the outcome.

-- In the United States the attackers were all men in their 40's.

-- These are attacks with firearms or melee weapons -- no explosives whatsoever yet arson is much more common.

VEHICULAR ATTACKS: Another method used of course is cars -- vehicular manslaughter and murder.   This is also where the first American woman appears in any of these statistics with a 51 year old woman killing 7 people in Reno, Nevada back in 1980. 

-- These attacks have an average low death rate, a high injury rate and a low suicide rate by the attacker - in fact virtually NONE of them, regardless of country committed direct, self inflicted suicide. 

-- Some died in the crash (few) but NONE committed suicide as a deliberate, life-ending act.  There was no way to be certain they would die in the crash. 

-- This type of attack also appears the most varied in location from Uganda to Haiti -- Germany to the US -- Israel to Australia. 

PERSONAL EXPLOSIVE ATTACKS: Another category is personal explosive devices (this does not include bombings which become categorically different and would fall under acts of terrorism usually). These attacks utilize things like grenades, pipe bombs, etc and sometimes add arson.  Thailand is the distinct leader in this category with four of the top five deadliest attacks occurring there with the Philippines running with the second highest number of these attacks.  NONE of these attacks occur in the United States.  These have a low average death rate and a high injury rate.  It is a non-targeted attack. All attackers are male with most in their late teens to low 30s.

-- Attackers are young males.

-- None are American.

-- Very, very low suicide rate.

-- Almost none killed by their own device.

-- Surprisingly low death rate with the very high injury rate.

OTHER:  This list includes things like pilots and passengers crashing planes but acting on their own -- not as a part of a terrorist group.  It also includes setting fires.  These attacks have a very large fatality rate. The highest death number was caused by the pilot of Egypt Air flight 990 -- killing all 216 people aboard.  Then there was the subway fire set in Korea in 2003 killing 147 people.  The Hartford, CT circus fire that killed 168 people and injuring from 412 to 682 (reports vary) in 1944.  Then a plane crash caused by a Chinese man killing 111 people by setting a fire in the the cabin -- he died in the crash he caused in 2002.  These events do occur in the United States -- there have been 10 in the United States. Six of the ten in the U.S. occurred between 1944 and 1970.  If the attacker survived his crash, his fire or his explosion -- NONE committed suicide.  These events have massive casualties and often high injury rates.  And of course these attacks do not focus on the use of a firearm to inflict injury and death.

So what do we do with all this information?  From this we learn that profiling a rampage killer might be very important and that not all rampage killings should be lumped together as the media so often does.  We can conclude that in cases like Aurora, Idaho and Newtown that even if the perpetrator did not commit suicide at that time, his profile is more suicidal than it is criminal.  The motivations are vastly different.  We conclude too that one of the largest deterrents to suicide might devout religion -- it is a sin that will follow them into the afterlife.  This does NOT imply that devout religion would be better or worse for society but only that it affects this statistic.  It may create other negative issues that this paper does not explore. As we see all over the world in some cases religious wars kill many, many people -- it is just not the case in the United States. Maybe it is trade off we are willing to have.

We learn too that this sort of event is not new to any society nor it is unique to most developed nations.  It has been present for at least the last century.  We also learned that while the United States may be in the top ten for gun-related deaths that less than one third of those deaths are homicides -- unlike the nearly 100% homicide rate of the nations that lead in this statistic.  In addition mass killings happen in societies with very strict gun control with often higher casualty rates than attacks with guns.  So will taking guns away change anything?

This exploration does not solve anything.  It simply digs.  It creates profiles and shows that all mass killings are not equal.  Nor are all nations.  The reason for this research for me was to attempt to understand if we can DO anything about it in the ways the masses are talking about.  Will taking guns away from people help? I think not.  Japan and China prove that.  There is always something else out there that is equally or more deadly.  Will massive mental healthcare overhaul help?  Probably not.  In nations without much mental healthcare these events are less common.  Will turning to God help?  Well it might on the individual level but our nation can't mandate devotion -- after all freedom from that mandate is why we are here. 

