Gun suicide soars as cause of death among youth: Report

[bronxiteforever]

ABC News
By QUINN OWEN
Thursday, June 2, 2022 12:15PM

The rate of young people taking their own lives with firearms in the U.S. has increased faster than for any other age group, and the youth suicide rate is at its highest point in more than 20 years, according to a new gun violence prevention report by Everytown For Gun Safety and first obtained by ABC News.

While firearm suicide overall increased about 2% during the pandemic, the rate among young people increased 15% and nearly half of all suicide attempts by young people involve a gun, researchers with Everytown For Gun Safety found. Experts have not pinned down exactly what is causing more young people to turn to suicide with guns, the report notes. But increased anxiety and depression, likely exacerbated by the pandemic, along with the impacts of social media and cyberbullying are among the theorized drivers.

The research shows pretty clearly that people who struggle with mental illness are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crimes," Everytown research director Sarah Burd-Sharps told ABC News…"One of the most effective things we can do to help young people in crisis is to keep it out of their hands," Burd-Sharps said.

The report's authors point to "red flag" laws as a plausible solution that allow for temporary restrictions on firearm ownership when a person is determined to pose an extreme risk to themselves or others. So far, 19 states have passed such laws that allow local authorities and family members to petition in civil court for the restriction of a person's firearm access, according to Everytown.

More here
https://6abc.com/gun-suicide-soars-as-cause-of-death-among-youth-report/11918668/

[cilla4progress]

1. Heartbreaking.

...

[RussBLib]

2. guns make it so easy

and the GOP does not care. Period. Even if their own kid committed suicide, I doubt it would cause any Repub to change their mind.

[SunSeeker]

4. You're right. I have right wing relatives who were in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre.

They were not shot, but did flee for their lives as a lunatic rained bullets over their heads using assault rifles with bump stocks to make them fire like machine guns. He shot 471 people, killing 60, from his window of the Mandalay Bay hotel over the outdoor country music concert my relatives were attending. Did that cause them to want to ban assault rifles? Nope. Bump stocks? Nope. They convinced themselves it was all done by the FBI. To this day, they refuse to believe it was a lone, deranged gunman, and that guns are in any way part of the problem.

[TeamProg]

3. Greed, division, economy, hope? The U.S. is not looking like a land of promise for a lot of people.

Amplify those feelings as a youth, the confusion of how we will succeed and fit in before we all start to sort of figure things out.

[Aristus]

5. My grandson is not the most politically engaged young person on the planet.

(Although he is a confirmed lefty; he lets me fill out his ballot on Election Day, saying he trusts my choices.) But even he knows that firearms are the leading cause of death among young people nowadays.