No, that is not a sarcastic anti-gun bumpersticker I saw and decided to ridicule.

What it is, though, I'm afraid will sound like an absolutely crazy idea. Perhaps crazy ideas are nothing new here, but I hope readers will bear with me, but it's one of those ideas which won't go away, and the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

Last week, the Glenn and Helen Show discussed a topic which is quite an old one for me: suicide.

I think it's fair to say that I have a lot more experience in the suicide space than most people. That experience includes friends, family, and even a personal decision not to do it. Suicide is something to which I am unalterably opposed -- not only because of what it does to the living, but because no matter how awful things might seem there's nothing permanent about the awfulness.

However, I think it's a very tough thing to prevent suicide in the case of people who don't want to be prevented. I agreed with much of what Dr. Caine said in the Glenn and Helen interview, although I have a serious problem with taking away guns from a potential suicide, because I fear that might lead to activists using suicide prevention as another foot-in-the-door opportunity for gun control. (Compiling lists of Prozac-takers, people who have seen pychologists, called suicide hotlines, etc. in order to confiscate guns only assures that people will be reluctant to get help.)

Additionally, I think taking away guns (or any other means) leaves plenty of methods like drugs, poisons, car exhaust, heights, ropes, and the old Roman slit-your-wrists-in-the-bathtub method (revived in "Godfather II). If such means-based prevention did work, I doubt it would be because other means weren't available. Rather, I think removing guns, razor blades, or ropes might help remind the potential suicide that others care. (Of course, in stubborn cases, it might backfire. No one approach would work for everyone.)

So many suicides in this country are committed with guns, that to that extent, suicide borders on being a Second Amendment issue. It is for this reason that when suicide became an option my AIDS-infected friends were considering (and later, when I was considering it), I began to research the various methods.

For myself, I concluded early on that no matter what happened, I would never allow my suicide to become more statistical fodder for the gun control movement. Let's face it, people have long committed suicide, with or without firearms. As I've explained before, years ago people didn't blame guns for suicides, but now they do. A perfect local example is a 16 year old who shot himself at his school with a Kalashnikov last week. Already, gun control advocates are saying that it happened because of law allowing assault weapons:

Our laws didn't cover this situation. Our laws failed this student. And if not for the quick work of police officers, Pennsylvania's weak gun laws could have let more deaths happen. There is no reason that firearms like the AK-47 are legal in America, except that the gun industry wants to sell them. This is just more proof that we should be rid of weapons like these for good.

1. I chose to use a hotel because it is less sloppy and stressful for all concerned to have my dead body discovered the next morning by hotel staff than by a neighbor wondering about "that smell" several days later; and

2. I chose the drug overdose with the plastic bag because I don't want my guns blamed for my suicide.

Why I didn't do it is a long story, and I've touched on it before. The point is, I have been through suicides of friends, and I'm on the other side of having considered it an option for myself.

I think people need to know that others care. For whatever reason (perhaps because they're overwhelmed by the immediacy of the depression) this is something all too easy for potential suicides to forget. It may sound crazy (well, it is crazy) but it never occurred to me that anyone cared whether I lived or died until it came right down to the decision (in 1993) to implement my suicide plan.

Despite my planning, I had an immediate problem: my dogs, Puff (pictured on the right and known to longtime readers), and his father, "Chatty." Who would feed them? Would I have to kill them too? Not wanting to kill my dogs, I had a problem. Because if I didn't kill them, I knew the chances were excellent that someone else would. Most likely, they'd be taken down to animal control and euthanized because let's face it, pit bulls in animal shelters face a very fatal form of discrimination.

The more I thought it over, the more it became clear that if my dogs loved me in their own way, and I loved them, my suicide would be a very selfish, even cruel thing. The next thing you know, the realization that my suicide would be a disaster for my dogs made me think about other people. Not only did I have neighbors with whom I was very close, but I still had close friends -- not all of whom were doomed to die in the near future. I even had family members. There were people who would care. Why it took the dogs to remind me that there were people, I do not know. It's an example of the crazy and irrational process that leads to suicide.

Over time, this immediate if pragmatic hesitancy developed into a philosophical antipathy to suicide, and a realization that if I did not fear death, it was the height of illogic to fear death.

No matter how bad depression gets, it is not (not for me at least) a permanent state of being, although this is tricky, because depression tends to take over, and being depressed right now can lead to a feeling of an eternal nowness of depression. It is believed that it will never go away. Fortunately, I was able to learn that depression, like many a chemical bad trip, would eventually wear off.

I don't mean to attach too much importance to my personal experience, because I realize that every person is different, and thus what worked for me might not work for others. I like to think that I might be able to talk some people out of suicide, but I'm not so arrogant as to claim that all suicides would or could relate to my thinking.

But I decided to write this post because of the thought that won't go away, and I think my personal experience does relate to it. I know it will never be possible to prevent or deter all suicides, but I'm wondering about the gun suicides. How many of them might have been members of the NRA like me? How many gun owners or NRA members know that there are others who care, and who might be willing to remind them?

When Dr. Caine suggested taking guns away from potential suicides, I recoiled a bit, and I noticed that so did Glenn and Helen. Because of my experience, I probably took it a little more personally than others, but I just kept thinking about it and thinking about it. What about depressed gun owners? Don't they realize that every suicidal trigger pull has direct consequences for other gun owners? It might not be much, but suppose the NRA set up a suicide hotline. The organization has faced criticism like this for avoiding the topic, but why avoid it? What better way to reach potential gun suicides than a free, confidential NRA hotline? And what better way to start than a reminder that if you use a gun to kill yourself, you not only lose your life, but you make your fellow gun owners and even the Second Amendment suffer? The logic is unassailable, plus it's a foot in the door for a sincere reminder that people do care.

Even (despite their media demonization) other gun owners. As to the idea that firearms should be taken away from someone who wants to commit suicide, as I said, there are too many other methods for it to work as a deterrent. I think the reason taking weapons away might be a deterrent is because it's a reminder that people care. (And if guns really had to be taken away from gun owners to prevent suicide, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be taken away by other gun owners?)

Aside from the NRA idea, I don't see anything wrong with suicide prevention by peers, and by mutual common-interest groups.

Who knows, bloggers might be able to help prevent other bloggers from committing suicide. (I don't know whether bloggers commit suicide on a regular basis, but I'll certainly weigh in against the idea right now.)

Again, sorry is the idea sounds crazy. I realize there are many reasons why it probably won't happen -- most of which would be promulgated by lawyers worried about the usual stuff lawyers worry about. But hell, I'm a lawyer myself (much as I try not to admit it), and I'd remind them that numerous state bar associations have special suicide prevention programs. I think the main reason the NRA would be leery of the idea is because their ideological opponents use suicide as an argument against guns. But I think that's an argument for -- not against -- gun owners helping gun owners against suicide with guns.

Especially in the case of gun owners, helping others can be seen as a form of self-help. And as I learned, once you rule out using a gun to kill yourself, you start thinking, and the rest tends to follow.

MORE: Just a reminder... In case there are any readers who haven't heard Glenn and Helen's suicide podcast, don't miss it! It's a gem.