People with serious mental illnesses who use guns to commit suicide are often legally eligible to purchase guns, despite having a past record of an involuntary mental health examination and brief hospitalization, according to a new Duke Health analysis.
The study, released in the June issue of Health Affairs, looked at gun use, violent crime and suicide among 81,704 people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Pinellas counties over 10 years starting in 2002.
Over that time, 254 study subjects committed suicide – nearly four times the average suicide rate of the general adult population in Florida during the same period.