US study reveals people who purchased firearms during pandemic more likely to be suicidal

People who buy a firearm through the pandemic usually tend to be suicidal than different firearm homeowners, in response to a research by Rutgers University researchers.

The research, printed within the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, discovered that about 70 per cent of those that purchased a firearm through the Covid-19 pandemic reported having suicidal ideas all through their lives, in comparison with 37 per cent of the remainder of the neighborhood of gun homeowners.

“People who were motivated to purchase firearms during Covid-19 might have been driven by anxiety that leaves them vulnerable to suicidal ideation,” stated Michael Anestis, govt director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Centre and an affiliate professor on the Rutgers School of Public Health.

“While this does not guarantee an increase in suicide rates, it represents an unusually large surge in risk made more troubling by the fact that firearms purchased during Covid-19 may remain in homes beyond the pandemic.”

According to Anestis, greater than 2.5 million Americans turned first-time gun homeowners through the first 4 months of 2020, with an estimated two million firearms bought alone in March 2020 when the preliminary surge of the coronavirus pandemic started.

“Firearm owners are usually no more likely than non-firearm owners to experience suicidal thoughts. It is possible that a higher-risk group is driving the current firearm purchasing surge, introducing long-term suicide risk into the homes of individuals who otherwise may not have acquired firearms during a time of extended social isolation, economic uncertainty and general upheaval,” Anestis stated.

In the Rutgers research, researchers surveyed 3,500 Americans, roughly one-third of whom have been firearm homeowners, and requested about their causes for buying a gun through the pandemic, their strategies of gun storage and whether or not they had ever skilled ideas of suicide. The research checked out three teams: individuals who have been current firearm homeowners who didn’t buy a firearm through the pandemic, individuals who bought a firearm through the pandemic and non-firearm homeowners.

The research discovered that, of those that purchased a firearm through the pandemic, 70 per cent had skilled suicidal ideas all through their lives, 56 per cent had skilled suicidal ideas through the earlier yr and 25 per cent had skilled suicidal ideas through the earlier month. By distinction, people who didn’t purchase weapons through the pandemic have been solely 56 per cent, 24 per cent and 12 per cent respectively prone to have had suicidal ideas throughout these time durations.

People who bought a firearm through the pandemic additionally have been discovered to be extra prone to have storage habits that made the firearms much less safe, reminiscent of switching between unloading their firearms and loading them earlier than storage; utilizing locking units after which eradicating them, or switching between storing a firearm inside and outside the house.

“The increase in firearm purchases is concerning given that suicide is three times more likely in homes with firearms, and there is a hundred-fold increase in an individual’s suicide risk immediately following the purchase of a handgun,” stated Anestis. “And unsafe firearm storage increases that risk.”

(This story has been printed from a wire company feed with out modifications to the textual content.)

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