A Key to Prevention: Keep Guns Away From Children

How do you reduce suicides among kids? Get guns out of their reach, experts say.

Guns are in an estimated 41% of American homes, and teens increasingly are using them to try to kill themselves.

Girls attempt suicide more than twice as often as boys. But boys are much more likely to die because they use firearms more often.

Suicide attempts involving guns result in death in eight of 10 cases; attempts involving overdoses in three of 10, says Lloyd Potter, team leader of Youth Violence Prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Recent studies show that, by reducing access to guns, teen suicides could be slashed by a fifth. There also is evidence that because people don’t like to switch suicide methods, removing a favored technique can lead to dramatic reductions in attempts and deaths.

For example, suicides involving firearms dropped by 25% in Washington, D.C., after the district’s 1976 ban on the sale and possession of handguns, a 1991 study found. Suicides by other methods, however, remained the same. No state has moved to enact a similar ban, which, polls show, a majority of Americans would not support.

Many experts on public health and suicide and legislators in several states are pushing for the sale of “personalized” guns that would prevent any unauthorized person from firing them. Within three years, Colt’s Manufacturing Co. expects to market a gun outfitted with an antenna in the grip, beaming a radio signal to a transponder worn by the authorized user, probably in a finger ring.

While guns are a major target in the fight to prevent suicides among the young, there are other fronts.

One of the most important is improving mental health care. Studies show that the majority of teens who attempt to kill themselves get no treatment and that in recent years, insurance coverage for such mental health programs has been cut.

On a recent day, UCLA psychiatrist Mark DeAntonio fumes after being alerted that an insurer is trying to discharge a boy who tried to kill himself less than 24 hours ago. The boy is still hearing voices encouraging him to kill himself and others. The insurer, having learned that DeAntonio has refused to release the boy, is trying to have him transferred to a doctor who will sign release forms, DeAntonio says.

In 1977, when Woodland Hills psychologist Neil Rocklin began practicing, his average patient got more than three months of paid therapy. Now, as managed care has become more common, he says, the average is two months. Many insurers cut off clients after one month, he says.

Activists want to limit the number of pills Americans can obtain in one prescription. When Australia did this, suicides dropped. Experts also recommend that an antidote be sold with antidepressants, which are often used in suicide attempts. If people change their mind during attempts--as many apparently do--they can try to reverse the pills’ effects.

Of course, many of the things that make the biggest difference between life and death can only happen at home, where parents must learn to communicate better and children must feel safe to express themselves.

“Most of the time kids tell us what they are going to do,” Rocklin says. “Most of the time, we hear it, and don’t consider it significant.”