Buying Firearms During Pandemic Increases Risk of Suicide, Study

Firearms suicide in the United States is a serious public health concern that claims the lives of 23,000 Americans each year wherein 1,100 of that number are children and teens. Every year this number goes up and getting worse, with authorities seeing a 19% increase in firearms suicide rates for the past decade.

However, a combination of firearms and the pandemic has even made it worse as the country has seen a surge of firearms buying amidst the pandemic.

According to a Rutgers study, those people who purchase firearms during the COVID-19 pandemic are more likely to have suicidal thoughts than those existing gun owners. An alarming study, given the existing problems of gun suicide in the United States.

A Surge in Firearms Buying Amidst the Pandemic

The study from Rutgers University was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on November 17 claimed that 70% of those people who bought firearms during the pandemic have reported having suicidal thoughts throughout their lives, while only 37% of gun owners have that thought.

Michael Anestis, New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center's executive director and an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, said that people who bought guns during the pandemic are more likely motivated due to the anxiety they felt during these times.

He added that over 2.5 million Americans had become first-time gun powers during the first four months of 2020, US News reported. That means there are over two million firearms bought during the initial surge of the pandemic in the US.

Although this might not necessarily create a causal relationship between suicides and gun ownership, it represents a large surge in the risk of a more troubling fact that firearms purchased during COVID-19 might remain in their homes, according to the university's press release.

Rutgers University: Unsafe Firearms Storage Increases the Risk of Suicide

The study involved 3,500 participants, of which one-third of them are gun owners. They were asked for their reasons for buying guns during the pandemic, their method of storing their firearms, and if they had any suicidal thoughts during the pandemic.

They looked at three groups: those existing gun owners and did not purchase any firearms during the pandemic, those who purchased firearms during the pandemic, and those who do not own any firearms.

The researchers found out that 70% of those who bought firearms during the pandemic have experienced suicidal thoughts throughout their lives, while 56% of them said that they had suicidal thoughts in the past year, and 25% of them admitted to experiencing suicidal thoughts last month.

On the other hand, those who did not purchase guns during the pandemic are 56%, 24%, and 12% respectively likely to experience suicidal ideation during those time periods, according to EurekAlert!

Moreover, those people who bought firearms during the pandemic have issues in the proper storage of firearms. They admitted switching between loading and unloading guns before storage or using locking devices then removing them or switching between storing them outside or inside their house.

Anestis said that there is an increasing concern on firearm purchases with the growing numbers of suicide in homes with firearms. Unsafe storage of these firearms increases the risk further of suicide immediately following the purchase.