Some memories are indelible. More than a decade ago, I was employed as the Schools Program Coordinator for the Samaritans of Rhode Island, a suicide prevention agency which is now in its 30th year. While much of my job involved providing workshops to educators and other school professionals on the topic of suicide prevention, I also at times was called upon to consult with school staff in the aftermath of a student’s suicide. In October of 1993, I received such a call from a local middle school. As the Providence Journal-Bulletin was to report the next day, a young boy had taken his own life:

Using a hacksaw to get at his father’s locked-away hunting rifle, a 13-year-old boy shot himself to death Monday evening in the breezeway of his home….

“He was hell-bent on doing this,” said [the] police chief….

According to police, the boy sawed through a locked travel trunk in the garage to gain access to the weapon, a .30-.30 rifle. Police said he then used lengths of clothesline both to tie the safety into its off position and to pull the trigger.

After arriving at the school on Tuesday morning, I initially spent some time conferring with the principal and other staff members, who were clearly reeling from this terrible tragedy. Among other things, we discussed how the school might best help the students and staff cope with the boy’s suicide in the hours and days to come. At some point, word filtered into the room that the boy’s parents had shown up at the school, which seemed to catch everyone by surprise. Unsure how to proceed and perhaps overwhelmed by events, the staff brought the parents in to meet with me. I cannot say that I was prepared for this moment. Nonetheless, I soldiered on and sat with this man and this woman who had experienced a loss I could not even begin to fully imagine. Whatever words of support and sympathy I may have offered in the next few minutes, I cannot recall. What I do remember clearly, though, is the palpable rawness of the parents’ grief, which exceeds any I have ever experienced, before or since. And I remember, as well, the moment when a staff member entered the room to gently hand the parents the contents of their son’s locker. And, in that instant, I could not help but think that the gym clothes which the parents now clutched still held the residual warmth and scent of their child—who had lived and breathed just the day before but did so no longer, having gone to elaborate lengths to cut his young life short. It was horrible.

Today, nearly 14 years later, I offer these recollections as a cautionary tale of sorts. Suicide was and remains one of the leading causes of death in this country (11th overall, 3rd for teens). And when a firearm is present in the home, even when it is locked away, the risk for suicide is exacerbated, as a recent study reported by Reuters reveals:

Guns at home equal higher suicide risk: study

Suicide rates among people of all ages are higher in states where more homes have guns, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Twice as many people committed suicide in the 15 states with the highest levels of household gun ownership, compared with the six states with the lowest levels, even though the population in all the states was about the same, the researchers found.

“We found that where there are more guns, there are more suicides,” said Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study.

While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time.

People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time, the researchers said, citing other surveys.

The study, published in the Journal of Trauma, suggests that removing guns from homes, particularly those with adolescents, would have a big impact on suicide prevention.

“In a nation where more than half of all suicides are gun suicides and where more than one in three homes have firearms, one cannot talk about suicide without talking about guns,” Miller said in a statement.

Suicide is the 11th-leading cause of death among Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2004, more than half of the 32,439 Americans who committed suicide used a firearm. [full text]