Over the past decade, firearm suicide rates increased over 40 percent for young people ages 10 to 24—more than most other age groups. And most of those suicides were accomplished with firearms, according to a new study from Everytown Research.
In 2020, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the proportion of youth suicides that involved a gun surpassed those by all other methods including hanging and drug overdose, and the use of firearms continues to be higher. After reaching a nearly 30-year high in 2021, the youth firearm suicide rate fell by 12 percent in 2022, and rose by 2 percent in 2023, but it still remains unacceptably high. Many factors can elevate the risk of suicide, the study’s authors said, but one thing remains clear: Reducing access to firearms can significantly reduce the risk of firearm suicide.
The rise in firearm suicide for young people did not occur uniformly across all states, the research found. The five states with the highest rates of youth suicides were Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and Idaho. And the five states with the fastest-growing rates over the past five years were North Carolina (+61 percent), Kentucky (+60 percent), Georgia (+40 percent), Tennessee (+38 percent), and Michigan (+37 percent).
Most of these states have one thing in common: They do not have a secure storage or child-access prevention law, with the exception of North Carolina, which holds gun owners accountable only if a child gains access to an unsecured gun. Everytown’s research shows that secure storage laws have great promise for decreasing gun suicide among young people: From 1999 to 2022, the youth suicide rate for young people ages 10–24 increased by 36 percent in states with no or only loose access storage laws, but in states with the most protective laws, the youth gun suicide rate decreased by 1 percent during this period.
Colorado has secure storage laws for both homes and vehicles, which Colorado Ceasefire helped pass.
