Many people believe that suicide by gunshot to the head carries a high risk of failure. They say, "If you don't hit the brainstem, you might survive blind, paralyzed." They throw around a 90% mortality rate, as if that were an uncertain estimate. But in reality, these statistics say almost nothing. They don't distinguish between caliber, trajectory, barrel depth, entry point. They mix in technical errors, superficial wounds, ricochets, attempted homicides. 67% of gunshots to the head are to the temple. Only 16% are truly intraoral. And yet people keep citing "failures" as if they were common. But what failures are we talking about? The ones where the gun was placed just behind the front teeth? The ones shot under the chin, at an oblique angle? The ones with low-caliber weapons? The ones where the barrel was visibly poorly positioned in postmortem photos? These are not true intraoral shots. They're poorly executed attempts, often driven by fear or misinformation.
A real intraoral shot is something else entirely. When a large-caliber gun—like a .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum—is inserted deep into the mouth, it doesn't need to be precise. There's no need to hit the brainstem. The bullet, the gas pressure, the shockwave, and the thermal explosion destroy everything: the cranial base, nasal sinuses, nervous tissue. No expertise required. Just don't make obvious mistakes. And physics, in this case, is merciless.
The forensic medical chart often cited shows clearly that even without hitting the brainstem, there are brain areas with mortality rates of 80–90%. But more importantly, a close-range shot inside the mouth doesn't just pierce. It pulverizes. It collapses. It devastates.
Some unpublished data come from a collaboration between the Institut de Police Scientifique at the University of Lausanne and the Institut für Rechtsmedizin in Hamburg. A group of students worked on autopsy files of suicide cases by firearm, focusing especially on intraoral shots. Preliminary results confirm what logic already suggests: when the barrel is inserted deeply into the mouth and the caliber is high, lethality approaches 100%, even without hitting the brainstem.
If these so-called failures were really that frequent, there would be evidence. So where are they? Where are the survivor associations? Where are the specialized clinics for people injured by self-inflicted headshots? Where are the documentaries, memoirs, testimonies? It's always the same three or four cases circulating for the last twenty years. Is it really possible that no one else has told their story worldwide? Maybe not—because maybe those cases are the exception, not the rule.
The truth is, those who obsessively push the "failed suicide" narrative aren't doing it out of love for accuracy. They do it to scare. To deter. To keep you alive at all costs. It's the same pro-life narrative that opposes euthanasia, choice, self-determination. One that never asks why you want to die, but instead blackmails you with the fear of surviving in worse conditions.
But reality is different. An intraoral gunshot with a large-caliber weapon, with the barrel truly inserted into the oral cavity, leaves no way out. No skill required. Just don't botch it in the most basic ways. And maybe that's exactly why this truth is hidden, denied, manipulated. Because if it became clear, the whole scaffolding of deterrence would collapse.
If it were really that easy to fail, the world would be full of survivors. Instead, it's full of silence.
And silence, usually, doesn't survive.
