Guns and Suicide (From Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence, P 41-73, 2003, Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, eds. -- NCJ-203338)

• NCJ Number: 203340
• Author(s): Mark Duggan
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 33 pages
• Sale Source: Brookings Institution
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

In an attempt to provide an understanding of the relationship between guns and suicide, this paper presents an empirical analysis to isolate the causal effect of gun ownership on the suicide rate.

Abstract

In 1998, more than 30,000 American citizens took their own lives, making suicide the ninth leading cause of death in that year. Nearly 60 percent of suicides are committed with a gun. The high rate of suicides in the United States, in addition to the high rate of suicides and guns represents a significant social problem. This paper conducts an empirical analysis to investigate the importance of three forces: the instrumentality effect, the impact of firearm availability on the number of suicide attempts, and the relationship between suicidal tendencies and gun ownership. The paper examines the relationship between State-level gun and nongun suicide rates and the average rate of gun ownership with findings demonstrating that nongun suicide rates are not significantly lower in places with more gun ownership while gun suicide rates are. This suggests that the fraction of the population that attempts to commit suicide is higher in places with relatively many gun owners. The findings strongly suggest that a significant part of the relationship is craven by a correlation between gun ownership and suicidal tendencies. The paper exploits two decades of annual State data to examine whether changes in gun ownership are significantly related to the overall suicide rate. The findings suggest that the decline in gun ownership is not driving the recent reduction in the suicide rate. As a whole, the results suggest that much of the positive relationship between firearm ownership and suicide is driven by selection; individuals with above average suicidal tendencies are more likely to own a gun and to live in areas with many gun owners. The ideal approach recommended in estimating the causal effect of gun ownership on suicide rates would be an experiment that randomly allocated gun ownership to households, giving firearms to those in a treatment group and then preventing those in the control group from obtaining access to guns. Appendix and references