Gun deaths: Psychiatrists have duty to act

The Centers for Disease Control just reported U.S. gun deaths have surpassed 40,000 annually.

Recently an unusual group of physicians (radiologists, pathologists, trauma surgeons) have spoken out on their experience with gun violence. The NRA responded by telling them to “stay in their lane.”

Silent are the psychiatrists, yet two thirds of gun deaths are suicides. Preventing suicide is the psychiatrists’ lane.

This group must step up and confront the gun suicide epidemic. The NRA’s scandalous power over gun death prevention efforts is most blatantly apparent in the failure of the military to address the gun suicide epidemic, averaging about 65 percent of military suicides annually.

To quote the Department of Defense Suicide Event Report: “firearms were the most common method of injury of suicide decedents in CY 2016 and the majority of suicide decendents had no known behavioral health history.”

Since 2011, as a Navy psychiatrist, I have worked unsuccessfully to add suicide prevention education to address easy gun access and increased impulsive suicide risk.

I am repeatedly told by all levels of the Department of Defense that the NRA is too politically powerful.

Military suicides numbers for 2018 are the worst yet. Military suicide prevention training must address easy gun access. #ThisIsOurLane.