Fewer Guns Would Mean Fewer Suicides, Say Harvard Researchers

We can keep suicidal individuals from committing suicide successfully by making sure they can't get a gun, say researchers at Harvard School of Public Health. The article in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) was written by Matthew Miller, assistant professor of health policy and management ans associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and David Hemenway, professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Americans 40 years old and younger, according to their statistics. Among Americans of all ages, more than half of all completed suicides are gun suicides. Additionally, an estimated one-third to four-fifths of all suicide attempts, according to studies, are impulsive--with 24% taking less than 5 minutes between the decision to kill themselves and the actual attempt, while 70% took less than 1 hour. Read More...

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