I think the thing this paper does prove is that we have not dug deep enough in our visceral reactions -- there is so much more to this.  We might get better at profiling this sort of perpetrator -- but I doubt it.  The Untied States has long let go of the desire or expectation to assimilate and embrace a unified vision of right and wrong, good versus evil.  We will enjoy some freedoms because of that and we will suffer some consequences.  It is a trade off. When most of us travel the world we don't have the same expectation of personal safety as we do when we are at home.  We might consider embracing that perspective always. 

What can we do? What I can do as an individual is to be aware, take note of things around me that don't feel right.  Pay attention when my gut tells me someone might be dangerous and make sure I have the ability to either get away or defend myself and those around me.  This does not mean I will live in fear.  It does mean that I accept that the world filled with human beings is not Disneyland.  There is no "they" who can keep me and my loved ones safe at all times.  I accept responsibility in part for that all by myself.

The primary conclusion though is this. It is not that simple.  Taking guns out of the hands of Americans is not THE answer nor is massive mental healthcare overhaul. For the government to think that scrambling together a task force lead by the Vice President to make recommendations on gun control in a matter of weeks with the hope they are going to change what is clearly a human condition and not a uniquely American condition is silly. This behavior and type of event is one that has been with society a very long time; their show of force is more about posturing and looking like they are "doing something about it".  As we have seen the only nation who has effectively altered suicide numbers is China and they have not likely reduced their numbers, just changed their composition.  I for one do not want to emulate China in any way.  Short of social engineering can we change society?

References

Suicide rates by country, 1950-2011 published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Top Ten Most Suicidal Countries published by International Business Times HK

Unless otherwise stated all statistics are from WHO: "Suicide rates per 100,000 by country, year and sex (Table)". World Health 

Organization. 2011. 

"Using Psychology on Suicide Bridge". Korea Joongang Daily. 

"WHO/Europe". Who.int. 

"China's suicide rate 'among highest in world". 2011-09-08. 

"Death Due To Suicide". Eurostat. European Commission. 2009. 

"Suicide trends in rich and poor countries". Daily Times. 2010-09-28. 

GUN CONTROL EQUALS DENIAL

Gun control.  We always know on the heels of a horrific event like what happened in Newtown, Connecticut we will begin hearing it.  It becomes the anti-gun crowd versus the 2nd amendment folks.  It is a given. I see both points and understand the origins of both arguments.  I also recognize the passion that both groups have.  I am very strongly in one camp but my 'gun rights' opinion does not belong here.

What happens in the United States whether it is in at a high school or theater in Colorado, a mall in Idaho or an elementary school filled with precious children is not a gun issue; it is a mental illness issue.  To ignore that fact and go straight to the low-hanging fruit of "gun control" is not only short-sighted, it is irresponsible.  It is like putting on blinders to a roof that has been torn to shreds by a tornado with rain pouring in and focusing on a leaky faucet.  "Gun control" is the easier of the two tasks.  In fact, addressing ALL mental illness and averting any potential outburst is an impossible task. That said, more, MUCH more can be done.

In the United States we are blessed to live in a free society. No one tells us how to worship, dress, talk or love.  We have an abundance of choices.  That is a blessing and it comes with a good deal of danger.  Because we are free that means our neighbor is free.  We embrace "differences" and even in our school system we believe it is best to "mainstream" children who have emotional and mental disabilities -- sometimes grave emotional disabilities.  In California my school teacher, sister told me once of a middle school boy who was so emotionally disturbed that he had to be escorted around the school with a body guard paid for by tax payers -- not to protect the boy but to protect people FROM the boy.  His parents sued to have their child educated with his "peers". The school was forced to comply.  I went to school once with a person who displayed nonsensical emotional outbursts, and often fell into dark places proclaiming how bad life was and how "nobody appreciated" this person.  This person alluded to things that lead one to believe he might end his life.  Then the next day all would be fine.  A couple of us wondered if this person was dangerous to us and to themselves.  But what to do?  It was like it never happened within 24 hours.  Would we be over reacting if we intervened?  This person was a drama queen and often did things for attention and to get sympathy.  What is a real sign of alarm and what is not?

