
In public, Cheryl Hanna was bright, poised and confident. On WCAX and other broadcast media, the Vermont Law School professor adeptly translated dense legal decisions. On campus, she was a beloved figure many regarded as an inspiring role model.
But none of that immunized her from slipping into a severe depression in May. It was, according to her husband, Paul Henninge, a “very fast, very spiraling” downward slope. “When she entered this most recent bout of depression — which in my 12 years, I’d never seen anything like this with her — I kept asking her to be patient,” he remembered Monday.
Hanna sought help — through her general practitioner and a therapist. In late July, she agreed to be admitted to Fletcher Allen Health Care, her husband said.
But she found herself “stuck” in the emergency room for a few days because there was no room in Shepardson, the building that holds the hospital’s psychiatric floors, Henninge said. Such waits have been common in Vermont due to a lack of psychiatric facilities, acknowledged Fletcher Allen spokesman Mike Noble. On any given day last month, he said, three to 15 people statewide were waiting for beds.
Hanna headed home for her 48th birthday — July 22 — then returned to Fletcher Allen when a spot finally opened in Shepardson. “She did not like being there,” Henninge said. “She was worried about the stigma associated with that and how it may have an effect on her career.” She wanted to go home, and staff decided to release her on Friday, July 25, for the weekend.
The next day, Saturday, Hanna left the house for a while, ostensibly to attend a yoga class. In fact, Henninge learned later from police investigators, she went to a local firearms shop and purchased a handgun.
On Sunday, Henninge was among the volunteers setting up for the annual Summer Greek Food Festival — an event Hanna had always enjoyed. He stopped home to check on his wife. That morning, he’d urged her to come to the festival; she had told him she didn’t want to get out of bed. Her sister, who had come in from Chicago to help, had gone for a “quick shop.”
When Henninge didn’t find his wife, he and his sister-in-law began searching. Ultimately, she found Hanna in the basement, wounded, as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot. That was the official cause of death.
Hanna and Henninge had two children together.
News of Hanna’s death generated an outpouring of grief — and public accolades from friends, elected officials, and students and staff at the law school. Many recalled her generous nature and her interest in women’s legal issues. Mourners packed the University of Vermont’s Ira Allen Chapel for Hanna’s Greek Orthodox funeral last Friday.
On a legacy webpage set up by VLS, colleagues and students described her as a personable, approachable and beloved professor, and commented on Hanna’s dedication to women’s issues and her command of the law.
“A week before my midterm exams, during my second semester of my 1L year, my computer crashed,” wrote Hermise Pierre. “Prof. Hanna offered to let me borrow her extra laptop. Not only did I use it for my midterms but for the remaining semester. Thank you for all that you have done for me and the students at VLS. We will miss your smile, sense of humor and outgoing personality.”
On Monday, Henninge, who works as an industrial designer, spoke to Seven Days in his downtown Burlington office about his wife’s life and death. “I think if there’s any lesson that needs to be considered it’s that the subject of depression needs to be kind of put more out in the light of day,” he said.
“I’ve been told by so many people — people you would never believe this to be true, and people who I come into daily interaction with — of parental suicides in their family,” he said. “I never heard of these things until now because of the taboo surrounding the issue, and that sense of shame that is associated with it.”
Hanna’s struggle is a common one in Vermont. The state’s suicide rate is higher than the national rate, health officials acknowledged in 2012 in a Youth Suicide Prevention Platform. Last year, 108 people in Vermont took their own lives.
“Somebody’s dying of suicide every four days. That’s pretty astounding,” said Mary Moulton, executive director of Washington County Mental Health Services.
She cautioned against drawing parallels between cases. Every individual, every story, is unique, she said. “Suicide reaches all socioeconomic groups, and the emotional pain does not exclude anyone.”
“This has a staggering impact on small communities in a rural state,” said JoEllen Tarallo-Falk, executive director of the Center for Health & Learning in Brattleboro, which coordinates suicide-prevention efforts in Vermont.
Men kill themselves more frequently than women by a four-to-one ratio, according to state statistics, and the most common method is using firearms. A national group recently reported that Vermont had more gun fatalities than vehicular deaths in 2011; most of the gun deaths were suicides.
Henninge said he had no guns in the house, and is not a “gun guy.”
