Teens Struggling With Mental Health Issues Often Have Easy Access To Guns

[Fred Sanders]

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/05/3607803/teens-mental-health-guns/

"U.S. teenagers with a history of mental health problems and suicidal tendencies are often able to easily access firearms in their homes, which could increase their risk of killing themselves, according to the results from a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Although suicide doesn’t always dominate the national conversation about gun violence prevention, it’s actually the leading cause of gun deaths in the United States. A large body of scientific evidence suggests that the presence of guns in the home directly increases the risk of suicide, partly because people who are attempting to kill themselves are more likely to succeed when they opt for a gun.
Particularly in the mental health community, there’s been a renewed emphasis on safe gun storage to prevent kids struggling with depression from accidentally getting their hands on their parents’ firearms. Researchers at the University of Washington assumed that would mean that kids with suicidal tendencies would be more likely to live in homes where guns are out of reach."

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Easy access to guns makes suicide so much easier and final, scientific studies prove it, another reason to get some control over these deadly weapons.

The Australian, U.K. And Canadian approaches to placing the burden of proof on a would be gun owner as to the justification for owning a firearm is the only sensible approach.

Time for another gun control vote in Congress on all the gun restrictions denied after Sandy Hook, the folks are down for it a bit more than GOP votes on repealing Obamacare and a pipeline.