Suicide Rate Linked To Gun Ownership

Suicide rates are higher in areas where guns are more prevalent, according to a Harvard School of Public Health study published today.

The researchers found that gun ownership elevates the risk of suicide among all groups by a factor of 1.9, and as much as 2.4 among people under 20.

“I hope [the study] will make people realize that suicide is in fact a preventable public health problem,” said Matthew Miller, an assistant professor of Health Policy and Management and lead author of the study.

This was the first study to examine the relationship between household firearm ownership rates and successful suicide attempts on a national level, he said.

Joe Waldron, the executive director of the Citzens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said that he does not believe suicide rates are linked to gun ownership rates, and that he was wary of the study.

“A lot of people who takes pills or cut their wrists or use other relatively inefficient means of trying to commit suicide aren’t trying to commit suicide,” he said.

“The bottom line is, if a person is seriously interested in committing suicide, they’re going to find a means to do it.”

The Harvard team found no link between gun ownership levels and non-firearm suicide.

Miller said that he and his team plan to study how healthcare providers counsel their patients about reducing exposure to guns and other potential suicide tools.

“What we would like to see is that if you’re a psychiatrist and you have an incredibly depressed teenager, instead of slowly treating the depression, you also make sure there aren’t lethal weapons [accessible],” said David Hemenway ’66, Professor of Health Policy and a co-author of the study.

Miller said that he hoped that the study would resonate outside of the medical community, too.

“The goal here is to create an understanding of the risks that are involved in gun ownership and possibly shift social norms about meaning of gun ownership and the actuality that having a gun actually imperils rather than protects,” he said.