Suicide by Gunshot in the United Kingdom: A review of the literature | Semantic Scholar (2024)

A combined approach including Circ*mstances, Crime scene examination, Autopsy, Ballistic examination is important to arrive at the exact Manner of death in gunshot Suicides.

Firearms users were more likely than those employing other means of suicide to be male, retired, and residing in remote areas but were less likely to have had a previous mental illness diagnosis or evidence of suicidal ideation or self-harming behaviors.

Of all deaths, self-inflicted wounds are nearly twice as common as assaults, affecting predominantly older men living in more rural areas and the population involved is getting younger.

Prevention of suicide in schizophrenia must especially focus on improving assessment of risk of suicide during inpatient treatment and the first week after discharge, and special attention must be paid to patients with one or more of the identified risk factors.

...

...

In both regional and state-level analyses, a robust association exists between levels of household firearm ownership and suicide rates and where firearm ownership levels are higher, a disproportionately large number of people die from suicide.

It is concluded that guns in the home are an important risk factor in suicide with guns, as well as a threat to women (especially female partners), whereas their role in homicide of male victims and street crime (such as robbery) may be much less prominent.

The case files of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Science at the University of Glasgow were searched for deaths involving gunshot injuries for the years 1989 to 1998, and overwhelmingly males with a median age of 31 were identified.

Limiting access to firearms is a potentially effective means of reducing suicide mortality and can reduce the proportion of fatal firearms related suicides by 32% among minors, and 6.5% among adults.

It is concluded that restricting access to handguns might be expected to reduce the suicide rate in persons 15 to 24 years old, but that it probably would not reduce the overall suicide rate.

Most suicides occurred in the setting of a domestic dispute, although at least nine had a significant past psychiatric history, and possible implications of firearm legislation and psychiatric treatment on firearm suicide rates are discussed.

...

...