The problem with living in a free society is that it is dangerous and it is complicated.  It is far easier to lock up all the guns in the country and pretend we have solved something than it is to identify and help the troubled people who carry out these heinous acts of terror.  We can't round them up and lock them up like we can inanimate objects like guns!  We can't control how parents raise organically troubled children nor tell parents how to not create troubled children.  We can't bar them from public places.  It is not guns that carry out these acts -- it is people, very disturbed, sick and sometimes evil people.  Not all of them can be saved, changed or helped.  That is a sad and hard fact of life in a free society.

It has become wildly popular in our nation to 'embrace the differences', to not require anyone to 'conform', I am 'free to be me' is a battle cry of certain groups.  That is all well and good on the surface but how different is TOO different?  We are deeply hesitant to 'label' anyone.  When SHOULD we label someone?  In our society it is often after-the-fact -- it is too late then to save the innocence they have taken away.  Innocent until proven guilty is our way of life.  If we want that way of life we have to accept sometimes dire consequences.

Can nothing be done?  It will never be totally safe to live in a free society.  Even if Kumbaya is your anthem part of you motto will probably also be 'live and let live'.  Your neighbor might be very different from you.  We CAN do some things though.  We can focus on the REAL issue following tragedies like the one that shattered the Christmas season and lives of so many in a picturesque Connecticut town yesterday morning.  Guns are NOT the issue.  Recall Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people, 19 of them school children with a truck, fertilizer and fuel -- not a single bullet.  The 9/11 highjackers didn't use a single bullet either and killed 2,753 people.  All the people involved lived IN our country, IN our society, around people like us and might have been stopped had we been more willing to 'label', if we had been more discriminating. We know that is a slippery slope but we are so hell bent on not profiling and to NOT discriminate; we don't want stigmatize anyone because of how they look or because they are a little 'different'.  The definition of discriminate is innocent and meaningful.

                dis·crim·i·nat·ing  [dih-skrim-uh-ney-ting]

                              1. Differentiating; analytical.

                              2. Noting differences or distinctions with nicety;                                                              

                              3. Having excellent taste or judgment.

                              4. Differential, as a tariff.

                              5.  Possessing distinctive features capable of                     

                                   being differentiated

We have got to discriminate -- not in the political sense but in the real sense of the word.  Until we are willing to notice differences, discuss them and weigh them we are going to let mentally disturbed and mentally ill people fall through the cracks. We discriminate when we make choices every day what foods are good and bad for us; are we driving too fast; is that dog going to bite me are all discriminating thoughts.  Until we are willing to do it more openly we are going to put ourselves and our children at risk.  Some people can be helped but we, cloaked in our guise of 'tolerance', are not helping them; some people cannot be helped.  It is a sad fact of humanity with a broad gene pool and an uncontrolled, free human environment. We do not have an epidemic of mental illness either -- what we have is an epidemic of the denial of mental illness.  Denial and misdirection are our short-comings. But believe this -- we cannot and will not ever be able to stop them all.  We will never be able to foretell every possible tragedy.  We must accept the dangers of a free society if we want a free society.

God bless the people of Connecticut, of Colorado, of Idaho and God bless the people of America.  Today and every day I pray. Maybe that too is something we should do more of.

Resentments Are Poison

The election. It did not go the way I had hoped.  We are a country divided and the differences are truly irreconcilable.  I am a person who believes the rewards in this life come from the toils of my own labor, from the hours I put in and the ideas I give life to.  I don't believe I am in the minority.  I do believe though that those of us who are of like mind do not mobilize to vote. Are we a large majority? No and probably we are evenly split. Some of us are too busy working to vote and some of us believe in just being left alone. It makes mobilizing a challenge.  The side that wants to maintain the rewards of someone else's hard work is highly motivated and turns out en masse to protect their station.  

I am saddened. I am admittedly angry and I am decidedly scared.  My government is now a monster, feeding and bloated.  My mind pictures Jaba the Hut.

I feel betrayed as well.  I know it is not rational but the feeling is still there.  I shall pray for its release. I shall pray for forgiveness and shall pray for peace, inside and out there. 