“It’s kind of freaky how easy it was for her to get that gun,” he said of his wife’s weapons purchase.
Ann Braden, the leader of Gun Sense Vermont, said that gun shops do perform background checks in Vermont. However, she said, the state has submitted few people to the federal list of those who can be barred for purchasing a gun for psychiatric reasons, and they do not include people who have been voluntarily hospitalized — only those found or adjudicated to be a threat to themselves or others.
Alexander Potter, also from the Center for Health & Learning, has been researching a suicide-prevention idea that is already in place in New Hampshire. Some gun stores there voluntarily display posters promoting suicide-hotline numbers and distribute literature that describes where to get help. He said local mental-health officials are reviewing his proposal for possible adoption in Vermont.
Hanna’s death could start a number of conversations: about ready access to guns, about the stigma still attached to seeking help for a mental health problem, and about the ongoing lack of readily available psychiatric beds in Vermont.
“I’m happy to talk,” Henninge said in his office. “But I want to make sure it brings forward the awareness of the disease of depression … She got caught in this strange, dark place, where she couldn’t see, and where she was suffering so much.”
Need Help? Some Suicide Resources
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK)
- Vermont Department of Health resource page
- Dial 211 (A statewide health and human services hotline)
The original print version of this article was headlined “Cheryl Hanna’s Suicide Confirms Mental Health Problems in Vermont”
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2014.


Why wasn’t there a waiting period on the handgun?
— “She was worried about the stigma associated with that and how it may have an effect on her career.”
You chose that statement, clearly indicating you hold this prejudice in your mind. Remove it, each time you repeat it you harm.
—“I never heard of these things until now because of the taboo surrounding the issue, and that sense of shame that is associated with it.”
You chose this one, too. I regret you hold those prejudices.
—about the stigma still attached to seeking help for a mental health problem
You have made yourself perfectly clear.
Harold A. Maio, retired mental health editor
Time out. The “staff *decided* to release her?” Or was she released AMA – Against Medical Advice?
I mean, let’s all stipulate that, absent a court ruling, a patient cannot be treated or held against their will. This is the law.
“She wanted to go home, and staff decided to release her on Friday, July 25, for the weekend.”
What other “decision” was possible? If she wanted to go home, she could go home – as could any other patient anywhere in a community hospital. Period. Full stop. End of story. My point is that the story reads as though the staff at Fletcher-Allen said, “Yeah, absolutely, you’re good to go.” This is almost certainly complete nonsense.
Hanna *elected* to remove herself from treatment, and the Fletcher-Allen staff had nothing to say about it.
o
Harold A. Maio, you claim to be a “mental health editor”? (whatever that is) Well, I am certainly glad you are retired.
The fact that Cheryl was worried about how depression would effect her career is EXACTLY what needs to be discussed!!! There IS a stigma that needs to be addressed and changed! How DARE you imply that her husband “held this prejudice in his mind”. and by “repeating it, will cause harm”. By “repeating it” he may bring about an honest discussion that may hopefully lead to change.
You are a complete moron.
Exactly. I wonder how many suicides could be prevented if the purchaser had to wait even just 24 hours.
It’s a state by state thing; did not know that. Thought it was federal.
http://smartgunlaws.org/category/state-waiting-periods-for-guns/
The whole is beyond tragic…
There is a stigma about mental health issues, and talking about it is the only way to root it out of our culture– ignoring it surely won’t. At least it hasn’t so far in recorded history. And the stigma is part of the reason that treatment is hard to get even when you have financial access to it and are motivated to do it, as Hanna was initially. If we took mental illness as seriously and non-judgmentally as heart disease, would she have had to spend days in an ER?
We do not know what happened after her admission to change her mind about getting hospital treatment, and it is absolutely true that an adult can’t be held in treatment against his or her will without evidence of imminent threat sufficient to get a court order– clearly not the case here. We can’t blame her release on the hospital, but I hope it is engaging in a review of her treatment while she was there– her brief stay raises the question, were resources available to give her what she needed, when she needed it, or was this another waiting game due to insufficient staffing or other resources, another measure of the social stigma, reflected in financial priorities?
The question is not intended to blame this hospital, but to look at how our system could and should change.
