[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 73 (Friday, May 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6080-S6081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION WEEK

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, earlier this month, the Nation marked 
National Suicide Prevention Week. Suicide takes the lives of more than 
30,000 Americans each year and is the eighth leading cause of death in 
the United States.
  According to a 2001 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, 
suicide is the fourth-leading cause of death among children aged 7 to 
17. Between 1981 and 1998, the period of the study, 20,775 people in 
that age group committed suicide, compared with 24,000 in that age 
group who died of cancer.
  Suicide has long been considered an individual mental health issue, 
but experts are starting to view suicide as a broad public health 
issue. In 2001, the U.S. Surgeon General released a report citing 
suicide as a ``national public health problem,'' and announced a 
national strategy for suicide prevention. Central to that strategy is 
promoting awareness that suicide is, indeed, preventable.
  The same CDC study also highlighted the role of guns in both youth 
suicide and homicides. During the study period, youth suicides 
increased by 44 percent, with gun-related suicides making up 80 percent 
of that increase. At the same time, the number of youths who committed 
murder with a firearm tripled, even as the total number of murders 
remained constant. This shows, according to the CDC, that suicide is 
linked to other social ills, like gun violence.
  One of the Surgeon General's recommendations for preventing suicide 
is to reduce access to guns or other lethal means of suicide. His 
national suicide prevention strategy recommends not only a public 
campaign to reduce gun accessibility, but also urges the gun industry 
to improve firearm safety design.

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  Suicide is a national problem that demands our attention. Congress 
should do its part to help prevent suicide by encouraging the 
manufacture of safer handguns and by closing the loopholes that allow 
young people easy access to handguns.

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