My family for the most part is made up of west coast liberals. They run the gamut from millionaires to school teachers to blue collar, all liberal and all products of California and its public school system.  I too am a product of California and have no idea how I am so different.

I read a post of my sister's the day after the election. In it she celebrated her victory and then went on to thank her husband -- my dear brother in law -- for door knocking to mobilize the Obama vote.  He not only knocked on doors of his own state but visited two swing states to aid his cause.  One of them was "my" state.  I had no idea he was in the state at the time. My state went blue.

In the 12 years I have lived here it has gone from firmly RED to a dark purple and now blue.  The influx of residents has changed the fabric of where I live and I resent it. I am a transplant too; I somehow I justify my transplant. When I moved here I was like the majority of those already here, when in Rome. I chose this state for those reasons.  I have to be honest. It isn't an admirable way to feel -- but it is so.  I resent too that people who don't even LIVE here and who don't have any idea of what it is like to live here, cross our state boundary and influence the fabric of our local world.  I know it is a free country and I love that about it -- but with that freedom comes instances like this.  I don't want my state to be like California -- it is in part why I left California.  And now California comes here to knock on doors…  It feels wrong even though I know it is their right.  I know that they had the election in the bag at home, why knock on doors there?  It makes sense for them to do what they did. When they knock on doors to mobilize the vote for their national leader they affect our local elections too.  Then they go home and let us sort it out.

I was hoping to go back to California to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with my family. Everyone is going to be there. I opted not to go.  I simply cannot afford the airline ticket.  I don't make enough money and our grocery bill has doubled.  I am working paycheck to paycheck.  Additionally, I do not want to be around the people I love most in the world when I am still struggling with resentment.  It would not be right to ask them not to be celebratory and it would not be fair to subject me to their celebration while I silently mourned.  It would be wrong to get together and debate about it.  That is not what Thanksgiving is about.

I have not told any family members how I feel.  It might come across as being petty.  But for them that is an easy conclusion.  In the family they are the majority and their majority won.  They cannot know how it feels right now to be me.

So I am back to praying.  I pray for our country.  I pray for the future.  I pray for release from resentment.  Resentments hurt me much more than they hurt anyone or anything I resent.  It is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. This was a devastating loss.  I will mourn. I will process. I will let go. I will pray.  

A Season to Remember

I am pretty sick of the "replacements" too.  The refs are holding out for more money and a defined pension.  Thing is these guys work for 16 games...not the bazillion in basketball, baseball and hockey.  They are trying to compare their salaries to those of other refs. Apples and oranges.  They claim that since the NFL makes SO MUCH money they should be paid more.  Well by that rationale if you work in say an Apple Store at the mall -- because Apple is about to be worth a TRILLION dollars you should be paid more?  Fact is that the NFL is STILL making a bazillion dollars without the refs!  How many of us have NOT watched because of this strike?  How many of us have not used our season tickets or bought our favorite jersey? Not very many. Yes the strike has affected the game -- but it has not affected the bottom line for the NFL! LOL  In fact with all the fines being levied their bottom line went up (although it's negligible). 

Now to the refs and their demand.  They want a "defined pension" -- which means that for part time work they want a package that has PERMANENT, FOREVER benefits.  The players don't even have that and I think the players are a bit more valuable than the refs…as we have seen, the game DOES go on (it's not like they are air traffic controllers).  Also, a ref for the NFL, depending on seniority and tenure makes between $25,000 and $70,000.  A ref is paid $11,900 for refereeing the Super Bowl alone.  Not a bad day's work.  The other professional sports in the US play multiples of games more than the NFL, log many more miles and demand more time.  Almost ALL the NFL referees have another line of work.  If they really depended on the NFL salary then they would be back at work already.

So yes the NFL makes HUGE amounts of money but what has become evident to me, whether I like it or not, the refs don't have much effect on the cash flow.  Yes we stomp up and down, raving mad when they make a call that is outrageous or when they over-look a flagrant foul, but folks we are still watching.  Heck, it is fun to see Bill Belichick dig himself into a hole that will cost him some serious cash (I thought to myself last night, "Oooo he is in TROUBLE!)  It has added an element to the game we have to admit and it has made the Monday morning quarterbacking a little livelier.  I think too, we as fans have become better students of the game -- there has been a time or two when I was actually MORE accurate than the referee!

