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Abstract
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Mass shootings make the headlines, but most US firearm deaths are suicides, not homicides, and more than half of US suicides involve a firearm.
Of 40 620 US firearm deaths each year, 23 891, or about 58%, are suicides, according to Brady, the Washington, DC-based gun violence prevention organization, which cited the average of 2015-2019 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And in 2020, the 24 292 firearm suicides accounted for about 53% of the 45 979 total suicides, according to CDC data.
"If we want to meaningfully address gun violence in this country, we cannot do that unless we address firearm suicide," Christian Heyne, vice president of policy at Brady, noted in an interview with JAMA. The nonprofit is named in honor of the late Jim Brady, shot during an assassination attempt against then-President Ronald Reagan, whom he served as press secretary, and his late wife Sarah Brady. Research suggests that laws making it more difficult to access guns can lower the firearm suicide rate without raising the rate of suicide by other means.
"Surprisingly very little time"--sometimes only a few minutes--elapses between deciding to commit suicide and carrying it out, Heather Saunders, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, explained in an interview with JAMA. And unlike with other methods, suicide attempts with guns are nearly always fatal, Saunders noted.
One study found that among suicide methods, firearms were 2.6 times more lethal than suffocation, the second deadliest means of suicide. Although a firearm is used in less than 5% of suicide attempts, firearms account for about half of all suicide fatalities, another study found.
"The accessibility of a firearm has made that temporary crisis a lethal one," Heyne said. "If you can delay someone's access to lethal means, you can have a dramatic impact."
Mental Health vs Firearm Safety Interventions
Traditionally, suicidal behavior has been viewed as a sign of an insufficiently treated mental health condition, Jeffrey Swanson, PhD, a Duke University professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences, noted in a 2020 article. However, he pointed out, studies have shown that only about 20% of people who die by suicide were being treated for a mental health issue, and patients recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital have a suicide rate 100 times higher than the rate in the general population...
Language: en |