US Gun Deaths Up: Suicide Accounts for More than Half of Firearm Fatalities

Within the United States, the majority of gun deaths are suicides, a new study out of the University of California, Davis reported. The researchers added that the overall death rate linked to guns have stayed the same for more than 10 years.

"Suicide by firearm is far more common than homicide," Garen J. Wintemute, professor of emergency medicine and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, said in the news release. "Over the past 30 years, firearm suicides have exceeded homicides even when homicide rates were at their highest in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But, since 2006, the gap between the two has been widening, with firearm homicides decreasing and suicides increasing."

The researchers calculated that from 2006 to 2012, the rate of deaths from gun violence that were suicides increased from 57 to 64 percent. The suicide rates increased the most in white men, whereas in black men and women, the homicide rates linked to firearm violence peaked during early adulthood but declined steadily after.

Overall, in 2012, 89.2 percent of white men between the ages of 35 and 64 died from gun-related suicides. 88.7 percent of the deaths in black men between the ages of 15 and 44 were classified as homicides. The researchers added that the homicide rates in young black men aged 20 to 29 were five times higher than the rates in Hispanic men and about 20 times higher than the rates calculated for white men.

"Suicides among white males accounted for nearly half of the deaths from firearm violence during 2012, and suicide among white men is increasing," Wintemute said. "The overall death rate from firearm violence in young black males is very high, and there has been little net change since 1999."

The researchers stressed the importance of identifying the risk factors as well as the predictors for gun violence to help create programs that can combat them and lower future risk of violence.

"With additional research, we can identify other interventions that can reduce firearm violence, which is responsible for more than 30,000 deaths each year," Wintermute concluded.

The study, "The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence in the Twenty-First Century United States," was published in the Annual Review of Public Health.