Deaths by suicide involving guns in the U.S. were at a record high in 2023, at an astounding 27,300, accounting for 58 percent of all gun-related deaths.
This, according to a new report, Gun Violence in the United States 2023: Examining the Gun Suicide Epidemic, from the Center for Gun Violence Solutions and the Center for Suicide Prevention, both based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
This is a data point where you don’t want to be #1 in the world rankings, but that’s where we are as a country, and have been for the past three decades.
“Suicide is a growing crisis in the U.S., and guns are driving that crisis,” said the study’s lead author, Rose Kim, an assistant policy advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
“It’s important to emphasize that rising gun deaths are preventable with appropriate resources and interventions, with a comprehensive public health approach,” Kim said.
Indeed, gun-related deaths and suicides are entirely preventable, but we live in a country where the morally and almost literally fiscally bankrupt NRA has redefined the Second Amendment to the benefit of the bottom lines of gun manufacturers, and where the Trump administration is busily shutting down suicide prevention hotlines to the benefit of, checks notes, not sure who that benefits, actually.
There is, unfortunately, a wide gulf between what Bobby Kennedy’s failson will allow the health bureaucracy that he is diligently dismantling, piece by piece, to acknowledge regarding the nexus between the prevalence of guns and suicides.
The folks at Hopkins are trying to bridge that gulf.
The researchers released a companion piece to their suicide epidemic report, From Crisis to Action: Public Health Recommendations for Firearm Suicide Prevention, with recommendations including voluntary out-of-home gun storage for those at elevated risk of self-harm, assessment and counseling around gun ownership by healthcare providers, and programs that build on collaborations with firearms retailers to provide suicide prevention materials to customers.
We all know people who, when confronted with the data on the reality of gun-related suicides, will reflexively parrot the asinine “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” line popularized by the marketing gurus at the NRA.
Reality check: guns are lethal.
“Unfortunately, guns are much more deadly than other suicide attempt methods,” said Paul Nestadt, medical director of the Bloomberg School’s Center for Suicide Prevention and a report co-author. “Strategies that put time and space between guns and those at high risk of suicide are proven to save lives.”
That’s all we’re getting at here.
Not trying to take your precious guns away.
Just hoping to save the precious people in your lives – spouses, siblings, kids, grandkids, friends – from doing something that can’t be undone.
If you or someone you know needs support now, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org
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Chris Graham
