According to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, there is some risk, particularly when considering younger demographics.
"The preponderance of current evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for youth suicide in the United States. The evidence that gun availability increases the suicide rates of adults is credible, but is currently less compelling." [1]
There's a lot of good additional data in the original report. According to the table on page 40 [2], self-harm by firearm represented 19,392 of 38,364 suicides. This dwarfed the number of gun-related homicides which was 11,078.
Page 83 explores death by intent. Interestingly, there's also a category for legal intervention/war which represented 344 of all firearm deaths.
Suicide by firearm is more likely to succeed than suicide by other methods (for instance poisoning). Per the American Association of Suicidology, "if a gun is used to attempt suicide, a fatal outcome will result 78% to 90% of the time."[1] Suffocation is also very likely to succeed but poisoning results in death less than 5% of the time and falls about 25% of the time.[2] One can make an impulsive decision to commit suicide with a gun while other methods (for instance hanging) may take considerably more thought and preparation. Suicide by firearm seems to be particularly problematic for youth.
Good point, thank you. Is there any data on suicide attempts per state, then, available anywhere online ? Are suicide attempts even recorded officially ?
"The preponderance of current evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for youth suicide in the United States. The evidence that gun availability increases the suicide rates of adults is credible, but is currently less compelling." [1]
There's a lot of good additional data in the original report. According to the table on page 40 [2], self-harm by firearm represented 19,392 of 38,364 suicides. This dwarfed the number of gun-related homicides which was 11,078.
Page 83 explores death by intent. Interestingly, there's also a category for legal intervention/war which represented 344 of all firearm deaths.
[1] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-owne...
[2] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf