Limiting access to firearms could have the greatest effect on preventing suicide deaths and “will save the most lives,” Paul Nestadt, MD, medical director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention, told KFF Health News in a Sept. 18 report.
More than 28,000 people died by gun suicide last year — more than half of all suicide deaths nationwide, based on preliminary federal figures. The overall suicide rate has recently trended down, yet gun suicides have climbed to record levels for a fifth straight year. Separately, research shows that predicting who is at risk of suicide remains only marginally better than chance, a finding unchanged across five decades of study.
Extreme risk protection orders — commonly called red flag laws — offer one option; 22 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted some version of the policy. Evidence suggests that roughly one suicide is prevented for every 10 to 20 firearms confiscated under these laws.
Elsewhere, Connecticut’s adoption of a permit-to-purchase requirement was tied to about a 15% drop in gun suicide rates, while Missouri saw a 16% jump after repealing a similar law.
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