Limiting Access to Lethal Weapons to Prevent

Suicide
By: Corrinne Chase April 20, 2022

Introduction

Landon Clifford, a 19-year-old YouTube influencer, died on August 13, 2020, after he

spend six days in a coma following a suicide attempt by hanging1. He was found by his wife, and

the mother of his two young children, in their home. Landon had fought a long battle with his

mental health and was taking multiple psychotropic medications at the time of his death2.

Adolescent males, just like Landon, are dying at alarming rates in the United States due to

suicide. “In 2002, an estimated 877,000 lives were lost worldwide through suicide,”3 and rates

have only been increasing since then. In recent decades, suicide rates have been decreasing in the

majority of countries, except in the US, where “rates have increased 1.5% annually since 2000”.4

This suggests that a significant cause of suicide is unique to the American legal or social system.

Although suicide risk for individuals is complicated to monitor, there are known risk factors that

can be somewhat tracked. Those with psychological disorders, such as depression, anxiety,

bipolar, and schizophrenia, among others, are at higher risk for suicidal ideation, and therefore

these individuals should be tracked more closely. Another risk factor for death by suicide is

gender. Although women tend to attempt suicide, practice self-harm, and report suicidal ideation

more often, men are successful with suicide attempts more often. Research reveals that “women
are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide, though men are two to four times more

likely to die by suicide.” 5

This image is from- “Infographics: Male Suicide in the UK.” Infographics: Male Suicide in the UK,

https://mosaicscience.com/story/infographics-male-suicide-uk. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022.

Although leaders in the field of psychology are working on methods to lower the rates at

which people attempt suicide, in the meantime, those in the highest risk demographic, American

males, are dying at alarming rates from suicide. It is the responsibility of the federal government

to reduce their access to lethal means of suicide, specifically firearms, through legislation, which

will in turn decrease the number of successful attempts.

Solutions
Many methods have been proposed in recent years to lower the rates of suicide attempts,

but suicide remains the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.6 Most mediating efforts are focused on preventing

attempts, but these can only be effective if suicidal ideation in individuals is easy to detect, so it

can be properly treated.

Education

Education is a commonly used method that comes with positive and negative aspects.

There are two main proposed methods of education: that which is intended for the general public

and that which is intended for primary care physicians. Targeting the general public is helpful in

the sense that it can destigmatize the issue, which in the long run leads to more people feeling

less ashamed of seeking help. It makes people aware of risk factors and signs of suicidal

ideation, as well as how to react if they suspect someone close to them of suicidal intent.

This image is from- “Suicide Prevention Month 2020 (with Infographics).” Betty Hardwick Center,

https://bettyhardwick.org/suicide-prevention-month-2020-with-infographics/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022.

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As mentioned earlier, suicidal ideation is extremely hard to pinpoint, and if the individual does

not seek help on their own, it may be up to loved ones to notice even a slight difference in

behavior. The Campaign to Prevent Suicide Act, enacted by Congress, is an example of an effort

like this, which focused on a national campaign to educate the public on signs that someone may

be intending to commit suicide and how to help.7

The second aspect is training and education for primary care physicians. Mental health

care is not yet completely destigmatized in American culture, so many citizens refrain from

meeting with a therapist or seeking counseling.8 On the other hand, going to an annual check-up

with a primary physician is very common and may even be required by schools or employers.

Currently, primary care physicians get very limited training on screening for mental health

disturbances, like anxiety or depression, but if they were provided this necessary education, they

could spot patients they feel may be at risk for possible suicidal intent.9 In these cases, they could

refer these patients to a psychologist or psychiatrist for a more in-depth investigation. “An

Australian program that trained primary care physicians to recognize and respond to

psychological distress and suicidal ideation in young people increased identification of suicidal

patients by 130%, without changes in treatment or management strategies.”10 Again, mental

health disturbances are still looked down upon, especially by American masculinity standards,

which puts males at a lower likelihood of reaching out for assistance when experiencing suicidal

thoughts.11 Warning signs are most often difficult to detect, but with increased education of both

the general public and primary care physicians, they could be more clearly identified. Despite

this, education programs, advocacy, and additional training programs are costly for just a chance

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at improvement, and therefore a cheaper solution with more guarantee of success may be

desirable.

