Ownership is not possession. Sales are not transfers. Cops don’t seem to care about gun thefts.
A higher prevalence of gun ownership in rural America has contributed to increased suicides, raising the overall gun-death rate in rural areas above that of urban communities.
Experts say some legal interventions that have broad public support could help lower the risk of people harming themselves or others with guns.
In 2020, the rural gun death rate was 28% higher than the urban rate. Nonmetropolitan counties reported 17.01 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to a rate of 13.19 in urban America, according to CDC reports.
Although urban areas have higher rates of gun homicide, rural places have higher firearm deaths overall because suicides make up about two thirds of gun deaths nationwide, said researcher Michael Siegel of Tufts University School of Medicine. Siegel says it is important to categorize gun deaths into three groups.
“There’s firearm homicide, there’s firearm suicide, and then there’s unintentional injuries,” Siegel said.
Siegel said that the high rates of suicide in rural America can be explained in part by the prevalence of gun ownership. While 46% of rural residents say they own guns, only 19% of urban residents say they own guns, according to PEW Center studies.
“Because we know that guns are the most lethal means for suicide, if a gun is available, a suicide attempt is likely to result in a death,” Siegel said. “Whereas, if there aren’t guns around, other methods that people might use to attempt suicide are not as lethal.”
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