At Risk: Availability of Guns Raises Suicide Rates, Study Finds

By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Published: April 17, 2007

People who live in communities with a lot of guns are more likely to kill themselves, a
new study says.

Household Firearm Ownership and Rates of Suicide Across the 50 United

States (Journal of Trauma)

The findings, the researchers say, add weight to the argument that when people
have less access to guns, they are less likely to commit suicide. Earlier research
raised the question of whether people intent on suicide would simply switch to
another equally lethal method if unable to find a gun.

In the new report, in the current issue of The Journal of Trauma, researchers from
the Harvard School of Public Health said they had found evidence that “the ready
availability of firearms is likely to have the greatest effect on suicide rates in groups
characterized by more impulsive behavior.”

The researchers, led by Dr. Matthew Miller, compared statistics on gun ownership by
state with statistics on suicide. They also took into account factors like poverty,
mental illness and drug abuse.

When they looked at the 15 states with the highest firearm ownership, the
researchers found that twice as many people committed suicide as in the six states
with the lowest firearm ownership. The population in each group of states was about
the same, the researchers said.

In 2002, more than 30,000 Americans killed themselves, with just over half using a
gun.

Firearms are used in only 5 percent of attempts, the study said, even though, with a
90 percent fatality rate, they cause more than half the deaths. So even a small
decline in the number of attempts involving guns could mean many fewer deaths, the
researchers said.