When the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) announces that it is teaming with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to reduce gun suicides, you know that something new and different is happening in the gun business. Because until this moment, the gun industry has never shown the slightest interest in doing anything about the fact that 20,000+ Americans kill themselves each year by using guns, in fact, the party line has always been that guns and suicide have nothing to do with each other at all.
Meanwhile, close on the heels of this announcement comes a study (Dan Friedman has written a good summary in The Trace) by one of our most prolific and respected gun-violence researchers, Jeffrey Swanson, whose team evaluated the results of a Connecticut law which allows individuals and/or law enforcement to petition the courts for temporary removal of guns from someone who is believed would otherwise be at risk to harm himself or someone else. The law, passed in 1999, has been copied in Indiana and California, and has always been a hot-button issue with Gun-nut Nation, which usually views any attempt to regulate guns for any reason to be an infringement on their beloved 2nd-Amendment rights.
Be that as it may, the fact is that suicide has been increasing of late, and while there has not been any causal link between service in Iraq and Afghanistan and suicide, military veterans of all ages are at greater risk for attempting a life-ending event than for the population as a whole. And everyone from the NRA to Obama to Trump tries to present themselves as the best friend that military vets ever had.
Which brings us back to Swanson’s study, which is the first attempt to look at the results of the Connecticut law in terms of whether or not temporary, court-ordered firearm seizures really do make a difference in preventing life-ending events with the use of a gun. The CT law was actually passed not so much in response to suicide risk, but as a result of a terrible mass shooting incident where a pissed-off State Lottery employee stabbed and shot four of his bosses after he was denied a salary increase, then killed himself. But of the 762 cases of firearm seizures examined in this study, one-third were initiated out of concerns that the individual might try to harm someone else, while two-thirds of the seizure warrants were issued because it was believed that the affected individual was going to hurt himself.
Swanson’s team not only carefully reviewed the circumstances surrounding the issuance of these firearm-seizure warrants, but also attempted to follow the life paths of individuals who lost their guns. It turns out that while the number of people who both lost their guns and still committed suicide was much greater than the normal suicide rate, not one of those suicides occurred during the 12 months that these individuals had their guns removed, and the number who later used guns was far below the usual rate for successful suicides using a gun. In other words, laws allowing a court to decide whether someone might harm themselves with a gun can, in fact, save lives.
I do have one major issue which is not intended as a criticism because it goes beyond the parameters of the article itself. There were 762 firearm seizures ordered in Connecticut between 1999 and 2014. But how many gun-seizure petitions were denied? And how many people knew someone who was behaving in a way that made them appear to be a threat and yet decided that it wasn’t their ‘place’ to say anything or didn’t want to ‘get involved?’ There were people in San Bernardino who knew the two shooters were stockpiling weapons; there were people in South Carolina who heard an armed Dylann Roof make racist threats. Have we become so inured to violence that we need law to tell us that someone who exhibits great anger is someone who shouldn’t have access to a gun?
Sep 12, 2024 @ 10:52:43
Too big a subject for a pithy comment, but several concerns. One, has anyone sued under this law asking whether these GVRO (gun violence restraining order laws) survive strict scrutiny; two, how often are these denied rather than granted due to lack of expert evidence that the seizure is justified (i.e., due process concerns); and three, are these also used in cases of domestic violence in addition to a restraining order?
Separating guns temporarily from someone contemplating suicide or executing colleagues or loved ones is a good idea a long as due process is maintained. Its good that NSSF is involved; the motorcycle industry founded the Motorcycle Safety Foundation in response to concerns that motorcycles were too dangerous. But in the final analysis of suicide, who owns our lives? My grandfather took his own life (tried twice, second time was the charm) rather than live in a debilitated condition with cancer. In his case, it would have been an outrageous overreach to overrule his decision, which he made and stuck to even after being released from mental health care after his first unsuccessful attempt. In his case, obviously, it was not a temporary impulse but a quality of life decision.
Of course, society needs to address why suicide is a concern. Meaningless wars fought by an overtaxed all-volunteer army, income inequality, and lack of meaningful jobs are three concerns, just for starters.
Sep 12, 2024 @ 21:13:12
Well yes and no… anyone being proactive in getting help for suicidal thoughts and depression will be listed at-risk admitting the contemplation even without action. It has created a ‘mum’s the word’ mentality when some are not willing to lose their jobs, career, reputation, and pension for getting help.
The healthcare system has created a polarized stigma forever cementing one into a diagnoses or condition. For example, double depression has a certain percentage of reoccurrence. Accurate or not, suicidal one time or not, mental health becomes what science deems an accurate assessment. And science is far from proven on an individual bases. Had we the science for the individual basis, we could prove who will and who will not attempt or commit suicide. Problem solved. The fact is, it is a one size fits all system- and no one knows and science can’t tell us.