So the game has gone on.  At this point I would not be surprised if Goddell just locks them out for the rest of the season.  As we have seen, he doesn't really NEED them. Over time, these guys will get better or at least stay consistently bad and it will be a season to remember.

The Math and Madness of Medicare

INTRODUCTION

In this paper I will explore two fundamental failures of the Medicare system. First, why it simply does not work mathematically -- it is literally accounting fraud and private businessmen like Bernie Madoff have been tried and convicted for lesser schemes.  Second, I will touch on why removing the "customer" from the payment process and removing the price from the product has created inflation and perversion of epic proportions.  I readily admit that I have used a few statements from my sources nearly verbatim -- there was simply not a better way of putting it.  I have cited my sources and give them serious credit and thank them for making my job easier.  

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH MEDICARE

America enjoys freedoms beyond that of many advanced nations.  We like that -- it makes us uniquely American.  We, in general, don't like governments who unduly burden us or regulate our personal behavior.  Insidiously though American's have been willing to give up bits and pieces of itself to a nanny-state mentality -- we have allowed others to take responsibility for our care and well-being.  Most voters don't see the small losses of freedom as being dramatic -- but even Everest is scaled one small step at a time - you ultimately get to the top (weather permitting) and in this same incremental process America will reach its bottom. We are in fact losing one of the characteristics that made us America.

We often look at other governments as being oppressive and at the same time dismiss the elements that those governments might have that are strong points.  Throwing the baby out with the bath water as it were.  I don't often look to Asia for leadership role models nor for examples of transparency -- specifically I don't look at China -- China scares me.  But in this case Asia has got it right -- I never dreamed I would say this.

Take Singapore. Singapore’s paternalistic government is unappealing to many Americans — media restrictions (freedom of speech is a non-issue, there really is none).  They have a one-party system and even stiff penalties for gum-chewing -- yes gum chewing. But Singapore’s retirement system is a model of honesty and transparency compared with Medicare and Social Security.  

Of course in a one party system making drastic changes is far easier than it is in our world of two parties and some lesser party spin offs.  Our system while protecting some freedoms also creates a division.  I am not suggesting at all we should change our system to a one-party rule.  I am suggesting that as Americans we must at times lose our party ties; we must consider what is good for America and what our individual responsibility is.

Back to Singapore. In 1984, then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew drastically redesigned his country’s retirement system to, as he later wrote, “avoid placing the burden of the present generation’s welfare costs onto the next generation.” The Singapore government makes no promises to anyone for extended care, benefits or medical coverage but instead requires all citizens to save up to 36% of their income for their own retirement and health care. The government invests the savings in stocks and bonds; the money is not used by the government to pay for current expenditures. They do not rob Peter to pay Paul.  It truly remains the money of the individual.  As an American you might decry that "taking" 36% of your income away from your current cash flow is outrageous and highway robbery.  If that is so, how can that be worse than taking my money out of my current paycheck to pay for someone else's care and benefits?  In the Singapore model -- at least it remains the individual's money.

The result? Singaporeans retire well, they are quite comfortable and they have left the subsequent generations with their own earnings to save and invest - they pay for themselves. Their health-care system scores far better than ours costing 80%  less than ours according to 2010 findings from the World Health Organization;  all of it is financed without imposing debt on the next generation -- imagine a generation that is not saddled with the debt of their parents and grandparents. Singapore even reported an uptick in medical tourism last year.  A step toward Obamacare is a dramatic step away from this model and will only perpetuate the declining health and well being of our nation's healthcare system and will add to the shifted burden of responsibility. 

Why is the system so much cheaper?  An 80% reduction is a lot! It all comes down to pricing. For example, consider the difference between the full-page grocery store advertisements that appear in every daily newspaper and those promoting your local hospital or health care provider. They both run ads. They both want your business but they go about "selling" themselves in dramatically different ways. The grocery store ads, no matter in what papers they appear, the NY Times or the local Prairie Times, are dominated by one thing: the price of the advertised goods. Health care firms also advertise, and their ads inform us about why we should use their respective facilities, the characteristics that set them apart from their competition, but price is never mentioned. 

