Here's a little whining in the Paper Formerly Known As The Paper Of Record about the fact that handguns have become fashionable among coeds at Mt. Holyoke.

Defenders of guns can intelligently argue that, as with fast cars, the pleasures of gun ownership are worth the increased mortality. That is an opinion with which one can agree or disagree. Likewise, it is true that the overwhelming majority of guns will be used responsibly (from the point of view of everyone except hungry coyotes). But it is pointless to try to deny the link between more handguns and increased murder and suicide.

Pointless? I suppose. Unless you're actually familiar with the data and statistics...

Not to be heartless or anything, but why is suicide so universally condemned, at least when guns are the topic of discussion?

A few years ago, Time magazine decided to update a story that it sees as one of its great triumphs. The original story was a picture and brief death story of every US serviceman who died in Vietnam during a specific week.

The update consisted of a picture and brief death story of everyone who died in the US during a given week of gun fire.

To me, the interesting thing is that almost all of the suicides seemed like reasonable decisions in their circumstance. I don't know if that's true of suicides in general, or suicide attempters, but that story changed my mind about with-gun suicides.