Peggy J. Parks How Can Suicide Be Reduced

Each year, about 34,598 people end their own lives. Suicide is a growing threat in the United States. “How Can Suicide Be Reduced?” is on how to prevent suicide and factors that can aid in prevention. The book also talks about different suicide methods, suicide victims and the effects on their loved ones. Because suicide is growing in America, the author, Peggy J. Parks decided to write this book on how to reduce it. Parks says that people that commit or attempt suicide are normally wrongly labeled as mentally ill individuals. You can be mentally stable but still attempt to commit suicide. Suicide is normally attempted by people that have suffered from extreme emotional pain and are unable to cope with their problems. They feel like the future is hopeless and perceive suicide as the only alternative to …show more content…
The book talks about suicide from the military, depression, and from mental illness. I thought that most people that committed suicide were mentally ill but that’s not always the case. Suicide can come from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). This disorder mostly comes from serving in the military, so increasing military suicide prevention would save a lot of lives. The book overall was interesting to read and was easy to understand. The chapters are divided up into different aspects of suicide. The book splits up mental health, military suicide prevention and most common suicide methods into different chapters making it easier to take notes. The point that I agree with the most is the point of gun control. With stricter gun control laws, less people would die each day. Before reading this book I knew that guns were the reason for a lot of deaths in the United States, but I didn’t know that guns were the leading method of suicide. As Parks says, “With a firearm once the trigger is pulled, there’s no turning back”(Parks 71). If we increase gun control America will be a safer