Why is price prominent in grocery advertising but never mentioned in ads for hospitals or medical clinics? The reason is simple, and it is a major reason for the escalating per-capita cost of Medicare: the majority of consumers of medical care are not concerned about its cost because they aren’t directly paying for it. Because we, as buyers, are not concerned about medical care costs, the sellers of medical care aren’t either. Consumers are happy to demand and receive state-of-the-art care, and providers are happy to supply it.  Even when you try to "opt out" of the state-of-the-art stuff because you believe it is over-kill, you are dismissed as "not being a doctor" and in effect not knowing what is "best" for you.  

Here are two personal examples:

I was in the emergency room about two years ago for a kidney infection.  I knew what I had. They knew what I had.  After a roughly three-hour stay and a battery of tests later I was released with some added fluids and antibiotics.  The bill arrived and those three hours cost $12,000.  After the insurance paid their portion, I was left with $1800 to pay.  That is $600 an hour.  At the time of treatment I attempted to ask what test they were running and what the costs of the tests were going to be and I was regarded as though I had two heads.  They marveled "why does it matter, it's your health!?  They don't test you for the PROBABILITY they test you for every remote POSSIBILITY. In another example I once attempted to find out the actual price of some of my regular prescriptions when I was on a healthcare plan that left me responsible for a percentage of their cost. In this case I had a handful of options -- different drugs from different companies that treated the same thing.  In an attempt to make a sound financial decision for my own cash flow purposes and my household budget I attempted to find out the price of each drug so I could determine how much each one would cost me (remember I was responsible for a percentage of the price).  Call after call resulted in no usable information.  The drug companies could not tell me the price, the physician could not tell me the price, and the insurance company could not tell me the price. In fact they had no resources of their own to find out.  No one knew and they were frustrated with me for wanting to know.  I had to make my decision based on the age of the product figuring the "newer" the drug the more expensive it would be.  It was the best information I had.  Would you go to the grocery store and fill your cart without ANY idea the price of the products it contained?  Of course not.  But again, at the checkout stand it is your money you are handing over.

Well over 90% of all payments to hospitals in the year 1990 were not paid by the recipients of hospital services. For physicians services, over 80% of all payments were not paid by patients. Even for dental services and prescription drugs, relative newcomers to the prepaid insurance market, more than 50% of payments in 1990 were not made by the patients. If the patients aren’t paying, who is? The payers are the federal government, through Medicare, and the patients, indirectly through various medical prepayment plans (commonly known as medical insurance, although the insurance companies simply administer group plans and are not at risk as they would be if insurance was really involved).

Let's compare the two systems, Singapore and the Untied States. When Medicare was debated and enacted, Paul Samuelson was America’s most revered economist. He was an adviser to presidents Kennedy and Johnson, author of the nation’s best-selling economics textbook and a soon-to-be Nobel laureate. In 1967, Samuelson wrote in Newsweek about the funding mechanism for Medicare and Social Security: 

“The beauty about social insurance is that it is actuarially unsound. Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privileges that far exceed anything he has paid in. . . . Always there are more youths than old folks in a growing population. More important, with real incomes growing at some 3 per cent per year, the taxable base upon which benefits rest in any period are much greater than the taxes paid historically by the generation now retired. . . . A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived.” 

But the baby boom was ending as Samuelson wrote these words. Births per woman had fallen from 3.7 in 1960 to 2.6 by 1967 and then to 1.8 by 1975. By 1990, births were back to 2.0 per woman, but the demographics of the next century had been determined: The rapidly growing population needed to make up for insufficient savings by each generation of Americans was no more.