Treatment for Psychological Disorders

As stated previously, psychological disorders are a risk factor for suicide, so a

recommended solution could be to focus on treatment for these disorders. This only applies to

patients who willingly seek psychological counseling or other forms of help, which is one issue

with this as the primary solution to prevent suicide. In these cases, where the individual or a

loved one notices a problem, counseling and prescribed medication may decrease symptoms

associated with these disorders, and therefore lower the chance of suicidal ideation. This is not a

universal experience though. Counseling and medication are only effective if a patient remains

diligent in the process. For example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a commonly

prescribed antidepressant, can have extreme side effects if a patient is not consistent with taking

their prescribed dose.12 Some of these side effects can be aggression, anxiety, mood swings, and

intense depression, which all can raise an individual's risk for suicide13. Suicidal ideation can also

be increased with the use of antidepressants even for individuals who take them responsibly.14

Therefore, the use of drug treatment in all cases may be quite dangerous for patients, and

psychologists know the risk, usually pairing this type of treatment with close monitoring.

Although “among those who are diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD), roughly 15

percent of treated patients will eventually die of suicide,”15 suicidal ideation, is experienced by

those without psychological disorders as well, and this treatment plan ignores those individuals.

For these individuals, suicidal ideation is usually triggered by a sudden life event, such as the

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loss of a loved one, a divorce, a breakup, an injury, etc16. These events are almost impossible to

predict or prevent, and therefore, drug therapy is useless in these cases.

This image is from- “Suicide Prevention Month 2020

(with Infographics).” Betty Hardwick Center,

https://bettyhardwick.org/suicide

-prevention-month-2020-with-infographics/. Accessed 19

Apr. 2022.

Seemingly, this method of preventing suicide is not effective enough on its own, and therefore

must be paired with other methods. As psychologists are continuing to develop methods to

prevent suicide attempts, legislation is necessary to lower the rate at which the attempts in the

meantime are successful.

Recommended Action

Almost every other method commonly used to lower the rates of death by suicide is

focused on preventing suicide attempts by decreasing suicidal ideation, but what can be done to

prevent the success of attempts that cannot be prevented? The most effective way to save lives,

in the long run, is to pass legislation to restrict access to lethal weapons, especially targeted at

adolescent males. As mentioned earlier, women tend to attempt suicide at higher rates than men,

but men are successful in their attempts more often because they are more likely to use more

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lethal means such as firearms, hanging, or asphyxiation, whereas women usually use

medication/overdose or less lethal means17. Males are also less likely to seek help because of

ideals of masculinity taught and accepted from a young age.18 These ideals dictate that it is

unacceptable for men to show emotions or seek help when struggling because these are feminine,

therefore weak, qualities. According to this, males can only acceptably display emotion through

anger and aggression, contributing to their more frequent use of more violent and aggressive

means of suicide.19 The federal government cannot mandate people to seek help or change

standards of masculinity, but they can make it less likely for a suicide attempt to be lethal if an

individual decides to go through with it. As all means of suicide can be lethal, there is a

procedure to compare the lethality of each method on four criteria: accessibility, inherent

deadliness, ability to abort mid attempt, and acceptability20.

These are important criteria because psychotic or depressive episodes that can result in

suicide usually happen in a brief period of time, in which case a person will seek out a means of

suicide.21 A means that is accessible, is inherently deadly, cannot be aborted mid attempt, and is

acceptable is most lethal in this short period of time. For example, prescription pills are not rated

high on the scale of lethality, because a deadly dose must be collected over a period of time,

meaning their use as a means of suicide must be planned in advance. The lethality of a jump site

is also less than that of other means because a person would likely have to travel there, and by

the time they arrive, their episode may be over. Firearms, on the other hand, are widely

recognized as one of the most lethal means of suicide because someone who already owns a

firearm, or someone who has access to another individual's firearm, requires almost no planning

to follow through with this method at the moment of a suicidal episode.

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 This image is from- Mann, J. John, et al. “Suicide Prevention Strategies A Systematic Review.” JAMA, vol. 294,

no. 16, Oct. 2005, pp. 2064–74. Silverchair, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.294.16.2064.

Knowing that women attempt suicide more often, but are less likely to die by suicide than

men, because they are less likely to use firearms in their attempt, highlights the issue at hand:

access to lethal weapons. Once someone attempts suicide and is unsuccessful because of a lack

of access to lethal means, a need for help is much more obvious to that individual and those

around them, in which case, the chances for them receiving treatment go up exponentially.

