Teen Suicide & Firearms

Guidance for Grown-Ups. Menstuff® has compiled information here on use of firearms by youth in suicide. See also Youth Suicide. If you are in crisis, 1st call 911 while you're looking in the front of your local yellow pages for the number of the local suicide prevention hotline. If you can't get through to either of those, click on Emergency Numbers.

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One Important Suicide Fact That Nobody Is Talking About
How Much Money Does Gun Violence Cost in Your State?
Youth Suicide by Firearms Task Force
Snippets

Indicated Interventions
Selective Interventions
Universal Interventions
Future Directions

Related Issues:  Talking With Kids About Tough Issues, Guns
References

Real Time Death Toll as of

One Important Suicide Fact That Nobody Is Talking About


Most suicide attempts are unsuccessful—except when it comes to guns.

We hear about gun violence in blips: The latest mass shooting or grisly homicide brings national attention and calls to action, and then the issue falls under the radar. It's easy to forget that two-thirds of gun deaths aren't high-profile homicides, but suicides—happening quietly, at a rate of one every 25 minutes.

A new report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety advocacy group, delivers sobering stats based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and academic journal articles—perhaps the most eye-opening being that keeping a firearm at home increases the risk of suicide by three times. A whopping 82 percent of teens who commit suicide with a gun are using a family member's firearm.

Guns are a particularly effective means of suicide precisely because they are so lethal: Of those who attempt suicide by firearm, nine in 10 succeed. By contrast, only one in 50 overdose attempts result in death. The lethality is compounded by impulsivity: The majority of suicide attempts occur less than an hour after the decision is made to commit suicide.

One common argument of the gun lobby is that suicidal individuals will find a way to take their lives—if they don't die by gun, they'll do it by some other means. But the reality is that 90 percent of those who fail in a suicide attempt do not end up dying by suicide. With guns, though, not many get a second chance.
Source: www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/suicide-gun-stats

How Much Money Does Gun Violence Cost in Your State?


Here's who pays the most for America's $229 billion a year in gun carnage.

Our ongoing investigation of gun violence, which costs the United States at least $229 billion a year, includes data on the the economic toll for individual states. Wyoming has a small population but the highest overall rate of gun deaths—including the nation's highest suicide rate—with costs working out to about $1,400 per resident. Louisiana has the highest gun homicide rate in the nation, with costs per capita of more than $1,300. Among the four most populous states, the costs per capita in the gun rights strongholds of Florida and Texas outpace those in more strictly regulated California and New York. Hawaii and Massachusetts, with their relatively low gun ownership rates and tight gun laws, have the lowest gun death rates, and costs per capita roughly a fifth as much as those of the states that pay the most.
Source: www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-much-money-does-gun-violence-cost-in-your-state

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Indicated Interventions:

Selective Interventions

Universal Interventions:

Future Directions:

Do epidemiological research that would increase our knowledge about:

References


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My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?  Charles M. Schultz



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