How do we end suicides in veterans? Adopt the Department of Defense’s gun safety recommendations.

As the country continues to reckon with school shootings and gun deaths, we can’t ignore what is happening to our veterans. 

I am a veteran who deployed for over 397 days to the battlefield of Iraq as a combat medic. My engineering battalion was part of the preemptive strike landing in April of 2003. We built Camp Adder 12 miles away from An Nasiriyah, the city where the first American soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in the Iraq War.

We spent the year clearing the main supply route for improvised explosive devices, building a road for the 4th Infantry Division to redeploy, and manning checkpoints and building projects — all while guarding ourselves from the metallic ting of sniper bullets lobbed our way, or hidden bombs on the road as we traveled.

When I came home from being deployed to the Iraq War, I thought the danger was past us. However, the rising rates of post 9/11 veteran suicides tells a different story. 

Post 9/11 veteran suicide deaths are four times higher than combat deaths, according to the Cost of War Project by Brown University. An estimated 30,177 of those who served after the 9/11 terrorist attacks died by suicide, compared with 7,057 killed in war operations. This is too many preventable deaths — deaths of those who have selflessly served their country.

These numbers may not even be showing us the full picture. A new study by America's Warrior Partnership and Alabama and Duke University suggests that veteran suicides may be double federal estimates.

Undercounting overdose deaths and service record errors may change the Veteran’s Affairs reported number of 17 veteran suicides per day — up to 44 per day. The magnitude of this daily loss of life should stop us in our tracks.

Veteran suicides are a problem — and we owe our veterans a solution.

During those 397 days that I served as a combat medic in the Iraq War, my job wasn’t only to run in when “medic” was yelled as bullets flew to provide life-saving aid; it was also to be the first line of defense against sickness, or mental health issues that could harm Army soldiers as they served. 

My Battalion didn’t lose a single life while in Iraq, and I don’t want to keep losing lives back home.

It took me 20 years after my combat experience to walk through the doors of the Veterans Affairs clinic. Many soldiers never will. Oftentimes, the effects from a war experience compound and become worse over time. 

Once I was in the clinic, as I sat uncomfortably in the chair across from the VA doctor going through routine questions, she looked away from her computer for the first time and asked if I had guns at home. 

“Sure”, I mumbled.
“Do you have a gun lock for it?” she continued. 

I couldn’t remember where the hunting rifle that was passed down to my husband was, or if it had a lock, even though I had been asked the same questions by my children’s pediatrician. 

I shook my head no. 

“Oh, that's fine,” she quipped, “I have one right here for you.” 

She pulled a gun lock out of her desk drawer, as quickly as if she was handing me a Kleenex off her desk, and dropped it into my lap. Stunned, I looked down at the red and black shiny gun lock in my hands. 

She never asked if I had kids, I realized. This wasn’t for their safety. A cold chill creeped down my spine as it dawned on me that she was giving this to me, for my safety. 

Veterans who sit in the chair across from her at the VA just like me are at risk for using guns to kill themselves at a rate that is 1.5 times higher than that of the general population. As a woman, my suicide rate is 2.5 times higher than non-Veteran adult women.

So… how do we interrupt the rising rates of veterans taking their own lives? 

What’s the answer to saving lives and ending the all-too-common tragedy of veteran suicides? 

I believe the Department of Defense knows.

How to end veteran suicides with gun safety regulations

The military needs to implement a series of gun safety measures to limit suicides, according to a new report released to the Department of Defense by an independent panel in February, 2023.

Adopting these same gun safety measure into public policy can interrupt rising veteran suicides and save lives. 

Let’s talk about these recommendations for the Pentagon. 

These are the gun safety measures recommended to the Department of Defense to save active-duty soldiers from suicides:

#1.  Waiting periods for the purchase of firearms and ammunition by soldiers on military property.

Slowing down troops’ access to guns— so people under stress can survive periods of high risk, saves lives, reports clinical psychologist and member of the Suicide Prevention and Response and Response Independent Review Committee, Craig Bryan.

In July, 2022  the Kaiser Foundation found firearms are the most lethal method of suicide attempts, and about half of suicide attempts take place within 10 minutes of the current suicidal thought. 

By implementing waiting periods to acquire a gun, we can decrease that lethality and urgency. We can save lives.

#2. Raising the age of gun ownership to 25 years old. 

In February 2023, Craig Bryan, a member of the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee, said the choice of age 25 was driven by historical patterns and data, which showed half of all military suicides happen between the ages of 21 and 25, and that the use of guns for suicides by service members – specifically men – increased after the age of 21. 

If half of all military suicides happen between ages 21-25, we have the potential to save the lives of 50% of veterans who die by suicide by keeping personal fire arms out of reach during their most vulnerable years. A study found that our brains don’t fully mature until age 25. Mature brains think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Immature brains are still processing  information with the amygdala, the emotional part. The immature brain’s connections between emotions and the decision-making center are still developing. Raising the age of personal gun ownership has the potential to keep 50% more soldiers and veterans alive until their 25th birthday instead of losing them to suicide. 

#3. Registration of privately owned firearms.

Registration is when  individuals record their ownership of a firearm with a designated law enforcement agency. If an individual is in crisis, this allows law enforcement to identify the risk a person may be to themselves by identifying they have a firearm in their possession. Only six states and the District of Columbia have laws that require official records and registers of some or all firearms.

In July 2015, members of Congress were pushing for troops to be allowed to carry personal weapons on base, but General Mark Milley, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded by saying, “I don't think soldiers should have concealed weapons on base.”

In 2023, a panel made a recommendation to the Defense Department that an even further reduction in access to firearms on military bases could significantly reduce suicide rates among service members.

These recommendations are for saving active duty soldiers from suicide. But the question is: Can these gun safety measures help limit veteran suicides in addition to active duty soldiers? 

I think they can. Here’s why:

Veterans who die by suicide are more likely to use a firearm than civilians who die by suicide. 

Among U.S. adults who died from suicide in 2020, firearms were more commonly involved among Veterans (71.0%) than non-Veterans (50.3%), according to a study by the RAND Corporation.

These gun safety measures directly impact how the majority of veterans die by suicide. Protecting both veterans and soldiers from suicide through the implementation of  waiting periods for gun and ammunition purchases makes sense. Excluding veterans from purchasing personal firearms during the years they are most likely to die by suicide is practical. 

Despite decades of large investments by the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and suicide prevention nonprofits, veteran suicides are rising. What we are doing isn’t working, but we do have solutions to prevent these tragedies. 

It’s worth using anything we can to save veterans' lives, including implementing gun safety measures into public policy. Adopting gun safety standards into law can interrupt the rising rate of veteran suicides while ensuring the Constitutional right to use a gun. It isn’t one or the other; we can practice thoughtful gun safety, save lives, and protect veterans — while still embracing the freedoms so many of us cherish.

“My sense is that so many of us who have served have lost friends to suicide. And so many of those suicides involve firearms, that we recognize that there is a connection between the two,” said Bryan. “Many of us are tired of our friends and loved ones dying and we recognize that we have to absolutely take on this issue.”

As a veteran, I know freedom is not free; it requires self-sacrifice. If we want more veterans to stay alive this year than last year, we have to do something we haven’t yet done. If we want those who sacrificed for our country to survive moments of despair or crisis, we need to take action.


Sources

Diana Oestreich