Likewise, the easy access to a gun. I question how effective a poster with a help line is going to be in the gun shop– I suspect many buyers, like Hanna, have already tried and failed to get help. For starters, this state needs to start reporting to the federal data bank. But since 40 percent of our gun sales aren’t subject to a background check at all, clearly we also need to close that loophole. And more, we need to look at other ways to make it harder for guns to end up in the wrong hands: a waiting period, a broader restriction on selling to those with any recent history of treatment for mental illness.
Paul,
It is not just the stigma that keeps us from talking about a suicide. After 41 years, I still find it very painful to speak of my father’s death. I have also seen that many times people back away from these painful topics. They don’t want to be “touched” by it. It’s a relief to me to be given the chance to be more open in this public discussion.
Seven Days:
I suggest coverage of these topics:
Please address the stigma of seeking help for mental health problems. This needs to be addressed over and over.
Create awareness of the symptoms of depression so that people may recognize the condition in themselves and others.
Suppose someone who is clearly depressed and suicidal approaches you. What if a family member of that person approaches you for help? How do you respond? What resources are available? What would happen if you took that person to the ER or called the Crisis Clinic?
If a family you know has experienced a death from suicide, how can you help that family heal? What should you avoid?
Keep up the good work,
Jennifer Kochman
What profound irony exists in the fact that it takes extinguishing a bright, beautiful light like Hannah’s to illuminate the complex issue of depression – and to spark a public dialogue concerning what is so frequently a hidden – even secretive – and highly stigmatized topic. I mourn Hannah’s loss, but also the world’s loss. For Hannah was unquestionably a gift to our world, and that gift and the clear, courageous voice that accompanied it, are now gone and silenced.
For some years I served on the HCRS Board, compelled to do so by family circumstances that even today I will not disclose outside the family – because quite frankly the intense human struggle to address the challenge of a mental illness is compounded beyond belief by the stigma, misunderstanding, and prejudices that can be encountered anywhere and everywhere in today’s society.
I pray therefore that this tragedy – this unbelievable, profoundly sad end to a life so full of promise – will bring this issue out from its dark shadows into the light of Hannah’s brilliance.
I did not know you Hannah, and yet I ken you. Rest with the angels my dear. Your struggle is over – but ours – if we accept the lesson of your too-short life – ours must now begin. Who will take up this torch?
It’s useless to puff and blow about “waiting periods” for gun purchases, or whine about “background checks,” but the simple facts are that someone blowing their brains out on Tuesday is just as tragic as the same outcome on Monday. Add this to the fact that Hanna would – unless she was a felon or an *adjudicated* mental patient – certainly have passed the background check, and we have nothing more than the usual formula for the typically leftist anti-gun “me-feel-good-I-done-something” rhetoric that will do absolutely nothing about anything.
Dan, the primary issue here is depression and treatment; however, the secondary issue is firearm accessibility. I am gun owner and a hunter, but I do think that a day or two may/can make a difference. Sometimes when life seems overwhelming at night, the next morning a ray of hope appears. I don’t know if it would have made a difference with Hanna, but it couldn’t have hurt.
There’s so much wrong with the various theories about “waiting periods” and “background checks” that I hardly know where to begin.
First, denying Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to a person with “recent history of treatment for mental illness.” What – *exactly* – does “recent history of treatment for mental illness” mean? Does it mean that someone who goes to a psychiatrist for help coping with job-related stress or anxiety is denied their 2nd Amendment rights? I mean, I don’t think even psychiatrists could possibly agree on what a “recent history of treatment for mental illness” actually is. Going to a psychologist for marriage counseling? Or to quit smoking?
Second, if someone knows that going anywhere near a psychiatrist is going to mean a lifelong ban (what does “recent” mean, *exactly*…) on a Constitutional right, are they going to go down that road? I certainly wouldn’t.
Thirdly, firearms are legitimate means of personal protection. Is a gunshop owner to tell a woman who’s covered with bruises, holding a Temporary Restraining Order against the boyfriend who lumped up on her, and in terror for her life, “OK, hope he doesn’t come for you with a baseball bat tonight, because you can’t have that 9mm until Thursday. Good luck!”
Unfortunately, the Hanna case is one of those intractable issues that just has no good solution. We can’t deny her her Constitutional rights – temporarily or permanently. And we can’t imprison her because some doctor imagines she’s a suicide risk. To put it bluntly, people have the right to kill themselves, and there’s really very little we can do about it.
