West Virginia man fatally shoots wife and himself while kids watch

[Sanddog42]

19. I was one of a family of 5 in a trailer in southern WV

I admit, it was a double-wide, but still, these are my roots. And I can say that there are much worse situations to be in.

I don't meant to detract from your point about the impact of poverty. In fact, I agree that enforced poverty is a major issue affecting the health of individuals and our society at large, and wealth inequality must be addressed. The shaming of struggling people (by cutting benefits) just adds to the problem.

That being said, the idea that this would have happened regardless of whether there was a gun in that home rests on faulty logic. The determination to kill oneself or another is often fleeting. And it takes less resolve to pull a trigger than any other method of killing. If there had been no gun, it's likely this man would have reconsidered his actions before he went through with them. Perhaps out of 100 such suicides and/or murders a few would still go through with it, but the majority would not. An instructive example is how the number of suicides declined when the oderant thiophane was added to natural gas. The preferred method of suicide by many before that time was to stick their heads into gas ovens and asphyxiate. The additive made that very uncomfortable, but instead of just finding another way to do themselves in, many people just continued living. In the same way, fewer guns would almost certainly lead to fewer stories like this one.