Speaking of leaving, more South Dakotans are checking out permanently by gun:
The number of South Dakotans who took their own lives with a firearm rose to 116 last year, and the proportion of South Dakota suicides involving a gun rose to 59%, according to the state Department of Health. The state’s gun-suicide rate rose to 12.6 per 100,000 people. All three numbers are the highest in recent years’ data for the state [Joshua Haiar, “Gun Suicide Deaths Rise in South Dakota,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.12.07].
South Dakotans use guns to kill themselves four times as often as they turn their deadly aim on others:
Over the last ten years, 83% of South Dakota gun deaths have been suicides; nationwide in 2023, suicides were 58% of gun deaths.
South Dakota doesn’t have the highest gun suicide rate—go to Wyoming for that grim distinction, followed by Montana, Alaska, Idaho, and Oklahoma—but South Dakota’s gun suicide rate is higher than the national average. Suicide by firearm is more frequent in rural states, says the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “because of limited access to mental health services, high rates of alcohol use, and the highest rates of gun ownership, thus allowing for easier accessibility and exposure to guns.” Don’t expect helpful action from Governor Rhoden or the South Dakota Legislature on any of those fronts.
After Trump rids the world of fentanyl he’ll do the same with firearms. He’s trying for heaven you know.
We should celebrate the RIGHT to end one’s life as one sees fit. Most of Europe, and Canada, recognize this right.
That’s progress.
Now, even in Utah where the Church of Latter-Day Saints is more a social contract than a religion, suicide rates are an increasing concern after Trump’s agriculture department ended support for the Farm Ranch Stress Assistance Program. And, with the Trump Organization blowing up health care farmers are taking themselves out at much higher rates again and even the Earth hating American Farm Bureau Federation is panicking. In eastern Colorado where Trump won big farmers have been cut from mental health resources, too.
Clinically, suicide and suicide attempts are strongly linked to feelings of hopelessness, entrapment, and having “no way out” of current problems. People often report feeling that life has lost its meaning, their situation is unsolvable, and death seems like the only escape from psychological or physical pain.[nimh.nih +3]
Many also experience “perceived burdensomeness” and “thwarted belongingness”: a belief that they are a burden on others and that they don’t truly belong or are disconnected from meaningful relationships. In that framework, the psychological “statement” is often something like “I am in unbearable pain, I don’t matter, and others would be better off without me.”
Sounds like South Dakota core psychology, as I recall it. Hmmm ….. 🤔 Your inherent negativity and disputation is your suicidal stimuli.
Although suicide rates are high among those who are in ag, teen suicide is at crisis levels in some areas of the state. Guns are available everywhere anymore, even on college campuses, so it makes sense that guns are the number one choice. Yet our youth choose other methods, like hanging, and drugs/alcohol.
Once again, I have a question. I believe men are more likely to commit suicide than women, but I’d like to know the age groups of those who succeed.
And then there are those who tried but lived anyway.
Interesting that suicide rates are highest in red states and lowest in blue states.