A gun almost always turns a suicide attempt into suicide

In the sterile, bureaucratic world of government calculations, the statistical value of a single human life recently fell to $6.9 million.

The taking of David M. Stierer Jr.'s life cost $29.95.

Stierer, 25, of Cary, walked into the busy, two-story G.A.T. gun shop Thursday north of Elgin. In the shadow of many safety signs, he showed his Firearm Owner's Identification card, shelled out $19.95 to reserve an hour of shooting time in one of two indoor ranges, then spent another $10 to rent the .45-caliber handgun that would end his life.

The first shot from the rental gun ripped through the right side of Stierer's head and exited the left side, officials say. He was pronounced dead at Sherman Hospital in Elgin.

Stierer was the only person involved in the shooting, and the wound is consistent with a suicide, says Kane County Coroner Chuck West. But West and Kane County Sheriff Lt. Pat Gengler say the investigation into whether the fatal shooting was a suicide or a tragic accident hasn't yet reached a conclusion.

But many of the readers who commented on the story have come to a conclusion about the role that gun played. While some expressed condolences to Stierer's loved ones, many were quick to come to defense of the gun.

"Guns don't kill people, people do."

"Stop blaming firearms."

"If it was a suicide, it happens with or without GUNS!"

"Suicide rates have no correlation between guns in the home."

"How many cars with drunk or impaired drivers kill daily?"

Whenever I write about the 31,000 or so people killed by guns each year in the United States, critics dismiss that number because more than half of those are suicides. Their thinking is that suicides don't count because those people would have killed themselves regardless of whether they had access to guns.

Suicides are responsible for 55.4 percent of gun deaths in the U.S., while homicides account for 40.2 percent, according to the most-recent (2005) statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicides by gun have outnumbered gun homicides and gun accidents in 20 of the last 25 years.

For those of you rightfully concerned about drunken driving, more people take their own lives with guns than die in alcohol-related crashes.

But can we fault guns in cases of suicide?

In an article this month in The New York Times, writer Scott Anderson looked at "The Urge to End It All." He discovered suicide often has an impulsive aspect to it. Numerous studies have shown that people with suicidal tendencies, who methodically plan their deaths, are far more likely to survive attempts than are people who act impulsively and jump off tall buildings or grab the family gun.

Most people who attempt suicide don't kill themselves on the first try. And the vast majority who survive a suicide attempt don't end up killing themselves later - unless they use a gun, which, as it is designed to do, generally ends that life on the first attempt.

In one study of 30 people who beat the odds to survive self-inflicted gunshots, none wrote suicide notes, and half said they had been thinking about suicide for less than 24 hours. A 2001 University of Houston study of suicide survivors found that 24 percent said the interval between deciding to kill themselves and attempting to do so was less than five minutes.

"The only way to lower the high number of firearm-related suicides is to place obstacles in the way of access to a firearm," the Physicians for Social Responsibility conclude. "The most logical solution is to remove guns from the home."

A study in the American Journal of Public Health found that homes with guns are five times more likely to experience a suicide than homes without a gun.

States with the highest rates of gun ownership have suicide rates more than double the suicide rates of states with low gun ownership rates, according to a Harvard School of Public Health study cited in a recent Washington Post story.

"If you bought a gun today, I could tell you the risk of suicide to you and your family members is going to be two to tenfold higher over the next 20 years," Matthew Miller, a Harvard epidemiologist involved in the study, told the Post.

Lombard native and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck disputes that research and says other factors come into play.

"The same attributes that make people more likely to acquire guns make them more likely to kill themselves," Kleck says, noting people in scary, high-crime areas who feel they alone are "the masters of their own fates" might have a pre-existing mind-set that makes suicide more likely.

Acknowledging that gun owners have higher suicide rates, Kleck says suicide depends on more than the availability of a gun.

We can't prevent all suicides. But suburban families who think a gun gives them protection against violence should at least consider the chances that gun might be used for suicide.