Nashville officials examining how firearms make suicidal ideation more dangerous

As Metro Council officials wrapped a series meetings on protecting kids from gun violence at school on Wednesday, they took up another major firearm risk: suicide.

Public health officials across the country have documented a spike in mental health struggles among children and adolescents after the pandemic. As a result, suicidal ideation has surged, too.

Metro Public Health Department’s chief medical director, Dr. Gill Wright, explained the pandemic took a toll on Nashville’s kids and teens.

“COVID has led to increased feelings of isolation and mental health issues,” he said. “It has also exposed some children to increased trauma.”

The CDC has said the same, and attributes pandemic-related mental health struggles to the surge in suicidal ideation in teens across the country.

Metro officials say Tennessee’s high rates of gun access make those trends even more dangerous. Colton McKay, an epidemiologist with the city’s health department, says suicide is also a gun violence issue. Tennesseans use firearms in suicide at a higher rate than the country as a whole.

“Data from 2019 show suicide deaths in Tennessee are most commonly attempted by firearm — at 62%,” he said. “While other methods, like hanging or poisoning, make up the remaining 38. This proportion is different from what we see nationally. About 53% of national suicide deaths were by firearm.”

McKay said this is concerning because firearms are so much more deadly than the other methods.

“Someone attempting suicide by firearm will die 85% of the time, compared to only 4% by other methods,” he said. “This gives some context to the association between gun access and risk of suicide reported by the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention — a 2- to 10-times greater risk of suicide when having a gun in the home.”

Wednesday’s meeting was the last of the series, which came in response to the Covenant School shooting. Councilmember Jeff Syracuse, who chairs the public health and safety committee, had been working with advocates from the Uvalde Foundation and Sandy Hook Promise on how to approach a policy response.

City officials are taking up gun violence as a public health issue. They’ve mostly talked about school shootings and how to prevent them, and also examined other firearm problems such as domestic violence and suicide.