DID YOU KNOW? Firearm suicide is a major public health problem in the United States.

• In 2010, 19,392 U.S. residents killed themselves with a firearm (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC)).


• in 2011, 3,224 people survived an attempt to kill themselves with a gun (NCIPC, 2011).


• States with high household gun ownership have more suicides than states with low household gun ownership. The excess suicides are almost entirely due to firearms (Miller, 2007, p. 1031).


• While those living in high gun owning states are 1.6 times more likely to commit suicide, they are almost 4 times as likely to kill themselves with a gun but only .6 times more likely to kill themselves through other means (Miller, 2002, p. 522).

DID YOU KNOW? Firearm suicide is as important a problem in rural areas as firearm homicide is in urban areas.

• For all ages, the most urban counties have 1.03 times the adjusted firearm death rate of the most rural counties (Branas, p. 1750).  This means that, relative to their populations, the most rural and the most urban counties have roughly the same number of gun deaths. Rural counties have more gun suicides; urban areas have more gun homicides.

• Youth (ages 0 to 19) in the most rural counties of the country are as likely to die from a gunshot as those living in the most urban counties.  Rural kids have more gun suicides and unintentional shooting deaths, while urban kids die more often of gun homicides (Nance, 2010).

DID YOU KNOW? Keeping a gun in the home raises the risk of suicide.

• Keeping a firearm in the home increases the risk of suicide by a factor of 3 to 5 and increases the risk of suicide with a firearm by a factor of 17 (Kellermann, p. 467, p. Wiebe, p. 771).


• The association between firearm ownership and increased risk of suicide cannot be explained by a higher risk of psychiatric disorders in homes with guns (Miller, p. 183).


• A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide (11x), criminal assault or homicide (7x), or unintentional shooting death or injury (4x) than to be used in a self-defense shooting (Kellermann, p. 263).

DID YOU KNOW?  Suicide attempts with firearms are much more likely to be fatal than attempts with other methods.

• More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal (Miller, 2004, p. 626).
• In comparison, only 3 percent of attempts with drugs or cutting are fatal (Miller, 2004, p. 626).

DID YOU KNOW?  Firearm suicide is a problem among young people.

• Almost 50 percent of youth suicides (ages 15-24) are committed with guns (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2009).


• Firearm suicide the 4th leading cause of death for this age group (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2009).


• Eighty-five percent of youths under age 18 who died by firearm suicide used a family member's gun, usually a parent's (Harvard, 2001).


• Thirty-three percent of U.S. households contain a gun (Pew, 2009).  Half of gun-owning households don't lock up their guns, including 40 percent of households with kids under age 18 (Johnson, p. 175).


• Seventy percent of suicide attempters decide to kill themselves on an impulse - less than an hour before their attempt.  Ninety percent of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide (Miller, 2008, p. 989).

SOLUTION: Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year.  The Brady Campaign fights for sensible gun laws to protect you, your family, and your community. 

Sources

Branas, Charles, C., PhD, Michael L. Nance, MD, Michael R. Elliott, PhD, Therese S. Richmond, PhD and C. William Schwab, MD, ”Urban–Rural Shifts in Intentional Firearm Death: Different Causes, Same Results,” American Journal of Public Health 94(10) (October 2004):1750-1755

Johnson, Renee, Tamera Coyne-Beasley, Carol Runyan, "Firearm Ownership and Storage Practices, U.S. Households, 1992–2002: A Systematic Review," American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27(2) (2007): 173-182

Harvard Injury Control Research Center, National Violent Injury Statistics Center, Characteristics of Victims of Suicide, Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Health (2001).  See also Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Means Matter: Suicide, Guns, and Public Health, Boston, MA: Harvard School of Public Health, 2007, available at: http://www.sprc.org/library/MeansMatter.pdf

Kellermann, Arthur L., "Injuries and Deaths due to Firearms in the Home," Journal of Trauma 45:2 (1998):263-67

Kellermann, Arthur L. et al., “Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership,” New England Journal of Medicine, 327(7) (1992): 467-472

Miller, M, et al, “Recent Psychopathology, Suicidal Thoughts and Suicide Attempts in Households With and Without Firearms: Findings from the National Comorbidity Study Replication,” Injury Prevention 15(2009): 183-187

Miller, Matthew, Hemenway, David, “Guns and Suicide in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine 359:10(September 4, 2008):989-991

Miller, Matthew, Steven Lippmann, Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, "Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide across the 50 United States," Journal of Trauma 62 (2007):1029-1035

Miller, Matthew, David Hemenway, Deborah Azrael, "Firearms and Suicide in the Northeast," Journal of Trauma 57 (2004):626-632.  (See also: E. D. Shenassa, S. N. Catlin, S. L Buka, "Lethality of Firearms Relative to Other Suicide Methods: A Population Based Study," Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 57 (2003): 120-124

Miller, Matthew, Deborah Azrael, and David Hemenway. “Household Firearm Ownership and Suicide Rates in the United States.” Epidemiology 13 (2002) 517-524. Originally accessed through Harvard School of Public Health, Means Matters. Source of Firearms in Youth Suicides. Boston: Harvard School of Public Health, 2009. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/youth-access/index.html

Nance, Michael L., et al, “Variation in Pediatric and Adolescent Firearm Mortality Rates in Rural and Urban U.S. Counties,” Pediatrics 125(6) June 2010: 1112-1118

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (2010 (deaths) and 2011 (injuries)), www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/.  Calculations by Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2009 Values Survey, Final Topline, Question e.F2, April 2009, accessed 6/29/2009 at http://people-press.org/reports/questionnaires/513.pdf

Smith, Tom, personal communication, 2008 data from the General Social Survey, on file with the Brady Center, 2009. See also, Lisa Hepburn, Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael, David Hemenway, "The U. S. Gun Stock: Results from the 2004 National Firearms Survey," Injury Prevention 13 (2007): 16.  The number of guns in the home is estimated via telephone survey research.  The U. S. does not register guns, so it is not possible to count them.

Wiebe, Douglas, "Homicide and Suicide Risks Associated with Firearms in the Home: A National Case-Control Study," Annals of Internal Medicine 41 (2003):771-782