Experts urge tougher gun controls as leading cause of U.S. suicides
Suicide specialists say preventing access to firearms is the most effective way to cut U.S. suicide deaths, even as predictions of who will kill themselves remain unreliable.
Paul Nestadt, a leading suicide-prevention researcher, acknowledges that clinicians cannot reliably forecast who will die by suicide, so he focuses on making it harder to carry out the act. In the United States, firearms accounted for more than half of all suicides last year, with gun deaths rising among women and minority men. Measures like extreme-risk protection orders, background checks, waiting periods, and mandatory safe storage have been linked to reductions in suicide rates, but they encounter fierce resistance from gun owners, the National Rifle Association, and the Trump administration, which has rolled back many firearm regulations.
Studies indicate that restricting access to lethal means rarely pushes individuals to alternative methods, because many act within minutes of deciding to die. The debate mirrors road-safety strategies, suggesting that broad, preventive policies—rather than individual risk assessments—could dramatically lower suicide fatalities.
Why it matters
Limiting easy access to guns could dramatically reduce the leading cause of suicide deaths in the United States.
In this story
