Suicide: What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Guns

We're still talking about gun reform almost two months after the  Newtown, Ct. massacre. This could in fact be a rare moment for us, rather than moving on to the next big thing we're extending our attention span as we collectively wrestle with our relationship with guns.However, there's one area that the national spotlight has swept over and that's  the relationship between firearms and suicide.

When we talk about guns and violent death we usually focus on homicides, not suicide, where almost twice as many people kill themselves with a firearm than those who are murdered with one. If  you look at all the gun deaths in 2010  suicide in the United States outnumbered homicides 19, 392 to 11,078.

Today Callie Crossley explored how we should be thinking about suicide, and about responsible gun ownership. She was joined by two public health experts who think a lot about these issues.

GUESTS:

• Cathy Barber, Director of  the Means Matter Campaign at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center
• Dr. Matt Miller, Associate Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center