“Restricting access to means has been shown to be a very effective approach to suicide prevention, particularly with suicide methods that are relatively common.”
Thanks for posting the link. I read the portion relevant to this discussion which is suicides by firearms. Here is the portion of the paper on that topic.
Firearm suicides
Use of firearms is a major suicide method in several countries, most notably the USA. There is evidence that availability of firearms (usually in the household) increases suicide risk (3·14-fold, according to one review)
26 and that acquisition of firearms by households is associated with a substantial increase in suicides by any method (3·34-fold increase for male owners and 7·16-fold increase for female owners, relative to non-owners, in a longitudinal study in California, with this increase being entirely due to a rise in suicides involving firearms).
27
Despite findings strongly linking firearm availability to suicide risk, especially in the USA, there is less evidence that initiatives to restrict access to firearms affect suicides.
28 However, in an early study, introduction of a law in the District of Columbia banning the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians was followed by a 23% decrease in firearm suicides (and a 25% reduction in homicides), with no increase in suicides involving other methods and no decline in suicides in adjacent metropolitan areas where the law was not applied.
29 A report in 2023 concluded that there is moderate evidence that laws in the USA preventing child access to firearms (eg, in households) reduced firearm self-injuries (and homicides) among young people and that laws setting the minimum age to purchase firearms at 21 years decreased suicides among young people.
30 Other relevant studies include those from other countries where access to firearms has been reduced due to changes in military policy. In Switzerland, when the size of the national army was reduced by half between March, 2003, and February, 2004, resulting in considerably lowered availability of firearms, there was a reduction in both the firearm suicide rate and the overall suicide rate, with only a small increase in suicides by other methods.
31 In Israel, where trainee soldiers aged 18–21 years used to take their firearms home when they were on weekend leave, a change in policy that required trainees to leave their firearms at their base was associated with a 40% overall reduction in suicides in this group; the evidence suggested that the reduction was due to fewer suicides involving firearms at weekends, with no reductions in suicides at other times.
32 Other evidence of the beneficial effect on suicides of reducing the availability of firearms comes from initiatives in Australia in 1996 to remove semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession after a community gun massacre in Tasmania; these initiatives were followed by a major reduction in firearm suicides, with no evidence of method substitution.
33
It is important to recognise that in a country such as the USA, where firearm ownership is very extensive and suicides involving firearms are common (in 2023, provisional data showed that of 43 994 firearm-related deaths in the USA, more than half were recorded as suicides),
34 there are considerable challenges associated with introducing public health measures likely to reduce the use of firearms for suicide.
35 These challenges include, for example, acknowledging the wide range of reasons for ownership of firearms, using language that will not antagonise some interested parties, engaging firearm owners and other members of the population in discussing safety policy, recognising the range of social and related factors influencing firearm ownership, involving relevant community-based organisations and respected members of relevant industries, and encouraging health-care providers to counsel patients and families about firearm safety and safe storage.”
The highlighted sentence is the writer’s recommendations. Some of these I suggested in a previous post. The gun ownership issue is a non starter since the US constitution guarantees access to guns. I like the writer’s recommendations with regards to health care providers but remember that they are hindered by Hippa laws. Educating people on gun safety is crucial but it also should include what red flags to look for and how to report it. I also think that adults that ignore plain red flags of a family member propensity for mental illness with violent tendencies should face charges if the violent incident happens. So gun control is only a small portion compared to other methods, particularly addressing mental health issues.
