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Suicide by firearm

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Though substance overdose is the most common method of attempted suicide in the U.S., guns are the most lethal (most likely to result in death).[1]
For both men and women, gun suicide death rates are positively correlated with household gun ownership rates.[2]
Comparison of gun-related suicide rates to non-gun-related suicide rates in high-income OECD countries, 2010, countries in graph ordered by total suicides. The US was the only OECD country in which gun suicide rates exceeded non-gun suicide rates.[3]
Suicide rate by firearm[4]
Le Suicidé (The Suicide) by Édouard Manet, depicting suicide by firearm

In the United States, suicide by firearm is the most lethal method of suicide, resulting in a fatality 90% of the time,[5] and is thus the leading cause of death by suicide as of 2017.[6] Worldwide, firearm prevalence in suicides varies widely, depending on the acceptance and availability of firearms in a culture. The use of firearms in suicides ranges from less than 10% in Australia,[7] to 50.5% in the U.S., where it is the most common method of suicide.[8]

Generally, the bullet will be aimed at point-blank range. Surviving a self-inflicted gunshot may result in severe chronic pain as well as reduced cognitive abilities and motor function, subdural hematoma, foreign bodies in the head, pneumocephalus and cerebrospinal fluid leaks. For temporal bone directed bullets, temporal lobe abscess, meningitis, aphasia, hemianopsia, and hemiplegia are common late intracranial complications. As many as 50% of people who survive gunshot wounds directed at the temporal bone suffer facial nerve damage, usually due to a severed nerve.[9]

Gun control

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Further information: Gun control and Overview of gun laws by nation

Reducing access to guns at a population level decreases the risk of suicide by firearms.[10][11][12] Fewer people die from suicide overall in places with stricter laws regulating the use, purchase, and trading of firearms.[13][14] Suicide risk goes up when firearms are more available.[15][16][17]

Gun control is a primary method of reducing suicide by people who live in a home with guns. Prevention measures include simple actions such as locking all firearms in a gun safe or installing gun locks.[18] Some people self-impose a barrier to using the keys to unlock their guns, such as by asking a friend to keep the keys in a different place, or by freezing them in an ice cube.[19] This prevents spur-of-the-moment access to their own guns.[19] Some stores that sell guns provide temporary storage as a service; in other cases, a trusted friend or family member will offer to store the guns until the crisis has passed.[20][18] When a person is going through a crisis, red flag laws in some places allow family members to petition the courts to have firearms temporarily removed and stored elsewhere.

More firearms are involved in suicide than are involved in homicides in the United States. A 1999 study of California and gun mortality found that a person is more likely to die by suicide if they have purchased a firearm, with a measurable increase of suicide by firearm beginning at most a week after the purchase and continuing for six years or more.[21]

Among developed countries, the United States has the highest number of firearms in circulation and one of the highest suicide rates, and when gun ownership rises so too does suicide involving the use of a firearm.[22][23] A 2004 report by the National Academy of Sciences found an association between estimated household firearm ownership and gun suicide rates,[24][25] though a study by two Harvard researchers did not find a statistically significant association between household firearms and gun suicide rates,[26] except in the suicides of children aged 5–14.[26] Another study found that gun prevalence rates were positively associated with suicide rates among people aged 15 to 24, and 65 to 84, but not among those aged 25 to 64.[27] Access to firearms is associated with a higher risk of suicide,[16] especially for people keeping loaded guns in the home.[28] Numerous ecological and time series studies have also shown a positive association between gun ownership rates and suicide rates.[29][30][31] This association tends to only exist for firearm-related and overall suicides, not for non-firearm suicides.[30][32][33][34] Studies consistently find a relationship between gun ownership and gun-related suicides, with few exceptions.[35] A 2016 study found a positive association between gun ownership and both gun-related and overall suicides among men, but not among women; gun ownership was only strongly associated with gun-related suicides among women.[2] During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong upward trend in adolescent suicides with a gun,[36] as well as a sharp overall increase in suicides among those age 75 and over.[37]

