Suicide is a perfectly legitimate use for guns. If someone is so miserable that they want to die do we really want to make it harder for them? In most such cases the appropriate pill would be a better option: more sure, less dangerous to others. But since we&#x27;ve made those so hard to get, do we really want to condemn the use of other available tools to get the job done?<p>When my father was dying of brain cancer and his time was short, he walked up to me as angry as I&#x27;d every seen him, asking what I had done with his gun. He was prepared at that moment to use it to end his life, fully dressed when he hadn&#x27;t been out of bed except for the bathroom in more than a month. I hadn&#x27;t hidden his gun from him, it was misplaced for other reasons. If he had found it where it belonged, the first I&#x27;d have heard about it would have been his final gunshot.<p>Instead he changed his mind and decided to die at the pace of his disease, as his father had. It took about another three weeks, and there was nothing positive about those weeks for him, even with plenty of pain killers at hand. He lost control over himself, his personality, and his dignity. I try not to remember that part of his life.<p>I don&#x27;t know that he made the wrong decision. But I do know that it was right that he had that decision to make.<p>Certainly there are many cases where guns are used for suicides that are tragically misjudged. But since we can&#x27;t know what those people are feeling, they&#x27;re in a better place to make that judgment than we are.