I’m uncomfortable with the generalized philosophy that one who might take their own life doesn’t value any life. Suicidal does not necessarily mean a person is also homicidal, though I acknowledge in the case of mass shootings, both tendencies are present and acted upon.
A suicidal person may value life, but they feel that what they are experiencing isn’t life as it should be. They may really want to live, but have lost hope, and choose to end that pain and darkness.
jmo
You are right and it was never my intent for the average person to generalize.
However, from a psychiatric standpoint, if you have a person come to you and say they are going to kill themselves, the statistical likelihood of them killing others goes up. All people who are likely to hear from help-seekers about suicidality need to be aware. In nearly all of the mass workplace shootings I'm familiar with, there were suicidal notions/gestures/journals/statements beforehand. We cannot ignore that.
I'm not sure it's true of serial killers, of course. But it's also true of DV-perps who present to family or ER or teachers or pastors or bosses as suicidal. They are more likely to commit extensive suicide.
And it's fine to think about such things. Your last paragraph is surely shared by all of us - but the fact remains that a person who is willing to kill themselves (rare in most cultures) is willing to kill a person. And there are definitely suicide-missions among many different subcultures and across the entire world. "I'm going and I'm taking them out with me,' or "Life is not worth living for anyone, but at least maybe my children/descendants/relatives will be happier if I also kill THESE people."
When someone tells me they are suicidal (or sends me a suicide sounding note), I have resources I can draw upon - but I don't do it merely with that one person in mind. I am not a counselor, a pastor or anyone who can help cure the suicidality of someone who is not close to me. Suicidal people often avoid telling those closest to them, and instead tell us teachers (or pastors or psychologists, etc). But also bosses, as has happened many times.
I am not speaking of philosophy, btw. I am speaking of statistics. If there's a suicidally prone person in your life, of course you put them first. If there's one in my life (currently), I think of both that person and the other people they may kill. People who are suicidal in the context of a relationship fracture are at fairly high risk, but so are people who are suicidal due to school or work conditions.
Those of us who are not trained to treat the suicidal person need to turn the matter over to someone who can actually intervene effectively. We have laws that prohibit me (a teacher) from telling a students' parents that they are suicidal and are accruing the means to kill themselves (I can only report to campus counselors - so far, not one student has ever responded to the help offered, they just get this generic "do you need help" report). But these days, I think hard about what it means to everyone else (the other students). And if the person mentions having a gun that they intend to use to kill themselves, that seems to be the (local) agreed upon signal that we teachers should notify LE or resource officers (as well as the mental health team).
Learned all of this the hard way, as did many other people my age who have had to deal with attempts at extensive suicide.
IMO. Not a philosophy, just a fact of life to consider. Suicide-by-cop is the most common form, but it's not the only form (and if we arm teachers, it will be suicide-by-teacher, in place of suicide-by-cop, for some people). It's a thing that teachers, LE and doctors/psychologists are all aware of and is part of CTE training most places. We don't want anyone to die, but if they are going to kill themselves, we would prefer that they not take others.
IMO, IME.
