[colorado tanker]

I can understand using that approach in a day when committing suicide generally required a blade. Giving yourself a deadly wound with a blade is a way different proposition than, say, simply pulling a trigger.

[SunkenCiv]

The Masada mass-suicide was actually mostly homicide of a sort — the “winner” of each group of lots had to kill the others, then they’d group up again, and at the end there was only one, who then killed himself.