While public mass shootings tend to attract the most media attention, mass shooting deaths are a tiny fraction of the total number of homicides in the United States (US), and even a smaller percentage of the total deaths by firearms. This is due to the sad fact that suicide constitutes the majority of firearms-related deaths in the US. Suicide constitutes over 60% of firearms related deaths in the US.
In 2016, nearly 45,000 individuals died by suicide in the US, making it the 10th leading cause of death that year (and the 2nd leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults). In the US, firearms are the means of suicide in about 50% of deaths. This is not the case elsewhere, where firearms are not as readily available. In the US, the second leading means of suicide is suffocation (e.g., hanging or other means of self-asphyxiation), at roughly 25%. And the problem is only worsening - a recent analysis of CDC data by the John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that firearm-related suicide rates have been skyrocketing since 2020, with 2023 showing the highest number of gun-related suicides ever recorded in the US (27,300 deaths). Particularly concerning is a large increase in the gun-related suicide rate among Black teens, with the firearm suicide rate among this group surpassing that of White teens for the first time since the CDC began recording this data in 1968.
What makes firearms so problematic is their high lethality. There are far more attempts at suicide than there are deaths by suicide. What often determines whether a suicide attempt will be a suicide death is the lethality of the means.
Suicide attempt death rates are highest with firearms: 82%. The next most lethal means are drowning (66% death rate) and suffocation (61%). Drug/poison ingestion (i.e., “overdose”) is comparably low (1.5%), as is cutting (1.2%).
Here are some other facts to keep in mind:
Available studies show that higher rates of gun ownership correlate with higher rates of suicide.
For instance, a 2020 study in the New England Journal of Medicine in a California cohort of over 26 million people concluded that, “[h]andgun ownership is associated with a greatly elevated and enduring risk of suicide by firearm.”
Although women make more attempts at suicide than men, the data shows that men die by suicide at higher rates; and they use guns more often. Men have significantly higher rates of gun ownership. However, 2022 CDC data showed that women are increasingly using guns in suicide attempts, and firearms have become the leading means of suicide death among women. One 2022 study even showed that simply adding a handgun to a home where a woman lives (owned by someone else in the home) substantially raised suicide rates among women, and the increased death rates were entirely accounted for by firearm-related suicides.
The majority of males who die by suicide have no known mental health conditions, and those who die from suicide by firearm are the least likely to have a known mental health condition. Acute interpersonal stressors and alcohol intoxication are very common, making crisis + alcohol + firearm access a very dangerous combination for males.
Impulsive versus planned suicide: a recent study in South Korea suggested that nearly 50% of suicide attempts are impulsive in nature.
Lethal means restrictions appear to work. Studies have shown that individuals who plan to commit suicide do not necessarily change their plans if their available method becomes more difficult. This isn’t only about guns. For instance, in South Korea, the suicide rate declined significantly after paraquat, an easily obtained and highly toxic pesticide, was banned. There has been a major push in India to institute similar bans.
Although people who try to commit suicide are at highest risk of trying again (compared to the general population) the vast majority of those who attempt once do NOT eventually die by suicide (93%). This is why we care about lethal means restriction: if highly lethal means are made more difficult to obtain, the odds improve substantially that a person will not die by suicide.
For instance, those who have survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco have described feeling instant regret the moment they jumped. And studies show that lethal means restriction strategies such as bridge barriers decrease community suicide rates and that people don’t substitute methods.
While the tragedy of suicide may never disappear completely, we can reduce the suicide rate. Lethal means restriction represents one of the most promising ways of doing this. People who are feeling suicidal have the potential to get better—if they can just get past that window of time where life seems at its bleakest and most hopeless. If a means of suicide is easily available AND carries a high risk of lethality, getting past that window is much harder, especially for the significant proportions of people whose suicidal attempts are impulsive in nature. In the US, successful lethal means restriction will necessarily involve addressing access to guns, and we won’t likely make headway on suicide if guns continue to be so highly accessible.
To learn A LOT more, the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence has an entire website devoted to preventing firearm suicide.