[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7871-7872]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            GUNS AND SUICIDE

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this week, May 6-12, is National Suicide 
Prevention Week. Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the 
United States. This devastating tragedy takes the lives of more than 
30,000 Americans each year, and brings suffering and loss to the lives 
of the friends and family who are left behind. Citing suicide as a

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``national public health problem,'' the U.S. Surgeon General recently 
announced a national strategy for suicide prevention. Central to the 
strategy is promoting awareness of the fact that suicide is, indeed, 
preventable and that we must all do our part to help end this tragedy.
  One of the Surgeon General's main goals for preventing suicide is to 
reduce access to lethal means of suicide of which guns are the most 
deadly. I commend the Surgeon General for recognizing the need to 
address the role that guns play in our Nation's staggering suicide 
rate. Firearms account for 60 percent of all suicides, making them the 
most commonly used method of suicide and;
  Each year more Americans die in suicides by firearms than in murders 
by firearms. The national suicide prevention strategy recommends a 
public campaign to reduce the accessibility of lethal means of suicide, 
including firearms, and urges the gun industry to improve firearm 
safety design. These aims are backed by evidence that limiting access 
to lethal means of suicide and self-harm can be an effective strategy 
to prevent suicide attempts and other self-destructive behaviors. In 
fact, studies have shown that there is a separate, additional risk of 
suicide when there is a handgun in the home. Moreover, limiting access 
to lethal means of suicide, especially handguns, can reduce the number 
of suicide attempts that are fatal. While more than 650,000 Americans 
attempt suicide each year, the chance that the attempt will be fatal 
increases dramatically in those cases where a handgun is used.
  The relationship between handguns and suicide is even stronger among 
young people. Every 46 minutes a young person in this country kills 
himself or herself, over 60 percent of the time with a firearm. And 
these numbers are continuing to increase: the youth suicide rate has 
nearly tripled since 1952, making suicide the third leading cause of 
death among young people 15 to 24 years of age. There is no question 
that the increased access young people have to guns has been a major 
factor in this rise. In fact, one of the most rapidly rising suicide 
rates in this country is among young African-American makes, increasing 
105 percent between 1980 and 1996, and this rise can be attributed 
almost entirely to suicides by firearms.
  The Surgeon General has stated that ``we should make it clear that 
suicide prevention is everybody's business. I believe the Surgeon 
General is right. Suicide is a national problem that demands our 
attention and our commitment. 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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