Vermont has to do something about our lack of mental health resources. We should all be ashamed of our state when someone breaks thru the barriers and goes for help and ends up in an emergency room for days?? At their darkest hour this is the best we can do? This is how we take care of our own? The prisons are full of foks with mental health diagnosesj, with very little help there and having to be subjected to the cruelty of offenders and locked into segregation constantly so they can by “handled”. Community mental heal providers didn’t work.
We need to go back to where we started with a large buildingj, adequate staff and resouces to help these people, weather it’s for a week,, a month or a year. We do better in vermont finding homes and taking care of animals than we do our mentallhy ill.
Of course Cheryl was worried about how it would look and what effect it would have on her job. I lost a brother to suicide and I was fired from a job while out of work for depression. Yes, that;s right, I was out on “disability” when they fired me and guess what, the employer was a hospital. I’m so sorry that this bright, talented, beautiful woman took her own life. I know how the family suffers because of this and YES we must talk about depression and suicide. Not having adequate resources to address those who need help is a SHAME on our current administration who doesn’t value mental health issues.
I don’t know why the conversation has to always turn simplistic and state that guns cause suicide? I can think of a dozen ways to do it, and personally using a gun to do it is repulsive to me. We just had a woman use sleeping pills and a plastic bag to suffocate herself.
What irks me is how the media, particularly the Burlington Free Press, leaped into action to lionize this woman who offed herself and-almost certainly-traumatized her two grade-school children for life.
She’s been called “a great community leader” and a “shining light” and (probably, for all I know) “a magic unicorn, bathed in the very light of creation.” Feh. She killed herself and obviously didn’t give a second thought for how this will affect the lives of her minor children. She could have continued treatment at Fletcher-Allen, but decided to abandon this course of action, preferring the ultimate act of selfishness.
Bury her and forget her. As quickly as possible. And hope her children can do the same. But that won’t happen.
I am absolutely appalled at the comment made about suicide being a “selfish” act and that someone’s loved one should be “buried and forgotten”. How dare you? You obviously have never lost anyone to suicide. Maybe you should spend some time with a survivor, hearing their stories… there sure are enough of us out there, especially in Vermont. This type of comment is exactly why people who are suffering from mental illness and depression don’t step forward. They try to handle it themselves. People are scared of the repercussions of admitting that they have had suicidal thoughts and many of us are scared to think that someone we know might speak up… what do we do then? How do we help? But we have to Talk, Ask, Listen and Know… We need to demystify suicide, eliminate the stigmas of depression and mental illness and take that leap into the unknown by educating ourselves. It could save someone you love. My son took his own life 3 years ago at the age of 22. Was he depressed? Did he suffer from a mental illness? The answer is … I don’t know and I never will know! We shelter ourselves from these topics because “it can’t possibly happen to us”… I am hear to tell you, that it can. So please talk about it with everyone you know and learn as much as you can… Education is power. Speak out …
I think it is extremely commendable that Ms. Hanna’s husband and family have been so open about this tragedy. There IS real stigma about depression and other mental health issues, and their willingness to share their experience can only help ease that stigma.
It sounds like Ms. Hanna was a “helper” in her life, and although it will never make up for their loss, I hope her family and friends will be able to see that their beloved wife, mother, sister, friend, etc. did not die completely in vain. I will hold them all close in my thoughts and prayers.
Thanks to Seven Days for this important (yet so very heartbreaking) story.
I have been depressed, dated someone with depression / threatened to end her life and had a family member attempt suicide.
There is no one depression.
Depression seems to me to be = “something is not right”.
Can be mental, physical circumstantial.
Speculation is moot.
My heart goes out to the family – sending you love and compassion….
PERI AND POST MENOPAUSAL WOMEN OUT THERE please please please have your hormone levels checked as soon as you feel bLue! Hormone replacement therapy saved my life! I had no idea why I became suicidal at age 48 too out of no where….An estrogen patch saved my life. I write this everywhere I can!
Shedcity – just for the sake of conversation, if someone commits suicide by slitting his wrists with a razor blade, would you call for a waiting period on razors? I doubt that you’ll get the point, so I’ll try to spell it out for you: we can not blame an object for a person’s behavior – it’s really quite simple.
When I met Cheryl and Paul at a family picnic they seemed like instant old friends. I am greatly saddened by Cheryls death. My heart breaks for Paul and his beautiful children.
