Suicide is a topic not often broached in the political battlefield of the gun violence debate. The topic covers medical, psychological, political and ethical territory, making it difficult to come to a conclusion over. Suicide is difficult to talk about, affects tens of thousands of people and climbs higher and higher every year without an agreeable reason. A topic even less seemingly approachable is military suicide. Though neither veteran suicide nor “civilian” suicide is more glamorous a topic to cover or glorious a reason to solve over the other, veteran suicide relates to a more sizeable cadre that all have lived under or experienced relatively similar series of stimuli, making them an excellent control group for attempting to solve the
…show more content…
The following issues all fall under the Veteran Affairs jurisdiction. The United States Department of Veteran Affairs, founded in 1930 is a federally run government military benefit system designed to help veterans in their time after service by supporting them financially, medically and psychologically. The controversy related to veteran suicide begins with the Department of Veteran Affairs. Many criticisms have surfaced, even within the House, commenting on the ineptitude and bureaucratic disregard for the veterans that they are supposed to be serving, a majority leader within the House of Representatives stated, “The House is committed to fighting for our retired servicemen and women who have been neglected by a broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). It has been several years since the corruption and dysfunction at the VA was exposed, and quite frankly, it is appalling that we must continue to pass bills to fix the countless problems that have been ignored.” With such glaring dissention about the effectiveness of the VA, finding a scapegoat for the issue is relatively easy. Pointing fingers at a large, nameless government entity is …show more content…
Simply by reducing the number of active servicemen and the amount of guns in private hands, they were able to effectively half their suicide rate. Despite being incredibly divided on the ownership of private guns and maintaining a sizeable militia, the government took direct action and sized down their military for the better of the public rather than facilitating the demands of individuals with ulterior motives and bids within the military-industrial complex.This being a main reason why such a solution wouldn’t receive political backing within the United States. This strategy wouldn’t work in the United states for multiple reasons. Though downsizing the military would result in less veterans, this would only decrease the amount of new veteran suicides due to minimizing the creation of veterans, it wouldn’t nullify veteran suicide percentages, only shrink their total scales. A total revamp of the Department of Veteran Affairs that maintained contact and reached out with psychological services could help reduce the rate of suicide. The most obvious solution however is the most debated upon one, gun control. Without a firearm in the home, suicide is five times less likely to happen and twenty times less likely to succeed. (Link from medpage) Firearms give the user the ability to turn any situation lethal, in the case of suicide, their success rate with a firearm skyrockets. By regulating the
The following issues all fall under the Veteran Affairs jurisdiction. The United States Department of Veteran Affairs, founded in 1930 is a federally run government military benefit system designed to help veterans in their time after service by supporting them financially, medically and psychologically. The controversy related to veteran suicide begins with the Department of Veteran Affairs. Many criticisms have surfaced, even within the House, commenting on the ineptitude and bureaucratic disregard for the veterans that they are supposed to be serving, a majority leader within the House of Representatives stated, “The House is committed to fighting for our retired servicemen and women who have been neglected by a broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). It has been several years since the corruption and dysfunction at the VA was exposed, and quite frankly, it is appalling that we must continue to pass bills to fix the countless problems that have been ignored.” With such glaring dissention about the effectiveness of the VA, finding a scapegoat for the issue is relatively easy. Pointing fingers at a large, nameless government entity is …show more content…
Simply by reducing the number of active servicemen and the amount of guns in private hands, they were able to effectively half their suicide rate. Despite being incredibly divided on the ownership of private guns and maintaining a sizeable militia, the government took direct action and sized down their military for the better of the public rather than facilitating the demands of individuals with ulterior motives and bids within the military-industrial complex.This being a main reason why such a solution wouldn’t receive political backing within the United States. This strategy wouldn’t work in the United states for multiple reasons. Though downsizing the military would result in less veterans, this would only decrease the amount of new veteran suicides due to minimizing the creation of veterans, it wouldn’t nullify veteran suicide percentages, only shrink their total scales. A total revamp of the Department of Veteran Affairs that maintained contact and reached out with psychological services could help reduce the rate of suicide. The most obvious solution however is the most debated upon one, gun control. Without a firearm in the home, suicide is five times less likely to happen and twenty times less likely to succeed. (Link from medpage) Firearms give the user the ability to turn any situation lethal, in the case of suicide, their success rate with a firearm skyrockets. By regulating the