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One way to reduce gun violence is by convincing ordinary, “responsible” handgun owners that their weapons make them, their families, and those around them less safe.

Under the current system, “the lungs of the Earth are being plowed up and bulldozed to plant more corn and soybeans so that more animals can be raised in confinement.” "Farmers need to follow the lead of India’s farmers and make our voices heard.”

Researchers worry the pandemic may have severe after-effects, with deaths of despair impacting more distressed and newly-vulnerable populations. Only a serious reform of American capitalism can address the kind of distress and insecurity that kills.

Four recent studies suggest that higher minimum wage laws might save lives. The newest paper estimated that a $1 increase in the minimum wage led to a 3.4 to 5.9 percent decline in suicides among adults with a high school education or less.

In other words, we’re talking about a national epidemic of self-inflicted deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents. The number is an extreme data point in an accumulating body of evidence that young adolescents are suffering from a range of health problems associated with the country’s rapidly changing culture.

Reader Comments: Kalief Browder and Criminality of Prisons; Fight for $15; Edward Snowden - Hero; Ronnie Gilbert; Walmart Anti-Labor Activity; Suicide in Young Women; The Audacity to Win - Left Strategy Needed; Recommended Books - By non-white authors; Announcements: 62nd Memorial of the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Brooklyn Peace Fair

Our cultural narrative about bullying presumes that youth who are bullied are at greater risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. But research shows that bullies themselves are at risk as well. Bullying involvement of any stripe is harmful.

Researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America.