the data from CDC agrees with you, and agrees that a firearm is most common method.

but also indicates age correlate with freq of suicde by firearm.

guess who the least frequent group is, kids.

now that might fly in the face of stats, but suicide is an "intentional" thing. [that rides on the idea that you are competent to form intent when suicidal]

so yes if you keep your guns secure, and gun proof your kids to mitigate accidents that should improve things, for kids.

however take at least as much care for your grandparents, they are apparently at extreme risk, of forming intent and, acting especially grandpa.

Active shootings in the US kill like 100 people a year (as of 2024 I guess: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/reports-and-publications...)

Suicides is more like 50,000/yr

> A national hotline that can handle anyone is clearly the right way.

Absolutely. That describes this setup. You call the number. You get help. Sometimes that means a person trained in, say, talking to rape victims. (If you go to the ER, they'll have a nurse trained in it too!)

Per the article: "Also known as the 'Press 3 option,' the program gave 988 callers the option to 'press 3' to connect with a counselor trained to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer youths and young adults (they could also text 988 with the word 'PRIDE'). Nearly 1.5 million contacts were routed to the LGBTQ service since its launch, according to data available on the SAMHSA website."

Same hotline, just a phone tree option in it.

Now imagine you're running a massive sports team, and you have a budget for medical care. But then a government entity comes and says: regardless of outcomes, you're not allowed to hire specialists or allow your team members to elect to go to specialists, because that could be seen as unfair... regardless of whether statistics point to improved outcomes if you were allowed to have certain specialists.

Looping back to suicide hotlines: even if the administration had increased funding to the hotline to compensate for the ended specialist program (which is highly unlikely, and that this was more likely a net funding loss) - it's a similar restriction on whether a lifeline program can allocate resources to specialists. And the stakes here couldn't be higher.

(And if statistics pointed to other groups benefiting similarly from specialization, I’d want a clinician-led organization to evaluate that research and determine budget allocation towards those specialists, too.)

Are LGBTQ people at a higher risk for suicide? Could hotline staff reduce suicide attempts with special training? Seems like you could measure this.

Thinking about other groups with a higher risk--veterans, abuse survivors, gambling addicts--are there suicide prevention programs for these groups and are they effective?

If this were 10 years ago, this would be an understandable assumption, but today there is absolutely zero reason to reach this conclusion.

The words of our own elected representatives make it very clear why these specialists were cut: because of hatred for the LGBTQ+ community.

Why? The struggles different groups generally face are not the same. For a hotline for veterans, wouldn't it make sense to have counselors who are either veterans themselves or have worked extensively with veterans and their specific patterns of issues?