Stanford-led research shows that gun owners are four times more likely to die from suicide than non-owners. Nationwide

Sacramento, California — California residents owning a handgun are four times more likely to commit suicide than their non-owning neighbor, led by researchers in California and announced Thursday at the New England Journal of Medicine Did.

“Firearm owners were more likely to die of other causes than non-owners,” said David Stadart, professor of medicine and law at Stanford University’s lead author of the study. “In fact, it was a little less likely.”

Women generally have a much lower risk of suicide overall, but the study found that they were 35 times more likely to commit suicide if they had a handgun.

“In fact, women try suicide more often than men,” Staddart said. “They have a lower suicide rate, but they try more often. Well, are they so prone to death, because they tend to use non-lethal methods like medicines? But when you drop a gun into that mixture-high trial rate and suddenly very deadly means-this explosion happens with a firearm suicide rate for women.”

According to survey data, male pistol owners committed suicide at 9 times the rate of those who did not own a gun, and Studdert noted that males accounted for the majority of firearm suicides.

Much of the firearms safety data included statistics for white men, as Stadart said, as the largest buyers of firearms were included, but the study’s vast cohort allows researchers to identify women’s suicidal tendencies. I was able to do.

This study is by far the most thorough suicide risk among handgun owners. While previous studies have investigated data on suicide in hundreds of people, Staddart and his team investigated the causes of death of 23.6 million Californians from October 18, 2004 to December 31, 2016. Did. This includes 676,425 people who have one or more handguns.

Mr Stadart said the investigation would have been impossible without data provided by officials at the California Department of Justice Department of Firearms. Then we merged the information from the voter registration record with the information about the firearms purchase and mortality data.

“Think about this like a Russian doll,” Staddart said. “We started with all the deaths that happened throughout the cohort, of which about 1.4 million died. Firearm owners were more likely to die than non-owners. It wasn’t. In fact, it was a bit less likely.”

Researchers found that 37% of the 17,894 California residents who died of suicide during the 12 years under investigation used firearms. But if they couldn’t use their pistols, wouldn’t they have committed suicide another way?

Staddart explained the idea as a common misconception.

“A thirty year study of suicide epidemiology in the United States and around the world tells us that it is not true,” he said. “Suicide tends to be impulsive. Most people think about it for a few minutes before they actually try, and many who try do survive and don’t die in future suicides.”

The survival of people depends largely on how lethal their free methods are at the moment of crisis, and with guns there is little lethal means.

Indeed, some people bought guns in hopes of using them to kill themselves, and the study found evidence of what was happening among gun buyers in California.

“Our research was unique in that it tracked people from the moment they bought their first handgun,” said a Stanford researcher. “That means all people in our cohort weren’t buying pistols before they bought them. During the study period, we found that the risk of suicide increased dramatically shortly after getting a weapon. It was.”

However, as the research data showed, the risks did not completely disappear even if someone owned the weapon longer. Rather, the risk persisted at a high level over the years that followed.

“Looking at all the suicides that occur among firearm owners, what really happens over a long period of more than a year after purchase is more than a very risky short term Many,” Staddart said.

In addition, he said that those who own firearms did not have a high rate of suicide by other means. This all suggests that if firearms are accessible to people, they pose a continuous environmental risk in the home, according to Stadart.

Studdert said an international team of researchers, including Dr. Garen Wintemute of the University of California, Davis, can use computer modeling to make comparisons within the neighborhood and adjust for all other differences between people.

“In essence, here’s how to think about it. I live in the Stanford district. If I own a gun, my comparison is male and white at age 52, living in the Stanford district. You’re going to have to compare it with other people who don’t have guns,” he explained.

Mr Stadart said he hopes to accept gun owners and gun buyers to learn from the findings.

“Many people who buy pistols say they buy them because they want to make their homes safer,” he said. “We are currently conducting multiple studies showing that (gun ownership) is a risk factor not only for you but for your family as well, and that it does actually attack or invade you or your family. There is little evidence to increase safety from.”

Here, many share an anecdote about how to use their weapons to save themselves and others’ lives, but Staddart compared to those who do not own guns He said the study did show that the risk of murder was slightly higher.

(Editor: The story can end here)

If people are still choosing to buy a gun, despite the increased risk of family suicide and murder, gun safety advocates have suggested three ways to improve the probability of preventing death. , Says Studdert. Lock it up. Store guns and ammo separately.

In some jurisdictions, gun storage laws have been passed that mandate these measures, said Staddart, and these practices appear to be associated with a lower risk of suicide for gun owners.

Gun owners often say they need to load their guns and be prepared in case of an intrusion, says Staddart: You will use that weapon to drive off criminals. “

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