However this article fails to address why Sheperdson was built where it is on the UVM campus and the failure of our politicians I blame Bernie for this one and not having a dedicated mental health hospital.
Let me Say why Sheperdson was built on the Fletcher Allen campus at the insistence of Bernie
Sanders and BISHCA. When the parking garage controversy hit Sanders used Bishcas in action to place himself on the front page of local papers.
He used the issue of the parking garage to s double the cost of the garage and build Sheperdson on the uvm campus instead of using the property in Colchester. A paranoid conspiracy theory argument was used by Sanders that a sinister group would film cars and write down license plates as they entered the hospital. huh? The people bought that rubbish.
When Sanders insisted the hospital be built on the uvm campus didnt they understand that Dr’s and nurses and patients and families of patients would need to park their cars? Bischa spent months dragging their heels not making the decision adding the garage to the hospital.
You dont drive your brother or your husband or your child to the hospital with their severed thumb drop them at the emergency room door drive 20 mins to South Burlington to park your car in a field wait 20 mins to get the shuttle to the hospital for the 20 min ride back to the emergency room. A garage is part of the expectation of a hospital especially in a rural car dependent state like Vermont.
Sanders used this opportunity for Grandstanding he was not accomplishing anything in Washington and was running for reelection and need to puff himself up for the election.
Schadenfreude of breaking Bishcas ridiculous rules was his election jet fuel. So he beat up the Hospital administration in the papers aided by VPR toadies and made our hospital a national story for his gain. Then he added more sunk cost not just the doubling of the parking garage cost through delays and his smear campaign but teaming up with the paranoid mental health advocate to add millions more building Sheperdson an undersized wing just to extend his time on the front page of the paper and in the NPR new cycle.
At that time hospital administrators had deemed it prudent to move this hospital facility to Fanny Allen where there are seven dedicated surgeries and it would have a mental health emergency room, along with beds long term care etc. Forcing us to build on the uvm campus has proven to be a huge murderous mistake.
The Fanny Allen could be easily expanded, instead at Sanders demands we sunk millions into the Sheperdson building, millions in sunk cost to add insult to injury we have a 2-3million dollar insurance liability every single year to keep Sheperdson on the UVM campus that is money that cannot be used for trained personnel or adding beds its is pissed down a rat hole of despair painted with Sanders vanity.
We are Saddled with this mans out sized ego that built the mental health facility in the most expensive fashion in place that cannot be expanded. With enormous sunk costs and recurring costs that drain funds from the real treatment of our family members, friends and neighbors Shame on us for blinding following the bilious blow hard and denying the community the facility that we need and deserve.
I cant help but wonder if Cheryl had been at Fanny Allen with a dedicated mental health hospital that would have been expanded that 2 million we piss away on liability insurance spent on care providers and more beds. I think Paul and Cheryl and the kids and our friends would be at the lake grilling and sipping lemonade and laughing about our foibles and success.
Bernie Sanders as History’s Greatest Monster?!?! Rave on!
A point that cries out to be made is the effect the Christina Schumacher case might have had on policy at Fletcher-Allen. If you will recall, Schumacher’s doctors were so alarmed by … well, we don’t know what alarmed them, due to HIPAA restrictions on divulging patient information … that they moved heaven and earth to keep her under treatment. She finally was discharged after taking the matter to court.
Now comes Cheryl Hanna, and Fletcher-Allen shows her the door the moment she expresses a wish to go home. And she promptly kills herself.
In both cases, the news media at least suggested (the Free Press went nuts over the Christina Schumacher case…) that Fletcher-Allen had made an error; first to incarcerate a patient because they feared (something) and then allowing a patient to go home and kill herself. And, in both cases, the staff at Fletcher-Allen were completely unable to defend themselves against the innuendo because HIPAA regulations forbid them from even discussing in general terms the condition of a patient.
This seems perilously close to a, “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” state of affairs.
I think we need to ask ourselves the obvious question; if your son or daughter goes to the hospital for severe depression, and the doctors think they’re a danger to themselves, do you want to allow those doctors the power to sequester the patient for treatment? Or should the policy be that the patient just walks out anytime they want?
Dan the point is Sanders insistence on building on to the hospital a nd our Bishca plan has forced the hospital into metal pants.
