“My dad killed himself,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
“Shot himself with a gun,” continued the senator stolidly. “Committed suicide.”
The nature of the senator’s statements may be macabre, but they present an opportunity to discuss an important distinction in the debate over gun control and death. Over 30,000 gun-related deaths occur each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
which includes massacres like the one that occurred in Newtown, Conn.
The gun death toll also includes suicides. In fact, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two-thirds of gun-related deaths are suicides,. Most gun-related deaths are not murders worthy of re-enactment on “Law and Order” or mass shootings that shake our souls, but are acts of desperate people who want to end it all.
While efforts to lower gun-related homicides should be pursued, perhaps policymakers would be better served distributing gun safety locks rather than banning assault weapons. Or maybe they’d be better served conducting gun buybacks rather than arming schoolteachers.
A study by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found gun availability was a risk factor for suicide. Controlling for a variety of factors, the study also found that “people in states with many guns have elevated rates of suicide, particularly firearm suicide.”
Gun owners are not intrinsically more suicidal than those who don’t own weapons, but by their very nature, guns (which are designed to maim and kill) present effective means by which to commit suicide.
One could, of course, tie a knot for a short drop and a sudden stop, or consume an inordinate amount of pills, but few other options carry the near guarantee of death more than a gun. The Harvard Injury Control Research Center study found that suicidal attempts with guns are fatal in 85 percent of cases, while those with pills are fatal in only 2 percent of cases.
Guns are lethal.
Wyoming, a state with many gun owners and a high suicide rate, has taken the proper steps to intervene. As described in “To reduce suicide rates, new focus turns to guns” by The New York Times, the state Health Department has been giving out gun safety locks making guns hard to use for curious youngsters or distraught family members.
However, gun-related suicides are not only a problem for state health departments; they are a problem for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as well.
Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, has written extensively on suicides committed by troubled minds who return home from warfare.
“For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands,” wrote Kristof in an April 2012 column.
No different than health facilities, which freely disseminate condoms to promote safe sex and to stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, gun shop owners and state health departments should offer gunlocks and other means to prevent gun-related suicides and promote safe ownership.
For our veterans and everyday Americans, the real threat isn’t another Adam Lanza or Taliban acolyte, but the gun we keep in the dresser next to our bed or put away in the closet.
