Gun Laws Are the Key to Addressing America’s Suicide Crisis
When someone feels an impulse to harm himself, reduced access to lethal weapons can make all the difference in the world.
The lion’s share of American violence is inflicted by an individual on himself. That violence takes many forms. Suicide is its lethal incarnation, but every day, millions of Americans cut themselves, starve themselves, drink themselves into unconsciousness, or knowingly inject potentially deadly foreign substances into their body. For all the deserved media attention on the times an individual ends the life of another, little is said when the target of a person’s violence is himself, a far more common occurrence. And we have not paid enough attention to the role guns play in America’s suicide crisis.
In 2017, the American homicide rate
