Why Is No One Saying This About the Suicide of Naomi Judd?

Summary

The article discusses the tragic suicide of Naomi Judd, questioning why firearms were still present in her home despite her known struggles with suicidal depression and previous incidents involving guns.

Abstract

The article reflects on the suicide of country music star Naomi Judd, emphasizing the harsh reality that her death might have been preventable. Despite Judd's open struggle with treatment-resistant depression and past incidents where she was found handling firearms in a disturbing manner, the family did not remove all guns from their property. The author argues that the presence of guns in the home of someone with a high risk of suicide is a significant safety concern, and that in such cases, firearms should be completely removed from the premises to prevent such tragedies. The article also notes that while the Second Amendment is important to many, the safety of a person at risk should take precedence over the convenience of having firearms readily available.

Opinions

The author believes that the presence of firearms in Naomi Judd's home contributed to the preventability of her suicide.
It is suggested that the family was aware of the risk posed by the guns, given Judd's history of depression and previous incidents.
The article criticizes the decision not to remove all firearms from the property, considering Judd's well-known mental health struggles.
The author emphasizes that the right to bear arms should not overshadow the responsibility to ensure the safety of individuals at high risk of suicide.
The author advocates for the transfer of firearms to safer locations, such as the homes of Judd's daughters, to maintain access for other family members without endangering Judd.
The article underscores the effectiveness of removing firearms as a means to reduce the likelihood of successful suicide attempts, given that firearms are the most common method used in suicides.

Sorry if it sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.

2016 book cover photo, from NaomiJudd.com.

Naomi Judd is and has been such a beloved star that it’s hard to say anything that might sound even so much as a bit harsh after her tragic death last month. She fought so hard and so courageously against her treatment-resistant depression, and by all accounts was a deeply intelligent, outgoing, fun, gregarious, and lovely person.

Still, the following has to be said:

By her own admission in her 2016 book River of Time, Judd was not only suicidal a good bit of the time these last ten years, but her husband witnessed her disturbing behavior with a firearm at least twice that we know of.

Judd wrote of taking a gun with her on a walk on her farm and emptying it into an old dead tree. Her husband, Larry, elsewhere on the property, heard the gun going off and walked up and took it from her.

We know from her book that she hid a firearm inside a boot in her closet. One night her husband walked in on her in the bathroom, holding it to her head. Once again, he took it from her, very upset.

These incidents were known not only to the family, but to millions once the book was published.

Why, why, why, why was every single firearm not cleared from that property and never, ever brought back again?? Certainly, it was known how many firearms the family owned. The argument that healthier family members would have been denied use of the weapons doesn’t hold water here; both daughters lived only a close walk away. Weapons could have been transferred to either of these properties so Mr. Strickland would still have had access to them, should he have needed them for hunting or for any other purpose.

Suicide by firearm is not only popular, at 52.83% of all suicide deaths, but the most likely method to be successful in killing the person. Any other method of suicide other than jumping from a height is more likely to give others time to find and save the person. A knife wound takes some time to bleed out from, and pills offer at least a couple of hours during which medical intervention can save the person.

I know many are figuratively all up in arms about their Second Amendment rights, but when you have a person in the home you know is at high risk for suicidal depression, especially when you know they have acted out with a firearm before, guns should never, never even be in the home.

I’m sorry to say it, and I don’t want to hurt the family any more than they already have been … but, at the same time, this was preventable.

If you have someone depressed in your home or someone with a mental illness that’s prone to psychotic episodes, do not keep a gun in your home. Period.