Firearm-related suicides declined in Australia after the introduction of nationwide gun control. The same study found no evidence of substitution to other methods.[38] In Canada, gun suicides declined after gun control, but other methods rose, leading to no change in the overall rates.[39][40][41] Similarly, in New Zealand, gun suicides declined after more legislation, but overall suicide rates did not change;[42] this might be due to the highly stringent firearm storage laws and very low prevalence of handgun ownership in New Zealand.[43] A study about Canada found no significant correlations between provincial firearm ownership and overall provincial suicide rates.[44]

Multiple gunshot suicide

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This section is an excerpt from Multiple gunshot suicide.[edit]

Multiple-gunshot suicide occurs when an individual commits suicide by inflicting multiple gunshots on oneself before becoming incapacitated. It excludes suicides where the firearms are operated by other people, such as suicide by cop.

References

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  1. ^ Spicer, Rebecca S.; Miller, Ted R. (December 2000). "Suicide Acts in 8 States: Incidence and Case Fatality Rates by Demographics and Method". American Journal of Public Health. 90 (12): 1885–1891. doi:10.2105/ajph.90.12.1885. PMC 1446422. PMID 11111261. Table 1
  2. ^ a b Siegel, Michael; Rothman, Emily F. (10 June 2016). "Firearm Ownership and Suicide Rates Among US Men and Women, 1981–2013". American Journal of Public Health. 106 (7): 1316–1322. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303182. PMC 4984734. PMID 27196643. Table 1.
  3. ^ Grinshteyn, Erin; Hemenway, David (March 2016). "Violent Death Rates: The US Compared with Other High-income OECD Countries, 2010". The American Journal of Medicine. 129 (3): 266–73. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.10.025. PMID 26551975.
  4. ^ "Suicide rate by firearm". Our World in Data. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  5. ^ Conner, Andrew; Azrael, Deborah; Miller, Matthew (3 December 2019). "Suicide Case-Fatality Rates in the United States, 2007 to 2014". Annals of Internal Medicine. 171 (12): 885–895. doi:10.7326/M19-1324. PMID 31791066. S2CID 208611916.
  6. ^ "NIMH » Suicide". www.nimh.nih.gov. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  7. ^ "A review of suicide statistics in Australia". Government of Australia. 21 March 2024.
  8. ^ McIntosh, JL; Drapeau, CW (28 November 2012). "U.S.A. Suicide: 2010 Official Final Data" (PDF). suicidology.org. American Association of Suicidology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 June 2014. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  9. ^ Backous, Douglas (5 August 1993). "Temporal Bone Gunshot Wounds: Evaluation and Management". Baylor College of Medicine. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008.
  10. ^ Mann, JJ; Michel, CA (1 October 2016). "Prevention of Firearm Suicide in the United States: What Works and What Is Possible". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 173 (10): 969–79. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16010069. PMID 27444796.
  11. ^ Reisch, Thomas (2013). "Change in Suicide Rates in Switzerland Before and After Firearm Restriction Resulting From the 2003 "Army XXI" Reform". American Journal of Psychiatry. 170 (9): 977–984. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.12091256. PMID 23897090.
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  16. ^ a b Anglemyer, Andrew; Horvath, Tara; Rutherford, George (21 January 2014). "The Accessibility of Firearms and Risk for Suicide and Homicide Victimization Among Household Members". Annals of Internal Medicine. 160 (2): 101–10. doi:10.7326/M13-1301. PMID 24592495. S2CID 4509567.
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  18. ^ a b Rabin, Roni Caryn (2020-11-17). "'How Did We Not Know?' Gun Owners Confront a Suicide Epidemic". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  19. ^ a b Corkery, Michael; Irvine, Tailyr (2024-06-10). "She's Fighting to Save America's 'Last Best Place' From Suicide". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-06-14.
  20. ^ Pierpoint, Lauren A; Tung, Gregory J; Brooks-Russell, Ashley; Brandspigel, Sara; Betz, Marian; Runyan, Carol W (September 2019). "Gun retailers as storage partners for suicide prevention: what barriers need to be overcome?". Injury Prevention. 25 (Suppl 1): i5–i8. doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2017-042700. ISSN 1353-8047. PMC 6081260. PMID 29436398.
