UW report suggests gun shop density linked to suicides by firearm

(The Center Square) – A new report claims gun shops in a given area increase the local rate of suicides by firearm. Second Amendment advocates say the study is seeking to justify future gun control measures.

Julie Kafka conducted the study as a postdoctoral research fellow at the UW Medicine Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program in Seattle and remains affiliated with the program. She is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine.

In a Thursday interview with The Center Square Kafka said, “We were really interested to learn how gun shops and their distribution impacts communities, particularly the impact of gun shops and firearms suicide rates.”

According to research cited in the report, published Sept. 9 in the Journal of American Medical Association, suicide deaths rose 34% between 2001–2022 in the U.S and in 2022, firearms were the lethal mechanism in 55% of suicide deaths.

More than 49,000 Americans died by suicide in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Firearms, the most common method used, accounted for more than half of suicide deaths.

“Firearms are the deadliest method for suicide,” said Kafka, “They account for about 5% of suicide attempts, but more than half of suicide deaths. When people do use other methods like overdose there’s a much greater chance that they won’t die. They’ll survive and then we can give them supports to get through whatever tough times they’re facing.”

Although suicide is often described as the act of an individual, external factors can increase access to firearms and shape attitudes toward gun ownership. These factors might make it more likely for an individual to act on suicidal impulses by using a firearm, Kafka noted in a University of Washington news release on the study.

The research for the project was narrow, focusing on the state of Maryland where the state attorney general recently filed a lawsuit against three federally licensed gun dealers for allegedly illegally selling dozens of firearms to a straw purchaser who is accused of transferring them to individuals not legally entitled to possess them, in violation of District, Maryland, and federal laws.

Kafka says the numbers in their study suggesting higher rates of death by firearm suicide in areas where there are more gun shops are not simply based on population density.

“We saw firearms suicides occurring more in less populated rural western and eastern Maryland, where non firearm suicides are concentrated in more urban areas of central Maryland,” she said.

“It’s not a function of population density at all. It’s much more a function of firearm availability and culture where we see rural areas there’s a much higher risk, said Kafka.

The Center Square reached out to Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and GunMag Editor in Chief Dave Workman for comment on the findings.

“A study involving a single eastern state, and one of the smallest, probably should not impress anyone other than those who look for any reason to advocate for more gun control,” said Workman. “Indeed, the conclusion researchers appear to have reached here, that limiting the number of licensed retailers in a particular area and/or creating FFL zoning, smacks of a gun control mindset.”

Workman concluded, “Suicide is an issue of emotional and mental health, yet trying to establish a correlation between the presence of a local gun shop and a tragic suicide leaves the impression that they’re trying to blame guns for a problem that is far more complicated.”

Workman and SAF were involved in the pilot project ForeFront launched at the UW regarding suicide prevention, for which Workman says they received little to no credit.

Kafka says policy recommendations based on the research are down the line.

“There are many next steps for research, and that is our next step,” she said.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.