Pat and I are up early every morning, on Saturdays we watch U.S. Farm Report. We always enjoy the John Phipps commentary. This morning it was on a serious note about death by suicide. He showed statistics from survivors.

A study of survivors by Harvard School of Public Health showed these statistics:

70% decided less than 1 hour before

25% of those decided 5 minutes before

82.5% chose to use a gun

90% of survivors feel regret and do not repeat

John suggested we should seriously look at the role of impulse. We could do this by building in a 5 min delay sort of like counting to 10 before speaking in an argument.

• Keep the guns locked with the key somewhere else
• Keep guns and ammunition in separate places

This will not save every victim, but even one life saved by using prevention steps would be worth the small inconvenience of these suggestions.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

800 273-TALK