Citation

Morgan KE, Bragg H, Joshi NK. Emerg. Med. News 2020; 42(2): 12.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/01.EEM.0000655000.21512.bb

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM) held its first annual meeting a year ago, with more than 50 medical and public health professionals from more than 15 partner organizations in attendance, every person there had been touched by gun violence, professionally or personally. That, unfortunately, is a commonality the majority of Americans share.

Mass shootings tend to occupy most of the national attention in the United States, but a far greater number of lives are lost in the shadows, away from media attention and discussion, to firearm suicide. This silent and growing epidemic quietly preys upon its victims and their families in ways that are just as horrifying as mass shootings. (CDC Fatal Injury Data. http://bit.ly/2PsoByD.) My own family (Ms. Morgan) knows this to be true: My older brother took his own life using a firearm he purchased when he was only 29 years old.

Research shows that firearms are the deadliest means of taking one's life. Other methods of suicide average a 10 percent mortality rate, but access to a firearm increases that to 85 percent. (Annu Rev Public Health. 2012;33:393; http://bit.ly/35uQFHc.)

What may come as a surprise, though, is that most people who die by suicide are seen by a health care provider in the month prior to their death...

Language: en