A state’s rate of gun ownership has a positive correlation to its suicide rate, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.
A higher rate of gun ownership usually means a higher rate of lethal suicide attempts. Health care providers can play an important role in reducing suicides, particularly suicide by firearm.
“It’s a function of access to lethal means. Guns are obviously a highly lethal means for taking life,” according to Frederic Hellman, MD, chair of the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s Commission on Public Health.
Suicide by firearm is successful 85 percent of the time, while overdosing succeeds just 2 percent of the time and cutting 1 percent of the time, according to Harvard.
Pennsylvania ranks 35th in gun ownership, and 33rd in suicides per 100,000 people, according to the latest mortality data compiled in 2004 by Harvard. That year, 1,410 Pennsylvanians committed suicide.
In addition to screening for suicide risks like depression, physicians can make sure to ask at-risk patients or their family members if there is a gun in the home.
If a gun is present, discuss removing the gun from the home until the situation improves. Some police departments will temporarily store guns. If that’s not an option, they can be given to friends or family members for temporary storage, locked in a gun safe, or even sold.
“Even after having done that, it often doesn’t result in patients following through. Compliance is not 100 percent,” Dr. Hellman said.
So, it’s also important for physicians and organized medicine to work to promote gun safety, encouraging the use of gun locks and locked gun safes. In 2007, the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s House of Delegates passed a resolution to promote firearms safety.
Studies have found that at least two-thirds of suicides are impulsive, Dr. Hellman said. Making it more difficult to access lethal means—especially firearms—can reduce the chance of suicide.
“Slowing down access to lethal means may give enough time to get the impulse to pass,” Dr. Hellman said, adding that gun locks and locked gun safes can accomplish this.
Harvard offers numerous resources on suicide and guns through its “Means Matter” website. Resources include:
In addition, the National Suicide Prevention Center offers online training workshops. An NEJM article written by two leaders of Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center also offers a good overview on the topic of guns and suicide.