Most Americans don’t know suicide more common than homicide in US

In the United States, suicide is twice as common as homicide — and more often involves firearms — but public perception is just the opposite.

News reports, movies and TV shows may contribute to the perception of a high risk of firearm homicide, authors of a new study say, leaving a substantial gap between ideas and reality and potentially leading to further danger.

Now, first-of-its kind research, led by the University of Washington, Northeastern University and Harvard University, delves into public perceptions of gun violence and the leading causes of death in the U.S. The study, published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, seeks to facilitate national public discussions about firearm ownership and storage.

“This research indicates that in the scope of violent death, the majority of U.S. adults don’t know how people are dying,” said Erin Morgan, lead author and doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at the UW School of Public Health. “Knowing that the presence of a firearm increases the risk for suicide, and that firearm suicide is substantially more common than firearm homicide, may lead people to think twice about whether or not firearm ownership and their storage practices are really the safest options for them and their household.”

To analyze national public perceptions, researchers used data from the 2015 National Firearms Survey, a web-based survey of nearly 4,000 U.S. adults. In that survey, individuals were asked to rank the relative causes of violent death in their state over the past year. The data were then compared to each state’s official death count. The results indicated that although suicide was more common than homicide in all 50 states, the majority of respondents did not identify it as such.

Source: Suicide more prevalent than homicide in US, but most Americans don’t know it