New Military Suicide Report May Revive Debate Over Gun Restrictions

A new report from the Defense Department is likely to revive debate over the prospect of using "means restriction" — limiting access to firearms — as a way to reduce the number of suicides among U.S. troops. According to a DoD report on military suicides in 2017 released July 17, two-thirds of suicides among active-duty personnel that year were by firearm, a statistic consistent with the previous five years. Of the 309 suicides among active-duty troops in 2017, firearms played a role in 202 deaths. Most were privately owned guns, not service weapons. In a study published last month in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that the suicide rate among soldiers who owned guns was higher than for their peers who didn’t. And storing a loaded gun at home or carrying one was associated with a fourfold increase in the odds of suicide death among soldiers. Read more on Military.com.