Anyone could see that this would mean trouble for Medicare and Social Security when the boomers began to retire. But our leaders chose to protect the programs rather than restructure them, and they have used dubious accounting standards to hide the burden placed on younger Americans. Denial was in full glory.  In 1967 even the brilliant Samuelson could not predict an added element to the already questionable equation. In a US census document from 2008 it determined that the birthrate in women already on social assistance was three times the birthrate of those not on any sort of welfare or state and federal aid (http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-558.pdf). So now the population of the payors we even more greatly reduced as compared to those receiving benefits and not paying for them. Once again, shifting the burden of responsibility from the individual to the masses has lead to choices that further and further our national decline.  The "price" of having a child no longer matters.

China’s leaders made dramatically different choices - they  had to. With a one-child policy, they surely couldn't rely on the next generation to pay for current retirees. Instead, they have designed a system much like Singapore’s: The government makes few retirement promises, and Chinese citizens save significant portions of their income — the average household put away 38% of their current income in 2010, Bloomberg Businessweek reported, compared with only 3.9% for U.S. households. Much of those savings are invested by China’s state-owned banks into U.S. Treasury bonds, which our government sells to finance Americans’ retirements. So Chinese retirees hold US debt instruments that earn money to pay for their own care tools so we can borrow from them to pay our current healthcare bills.  That does not sound like any sort of "social security" to me. This situation is as dangerous as it is ironic.

Of the $16+ of U.S. public debt — this doesn’t count the over $4.8 trillion held by our government, largely in IOUs to itself for Social Security — the Chinese own over $1.2 trillion, making them the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries after the Federal Reserve.

The Treasury Department’s 2011 annual report shows U.S. debt as a share of the economy (gross domestic product) rising — to 125% of gross domestic product by 2042 and 287 percent by 2086 — as retirement promises turn into cash outflows. That is just like owing 125% of the value of your home.  And if Medicare’s costs per beneficiary grow at historical rates (and no changes have been made to predict otherwise), the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will eventually exceed 500 percent (like owing %500 of the value of your home). Remember that Greece was pushed into crisis with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 113% -- we will exceed that in no time. Talk about being upside down.

How long will foreign investors like China, who own half of outstanding Treasuries, be willing to use their savings to finance our promises? At some point won't they want to cash in? What then? In December, the head of China’s sovereign wealth fund, which invests $400 billion of his country’s savings, criticized Europe’s welfare system in brutal terms, saying that it induces “sloth, indolence.” Our system is no different. We are becoming a nation not of innovation and hard work, the essence of what it used to be to BE America but passing the buck or more accurately passing the bill.

In the United States the largest private buyer of Treasuries, said last month that our retirement promises have “similar characteristics” to Bernie Madoff’s scheme and predicted a Greek-like crisis if the system is not reformed. Bernie Madoff is serving a 150 year prison term -- more than most murderers. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve bought 60 percent of Treasuries issued last year. This rate of purchases cannot continue indefinitely. There will be a crash.

Today’s US leaders did not design the Medicare and Social Security systmes as an intergenerational transfer (although that is what they were from day one), and they did not choose the government’s misleading accounting standards. But because these bad choices have not been corrected, many Americans believe that a cut to Medicare or Social Security is a confiscation of money they paid into a trust fund when in fact it is not. This misconception greatly complicates our politics.  Beneficiaries of Medicare and Social Security receive a far greater value in their withdrawal from the system than the vast majority has ever put into it.  With people living longer, the issue exacerbates itself.  Does your bank let you withdraw more from your account than you have in your account?

The good news is that Americans know changes are needed. The bad news is many of those same people don't want the changes to take place until after they have received their benefits.  If this "not me" attitude continues, nothing will change. Our health-care system can be reformed to reduce the burden on our children and their children. We need better information to have this critical national discussion and we need to take seriously the information that is already right in front of our faces.

Will our leaders give us an honest accounting and discussion of our choices, or will we have to wait for a debt crisis to force the issue?  Evidence of our current presidential campaign polls show us that voters would rather be told what they want to hear. Will our leaders, like they are already doing, create even more complicated and burdensome systems to pile on top of an already broken system? 

I predict the latter.  You can dress up a pig, but it is still a pig.

Sources : 
The Washington Post - To fix Medicare and Social Security, look to Singapore
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-558.pdf
The Rise and Fall of Medicare - Andrew J. Rettinmaier and Thomas A. Saving: Texas A & M University