America’s biggest gun problem isn’t mass shootings, said Mike Mariani—
it’s suicides. Incredibly, about two-thirds of fatal-gunshot victims in
this country die by their own hand—about 20,000 people a year. A
2008 study found that men in the 15 states with the highest rates of
gun ownership were 3.7 times more likely to fatally shoot themselves
than those in the six states with the lowest rates; for women, it was
7.9 times. Most people who attempt suicide do it on impulse and
often change their minds later; overdosing on drugs is successful in just
3 per cent of attempts. “Gun suicide, by comparison, has a completion
rate of 85 per cent,” because guns so effectively translate impulses into
death. In Israel, suicides in the military fell by 40 per cent after soldiers
were forbidden from taking their firearm with them on weekend
leave. But in the U.S., gun-rights advocates vehemently oppose even
the common-sense requirement that gun owners store their weapons
with trigger locks or in a locked container. So people keep killing themselves
in droves. “People can and do usually overcome the desire to kill
themselves”—but not when they’ve got a gun in their hands.