Guns Are Far More Likely to Be Used in Suicide Than in Killing Bad Guys [View all]

[Redfairen]

According to the CDC, 19,392 people committed suicide with a gun in 2010, the latest year for which data are available. That same year, meanwhile, the FBI recorded only 230 justifiable homicides (the legal term) in which a private citizen used a firearm to kill a felon during the commission of a felony.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people under 35, and the Harvard School of Public Health has found that "suicide rates among children, women and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have guns." More than six in 10 of the firearm deaths in the past decade were suicides, not homicides. 

And if you're set on ending your life, a gun is the surest way to do it. Eighty-five percent of people who shoot themselves die, versus 1 percent of people who cut themselves and 2 percent of those who attempt to overdose.

"Removing all firearms from one's home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide," Harvard health policy professor Matthew Miller said in 2007. "Removing firearms may be especially effective in reducing the risk of suicide among adolescents and other potentially impulsive members of their home."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/guns-are-far-more-likely-to-be-used-in-suicide-than-in-killing-bad-guys/284537/