Gun access laws cut teen suicide rate, study says
Laws passed by 18 states requiring guns to be safely stored away from children have reduced the rate of teenage suicides, researchers have found.
The child access prevention laws implemented since 1989 may have prevented more than 300 suicides among 14- to 17-year-olds through 2001, according to a study by Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among American teenagers, accounting for 1,883 deaths in 2001.
“There were 63,954 suicides among youth aged 14 through 20 years during the 1976-2001 study period, 39,655 (62%) of which were committed with firearms,” according to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
Laws that raised the required age of gun buyers and owners, however, did not significantly reduce suicide rates, the study said.
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