Suicide Prevention?

[LivingDeadGirl]

http://www.hcn.org/articles/firearm-safety-group-targets-suicide-at-the-source

I came across this article earlier today, and essentially, the woman organizing this group, is not anti-gun, but feels more can be done to prevent suicide via firearm. She wants dealers and range operators to put up fliers, set out brochures, etc. to help people recognize the signs for suicide in customers. This fits with some of the strategy used in domestic violence awareness - people in certain professions, such as hair dressers and other cosmetology areas, also go through some training to recognize the physical and not so physical signs of domestic abuse victims, and how to talk with women to encourage them to seek help. Since men do not typically seek help for suicidal thoughts and depression (paraphrasing), this woman was trying to think of another way men could be reached and living in Colorado, she thought the gun culture might be helpful.

 If you remember the forum post about suicide deaths skewing gun deaths statistics, what we see nationally is about 2/3 of all firearm related deaths are suicide and the remaining third are homicide. According to this article, suicide via firearm accounts for about 78% of suicide attempts in Colorado.

I'm not sure this would work. In my mind, if someone is trying to purchase a firearm to commit suicide and during the purchase he is being grilled about why he wants that particular weapon, does he know how to use it, he's going to change his mind and find a different method. I think the hope is that the questioning will make the suicidal person think twice, but is this likely to work? They aren't even recommending a training of sorts, just some fliers and brochures to be made available. If a personal trainer cannot talk to a client about anorexia since anorexia is considered a mental disease and they are not trained to handle that, how we can expect john smith small gun store owner to be able to recognize a suicidal client and encourage them to seek help?