Legislation

The appropriate policy recommended to combat this problem is better mental health

screenings enacted to limit suicidal individuals' access to firearms. Current federal law prohibits

gun sales or transfers to someone who “has been found by a court, board, commission, or other

lawful authority to be a danger to self or others, or to lack the mental capacity to contract or

manage [their] own affairs, as a result of their mental condition or illness” or “has been

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involuntarily hospitalized or committed to a mental health or substance abuse treatment facility

by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority.”22 By current law, background checks

are required to be done by the dealer of a firearm on the purchaser by the Brady Handgun

Violence Prevention Act, but these checks look at the National Instant Criminal Background

Check System (NICS) database, which states are not required to provide information to23.

Although the NICS depends on this vital information from states, there is no federal legislation in

place to guarantee states provide this, and therefore make sure the accuracy of background

checks is maintained.24 In 2008, President Bush passed the NICS Improvement Act, which put in

place reward systems, such as the authority of the attorney general to make grants to states to

improve systems, further incentivizing participation in this effort.25 The Fix NICS Act of 2018

was also recently passed in Congress, implemented by the Department of Justice and Federal

Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, NICS Section.26

This Act’s main goal is “to strengthen the NICS by imposing new reporting requirements on

Federal agencies and requiring the Department of Justice to coordinate with State and Indian

tribal governments to improve the availability of relevant records.”27 It also requires the

“Attorney General to publish and to submit to Congress a semiannual report on Federal agency

compliance with the Act.” 28 Seemingly, this Act did lead to an increase in reports to the NICS

database, but some states still conduct their own additional background checks through state and

local databases that contain information including “outstanding felony warrants, mental health

records, domestic violence restraining orders, and final disposition records”, which these states

have chosen not to include in the NICS database.29 Research has found that these background

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checks are “associated with reduced firearm death rates, especially with respect to suicides.”30

Legislation must be drafted by Congress, just like the Fix NICS Act of 2018, and passed by the

President to not only encourage, but require this information to be provided to the federal

database so that all mental-health-related risks can be taken into account by all necessary parties

when considering the purchase or transfer of a firearm. There has been, and will continue to be,

pushback from the National Rifle Association in response to background check requirement

proposals. The NRA argues that background checks are a privacy violation, and they make an

argument that most firearms used illegally are bought off the black market or retrieved illegally

from a friend or family member.31 By this logic, they conclude background checks will not stop

these types of people from getting firearms, and therefore no lives will be saved by this

procedure32. Despite this though, “Mental health records in the system blocked 316 gun sales in

Virginia in 2013”,33 which proves that individuals deemed not mentally stable enough to legally

purchase a firearm did not immediately resort to illegal means of possessing one. Although those

who live in a household with a gun are also at higher risk of suicide by firearm, and background

checks do not take other members of a household into account, the owner of the gun is the most

at risk.34A Stanford study found that “men who owned handguns were eight times more likely

than men who didn’t to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Women who owned handguns were

more than 35 times more likely than women who didn't to kill themselves with a gun”.35 Women

are less likely in general to own firearms, but the ones who do, are therefore at higher risk of

suicide by firearm just because of the accessibility of the weapon to them.36 Overall, because men

are more likely to die by firearm suicide, this legislation would focus on their most at-risk

demographic, but women would also be positively affected. Because of this, voters also need to

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be aware of their presidential and state representative nominees’ positions on the NRA and vote

for those who would support more restrictive background checks if they were elected to

Congress.

Conclusion

Everybody deserves a chance at treatment and rehabilitation, even those least likely to

seek out help on their own. Unfortunately in our current system, those whose symptoms may be

least detectable are the most likely to have a successful first suicide attempt, due to their use of

lethal methods, in which that chance of rehabilitation is lost. American males are suffering

silently in our culture, due to oppressive masculinity standards, and as communities and

individuals work to destigmatize mental health struggles for men and psychologists work

diligently to develop better treatments for psychological disorders that may lead to suicidal

ideation, legal efforts need to be made to protect this vulnerable group. It is the responsibility of

those in positions of power, specifically members of Congress and the President, and citizens

voting these representatives in, to limit firearm access to at-risk individuals. This can most

effectively be done through legislation requiring states to provide information to the NCIS

database. Unfortunately, inaction in regards to this issue will lead to the deaths of more

individuals by suicide.

