Guns SuicideMental Illness Is there a connection U

Guns: Suicide/Mental Illness Is there a connection?

U. S. Gun Manufacturing: 1986 -2013 Dark Teal – Pistols Blue – Revolvers Orange – Rifles Peach – Shotguns Gray – Misc firearms

Manufacturing, cont’d • 2010 – 5. 5 million guns manufactured • 2013 – 10. 9 millions guns manufactured – 400 K exported, the rest remained in U. S. (Source: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives)

Why Guns? "After San Bernardino, our business went up probably 50 percent, " John Lamplugh, who has run gun shows in Maryland Pennsylvania for more than three decades, said, referring to the recent shooting in California. "It's either two things: They're scared and need to protect [themselves]. Or they're afraid that [the government is] going to take it from them. There's the two things that drive our business. “ (Source: CNN)

Beretta says tough new gun laws in MD drove them to gun-friendly TN

Beretta's M 9 handguns are restricted in Maryland because the magazines can hold more than 10 rounds. So the company moved production to Tennessee.

Guns in Homes • Gun-owning households are on decline From 47% in 1975 To 31% in 2013 • Some researchers say the decline in hunting has led to fewer homes having guns. • States vary from 6% in DE, RI, to 50% in AR, WV, WY. • Source: NORC General Social Survey

How Many Guns Are There? • "There's a gun for every man, woman, and child, more or less, " says Deborah Azrael of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. • Congressional Research Service estimates 300 million guns in the U. S. (twice as many per capita as in 1968)

Our place in the world While the U. S. houses less than 5 percent of the world's population, the country has approximately 35 -50 percent of civilian-owned guns worldwide, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

How do we compare? Country Guns per 100 Residents Rank United States 112. 6 1 Serbia 69. 7 2 Yemen 54. 8 3 Switzerland 45. 7 4 Cyprus 36. 4 5 35 6 Iraq 34. 2 7 Uruguay 31. 8 8 Sweden 31. 6 9 Norway 31. 3 10 France 31. 2 11 Canada 30. 8 12 Austria 30. 4 13 Iceland 30. 3 14 Germany 30. 3 15 Finland 29. 1 16 Oman 25. 5 17 Bahrain 24. 8 18 Kuwait 24. 8 19 Republic of Macedonia 24. 1 20 Saudi Arabia

Homicide as Cause of Death • Assault (homicide) is the 16 th leading cause of death since 2010 • In 2013, homicide remained among the 15 leading causes of death for age groups: 1– 4 (3 rd), 5– 14 (5 th), 15– 24 (3 rd), 25– 34 (3 rd), 35– 44 (5 th), and 45– 54 (13 th). (Source: CDC)

Guns and Death, 2013 All homicides • Number of deaths: 16, 121 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 5. 1 Firearm homicides • Number of deaths: 11, 208 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 3. 5 • Source: Centers for Disease Control

Leading Causes of Death The 15 leading causes of death in 2013 accounted for 79. 3% of all deaths in the United States 1. Diseases of heart (heart disease) 2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 4. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 5. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)

Causes of Death 6. Alzheimer’s disease 7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) 8. Influenza and pneumonia 9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease) 10. Intentional self-harm (suicide)

Suicides, 2013 All suicides • Number of deaths: 41, 149 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 13. 0 • Cause of death rank: 10 (Source: CDC)

Suicide Methods Firearm suicides • Number of deaths: 21, 175 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 6. 7 Suffocation suicides • Number of deaths: 10, 062 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 3. 2 Poisoning suicides • Number of deaths: 6, 637 • Deaths per 100, 000 population: 2. 1

Gun Suicides

Means Matters “Cut it however you want: In places where exposure to guns is higher, more people die of suicide. ” (Deborah Azrael, associate director of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center)

Suicide is often impulsive • 85% of firearms suicide attempts end in death • 3% of attempts by drug overdose end in death • Guns are irreversible, pills and other methods give someone time to change their mind.

Myth about Suicide • People who attempt suicide have long standing problems with mental health – Suicide attempts often occurs after traumatic event (divorce, separation, death of loved one) – Suicide is four times higher for males than females – In young people, physical or sexual abuse can trigger.

Guns and Mental Health

Assumptions about mental health (1) Mental illness causes gun violence, (2) Psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime before it happens, (3) US mass shootings teach us to fear mentally ill loners, (4) Because of the complex psychiatric histories of mass shooters, gun control “won’t prevent” another Tucson, Aurora, or Newtown.

• Notion that mental illness causes gun violence stereotypes a vast and diverse population of persons diagnosed with psychiatric conditions • Oversimplifies links between violence and mental illness. • Notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural issues that become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat

CBS News: 60 Minutes • Fuller Torrey, a psychiatrist, claimed that “about half of. . . mass killings are being done by people with severe mental illness, mostly schizophrenia, and if they were being treated they would have been preventable. ” (Source: Jonathan Metzl, 2014)

Media Response • US media diagnosed shooter Adam Lanza with schizophrenia in the days following the tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. “Was Adam Lanza an undiagnosed schizophrenic? ” asked Psychology Today. • “Lanza’s acts of slaughter. . . strongly suggest undiagnosed schizophrenia” added the New York Times. • Conservative commentator Anne Coulter provocatively proclaimed that “Guns don’t kill people—the mentally ill do. ”

• National Rifle Association President Wayne La. Pierre blamed “delusional killers” for violence in the United States, while calling for a “national registry” of persons with mental illness. • Meanwhile, in the months after the shooting, a number of states passed bills that required mental health professionals to report “dangerous patients” to local officials, who would then be authorized to confiscate any firearms that these persons might own. • “People who have mental health issues should not have guns, ” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters after one such bill passed the New York Senate. “They could hurt themselves, they could hurt other people. ”

• Little population-level evidence supports the notion that individuals diagnosed with mental illness are more likely than anyone else to commit gun crimes. • According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness, • The percentages of crimes that involve guns are lower than the national average for persons not diagnosed with mental illness. • Databases that track gun homicides, such as the National Center for Health Statistics, similarly show that fewer than 5% of the 120 000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness.