Firearm Ownership and Capability for Suicide in Post‐Deployment National Guard Service Members

Abstract

Objective National Guard service members demonstrate increased suicide risk relative to the civilian population. One potential mechanism for this increased risk may be familiarity with and access to firearms following deployment. This study examined the association between firearm ownership, reasons for ownership, and firearm familiarity with a widely studied suicide risk factor—capability for suicide—among National Guard service members. Method Data were drawn from a cross‐sectional survey of National Guard service members conducted immediately post‐deployment in 2010. Service members (n = 2,292) completed measures of firearm ownership, firearm familiarity, and capability for suicide. Results Firearm ownership and increased firearm familiarity were associated with capability for suicide (d = 0.47 and r = .25, for firearm ownership and familiarity, respectively). When examined separately based on reason for ownership, owning a firearm for self‐protection (d = 0.33) or owning a military weapon (d = 0.27) remained significantly associated with capability for suicide. In contrast, owning a firearm for hobby purposes did not (d = −0.07). Conclusion Our findings support theories emphasizing practical aspects of suicide (e.g., three‐step theory) and suggest that owning firearms, in particular for self‐protection, along with familiarity using firearms may be associated with greater capability for suicide.

Factors contributing to honor‐endorsing men's suicide capability: Firearm ownership, practical capability, and exposure to painful and provocative events

“…a firearm for self-protection and firing firearms; Anestis & Capron, 2018;Goldberg et al, 2019). Honor ideology clearly increases a man's likelihood of risky behaviors that would be classified as PPEs (Barnes, Brown, & Tamborski, 2012;Bosson et al, 2009)-this exposure may also increase preparations for future honor-related defensive violence (e.g., shooting firearms, visualizing the killing of an intruder, or sharpening knife blades in anticipation for hurting someone else).…”

“…", and "Do you store your gun(s) loaded?". Lastly, these participants were asked about their reasons for owning a gun (Goldberg et al, 2019) by rank ordering seven common reasons for ownership: Personal safety at home, personal safety away from home, recreational purposes (e.g., hunting), basic interest (e.g., maintaining a collection of memorabilia), the gun(s) is/are a family heirloom (i.e., something that is passed down), expression of freedom, and other (please explain). 3…”

“…The three firearm storage practice items were also combined to create an overall index of storage safety (Butterworth et al, 2018), such that participants who stored their firearm(s) loaded, in an unsecure location, and without a locking device were coded as having unsafe storage practices (0 = Unsafe, 1 = Safe). Following similar procedures to Goldberg et al (2019), we next categorized reasons for firearm ownership based on their rank ordering. Participants that ranked as first either "personal safety at home" or "personal safety away from home" comprised one category and those that ranked as first any of the other categories comprised the other category (0 = Other, 1 = Self-protection).…”

“…Lastly, military experience (0 = No, 1 = Yes) was used as a covariate in only Sample B (n = 141) as only seven participants in Sample A were military veterans. Our decision to control for military experience is based on research showing greater PCS among veteran populations (Butterworth et al, 2018;Goldberg et al, 2019).…”

Contemporary methods in delayed discounting: Applications for suicidology with simulation

“…The exploratory hypothesis presented here is not without rationale, as firearms account for half of the annual suicide deaths in the United States and firearm safety discussions are commonly encouraged in clinical interventions (Barber & Miller, 2014). While work in suicidology has explored firearm ownership (Goldberg et al, 2019) and its link to suicide risk (Houtsma, Butterworth, & Anestis, 2018), no research has evaluated decision‐making related to the voluntary, temporary removal of firearms from the home (i.e., secured by friends or family). For instance, it is possible that those at a high risk for suicide may be particularly sensitive to the delays associated with the voluntary, temporary removal of firearms from the home (e.g., one week versus three months; ).…”