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Endnotes
1. My Husband Passed Away | Telling His Story. www.youtube.com,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epKhvHMjAvs. Accessed 9 Apr. 2022.
2.
Ibid.
3. Mann, J. John, et al. “Suicide Prevention Strategies A Systematic Review.” JAMA, vol. 294,
no. 16, Oct. 2005, pp. 2064–74. Silverchair, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.294.16.2064.
4. Fazel, Seena, and Bo Runeson. “Suicide.” New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 2020.
world, www.nejm.org, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra1902944.
5.
“Are There Gender Differences in Suicide and Suicidal Behaviors?” Verywell Mind,
https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508.
6.
“Suicide.” National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022.
7.
Holmes, Tommy. “The 117th Congress.” Journal AWWA, vol. 113, no. 10, Dec. 2021, pp. 7–7.
DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1002/awwa.1820.
8.
Mann, J. John
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

11.
King, Tania L., et al. “Expressions of Masculinity and Associations with Suicidal Ideation
among Young Males.” BMC Psychiatry, vol. 20, no. 1, May 2020, p. 228. BioMed Central,
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-2475-y.
12. “Suicide And Antidepressants - Increased Anxiety, Related Suicides.” Drugwatch.Com,

https://www.drugwatch.com/ssri/suicide/. Accessed 16 Apr. 2022.

13. Ibid.

14.
Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16.
Fazel, Seena, and Bo Runeson
17.
“The Impact of COVID-19 on Suicide Death Rates.” Verywell Mind,
https://www.verywellmind.com/cdc-suicide-death-data-5209227. Accessed 9 Apr. 2022.
18.
King, Tania L.
19.
Ibid.
20. Boston, 677 Huntington Avenue and Ma 02115 +1495‑1000. “Lethality of Suicide Methods.”
Means Matter, 11 Sept. 2012,
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/case-fatality/.
21.
Ibid.

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22.
“Mental Health Reporting.” Giffords,
http://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/mental-health-reporting/.
Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
23.
Ibid.
24.
Ibid.
25.
“NICS & Reporting Procedures.” Giffords,
http://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/nics-reporting-procedures
/. Accessed 18 Apr. 2022.
26.
The Attorney General’s Semiannual Report on the Fix NICS Act. Aug. 2020,
https://www.justice.gov/archives/ag/page/file/1303171/download#:~:text=In%20March%202018
%2C%20Congress%20passed,the%20availability%20of%20relevant%20records.
27. Ibid.
28.
Ibid.
29. “NICS & Reporting Procedures.”
30.
Ibid.
31.
NRA-ILA, and National Rifle Association. “NRA-ILA | Background Checks | NICS.”
NRA-ILA, https://www.nraila.org/get-the-facts/background-checks-nics/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
32.
Ibid.
33.
“Mental Health Reporting.”
34.
Policy, Beth Duff-Brown Beth Duff-Brown is the communications manager for Stanford
Health. “Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk.” News Center,
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-highe
r-suicide-risk.html. Accessed 17 Apr. 2022.
35.
Ibid.
36.
Parker, Kim, et al. “1. The Demographics of Gun Ownership.” Pew Research Center’s Social
& Demographic Trends Project, 22 June 2017,
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/.
-Infographic #1- “Infographics: Male Suicide in the UK.” Infographics: Male Suicide in the UK,
https://mosaicscience.com/story/infographics-male-suicide-uk. Accessed 19 Apr. 2022.
-Infographic #2- “Suicide Prevention Month 2020 (with Infographics).” Betty Hardwick Center,
https://bettyhardwick.org/suicideprevention-month-2020-with-infographics/. Accessed 19 Apr.
2022.
-Infographic #3- “Suicide Prevention Month 2020 (with Infographics).” Betty Hardwick Center,
https://bettyhardwick.org/suicideprevention-month-2020-with-infographics/. Accessed 19 Apr.
2022.
-Infographic #4- Mann, J. John, et al. “Suicide Prevention Strategies A Systematic Review.”
JAMA, vol. 294, no. 16, Oct. 2005, pp. 2064–74. Silverchair,
https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.294.16.2064.

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