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  26. ^ a b Miller, Matthew; Hemenway, David (2001). Firearm Prevalence and the Risk of Suicide: A Review. Harvard Health Policy Review. p. 2. Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 7 April 2009. One study found a statistically significant relationship between estimated gun ownership levels and suicide rate across 14 developed nations (e.g. where survey data on gun ownership levels were available), but the association lost its statistical significance when additional countries were included.
  27. ^ Birckmayer, Johanna; Hemenway, David (September 2001). "Suicide and Firearm Prevalence: Are Youth Disproportionately Affected?". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 31 (3): 303–10. doi:10.1521/suli.31.3.303.24243. PMID 11577914.
  28. ^ Brent, D. A.; Bridge, J. (1 May 2003). "Firearms Availability and Suicide: Evidence, Interventions, and Future Directions". American Behavioral Scientist. 46 (9): 1192–1210. doi:10.1177/0002764202250662. S2CID 72451364.
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  33. ^ Miller, Matthew; Lippmann, Steven J.; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David (April 2007). "Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide Across the 50 United States". The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. 62 (4): 1029–35. doi:10.1097/01.ta.0000198214.24056.40. PMID 17426563. S2CID 27028514.
  34. ^ Anestis, MD; Houtsma, C (13 March 2017). "The Association Between Gun Ownership and Statewide Overall Suicide Rates". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 48 (2): 204–17. doi:10.1111/sltb.12346. PMID 28294383. S2CID 4756779.
  35. ^ Stroebe, Wolfgang (November 2013). "Firearm possession and violent death: A critical review". Aggression and Violent Behavior. 18 (6): 709–21. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2013.07.025. hdl:10419/214553.
  36. ^ Cook, Philip J.; Ludwig, Jens (2000). "Chapter 2". Gun Violence: The Real Costs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513793-4.
  37. ^ Ikeda, Robin M.; Gorwitz, Rachel; James, Stephen P.; Powell, Kenneth E.; Mercy, James A. (1997). Fatal Firearm Injuries in the United States, 1962–1994: Violence Surveillance Summary Series, No. 3. National Center for Injury and Prevention Control.
  38. ^ Chapman, S; Alpers, P; Agho, K; Jones, M (1 December 2006). "Australia's 1996 gun law reforms: faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings". Injury Prevention. 12 (6): 365–372. doi:10.1136/ip.2006.013714. PMC 2704353. PMID 17170183.
  39. ^ Caron, Jean (October 2004). "Gun Control and Suicide: Possible Impact of Canadian Legislation to Ensure Safe Storage of Firearms". Archives of Suicide Research. 8 (4): 361–74. doi:10.1080/13811110490476752. PMID 16081402. S2CID 35131214.
  40. ^ Caron, Jean; Julien, Marie; Huang, Jean Hua (April 2008). "Changes in Suicide Methods in Quebec between 1987 and 2000: The Possible Impact of Bill C-17 Requiring Safe Storage of Firearms". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 38 (2): 195–208. doi:10.1521/suli.2008.38.2.195. PMID 18444777.
  41. ^ Cheung, AH; Dewa, CS (2005). "Current trends in youth suicide and firearms regulations". Canadian Journal of Public Health. 96 (2): 131–35. doi:10.1007/BF03403676. PMC 6975744. PMID 15850034.
  42. ^ Beautrais, A. L.; Fergusson, D. M.; Horwood, L. J. (26 June 2016). "Firearms Legislation and Reductions in Firearm-Related Suicide Deaths in New Zealand". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 40 (3): 253–59. doi:10.1080/j.1440-1614.2006.01782.x. PMID 16476153. S2CID 208623661.
  43. ^ Beautrais, Annette L.; Joyce, Peter R.; Mulder, Roger T. (26 June 2016). "Access to Firearms and the Risk of Suicide: A Case Control Study". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 30 (6): 741–748. doi:10.3109/00048679609065040. PMID 9034462. S2CID 9805679.
  44. ^ Langmann, C. (2020). "Effect of firearms legislation on suicide and homicide in Canada from 1981 to 2016". PLOS ONE. 15 (6) e0234457. Bibcode:2020PLoSO..1534457L. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0234457. PMC 7302582. PMID 32555647.
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