30 million wasted on liability insurance that would not be spent if we had a mental health facility at Fanny Allen. It was Sanders Vanity and need to discredit Rich Tarrant., that has taken money that would be available to the community he forced us to build on the most expensive piece of realestate with no room for expansion at the highest per square foot price in the entire state. Drooling sheep like you Mr Bissonette Who are easily led by the nose are incapable of thinking through the issues have led to a broken policy decisions by your foppish leader.
We dont have a dedicated emergency room, mental health facitlity which the leaders at he hospital deemed the best course of action to protect and give sucre to our citizens with mental heath issues.
It is not available because of failed policy decisions around our built environment, which drain resources from the patients and care providers.
Building Sheperdson was a poor decision building on ground that negates expansion, not delivering care with a team of professionals solely trained in mental heath issues yeah I blame Sanders his goal was to get his name in the papers and win an election cycle. He didn’t not focus on the health and long term well being of the hospital and the citizenry. If we had a building with a team of mental heath advocates you can be sure they as a group would be more apt to advocate for their population in resources and care.
Walt. Are you daft? The hospital broke ground for the Shepardson building / wing in *1959*, almost at the same moment when Bernie Sanders was graduating from *high school*. What negative effect a graduating student from Brooklyn could have on the construction of the Shepardson building is utterly lost on me.
He wasn’t “our foppish leader” at that point. He was running high-school track.
And:
“We dont have a dedicated emergency room…”
We don’t? I’m pretty sure Fletcher-Allen has one of the best EDs in the northeast United States. I guess you musta missed that somehow. This will come as news to the EMTs.
The Tower was added during the Garage kerfuffle at Sanders insitence the building was added on to instead of moving the mental health facility to FAnny Allens Campus. We have an emergency room but not a dedicated staffed with specialist in mental health care emergency room which we would have if we built at Fanny Allen.
My point if is we have a leader in Sanders who practices the politics of envy . He has hypnotozed his sheep with the catchphrase millionaires and billionaires. Common sense then flies out the window as his followers become somnambulant sheep and lose all of the huge brains most have. and become drooling slaves looking for Bernie to carve them off a piece.
The tower was a very expensive building project, it added the year it was built 2 million just in liability insurance alone. If you build a hospital room for $650 a square foot or a room at $150. How many more rooms can you buy? I know you are smart enough to do the math. Bernie hasn’t said your trigger phrase yet. Add in the ongoing carrying costs of the Towers inusrance burden and the fact that all of that work was done by out of state Workers and management. No one in VT was qualified to bid Pizzigali et al took a pass they didnt have the experience to pull off that white elephant.
when you cluster care workers together and give them a home the best caregivers become advocates and nation build in their space. I guess the Tower doenst meet your criterion but it was turd polished by Bernies out of state union $$$. We have over pent and tht policy decison is biting you and me in the ass.
There are real consequences to blindly playing follow the leader.
Dan,
as you remember Inpatient Psychiatry Unit Addition and Renovations, Burlington, VT: A new 28-bed inpatient psychiatry unit that occupies 20,000 square feet on two floors.construction of a 22,000 square foot, six-story concrete
infill addition that had to be entirely supplied via tower
crane over the rooftops of adjoining hospital buildings. To
lessen the impact of the construction activities on the
adjacent patient care areas of on-call space, clinical
pathology, the postpartum and nursery areas, and
Radiation Oncology, members of our project team met
with Fletcher Allen Health Care’s clinical staff to gain an
understanding of the function of each department. The
resulting knowledge was conveyed to all subcontractors
at daily project meetings and was used as the basis for
performing their work. The team was challenged with
asbestos removal, negative air requirements,
demolition, noise level restrictions and the structural
shoring of adjoining buildings. As an example, PC
Construction scheduled around required work
stoppages and incorporated night and weekend work
in order to meet schedule and lessen impacts to the
Hospital’s operations.
This is the reason we dont have enough mental health beds thanks Bernie. Next time the carnival hypnotist yells millionaires and billionaires think about the consequences and its impact to your family and neighbors.
As usual the tool used to commit suicide is demonized. Being a person that had 2 family members do the dirty deed I can tell you that regulating the means of commuting suicide is a complete waste of time and resources. No one knows what is the mindset of another. Unfortunately their is not much that is done that is successful in preventing suicide as has been shown by this latest incident.