Summary of Link:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides consisted of 55% of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005. And 2005 was not a fluke year. Gun related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents 20 of the last 25 years.

Attention has been focused upon these stats due to the recent Supreme Court decision which struck down the handgun ban enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976. One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted.

The high court’s majority decision made no mention of suicide, but in Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion he used the word 14 times. Further, he made this insightful remark: “If a resident has a handgun in the home that he can use for self-defense, then he has a handgun in the home that he can use to commit suicide or engage in acts of domestic violence.”

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