The recent coronavirus lockdown caused a surge in gun sales in California. There were 164,000 background checks for gun purchases in March — a 72% increase over the month earlier and one of the highest months in the past two decades. May was the third-highest amount of background checks to purchase guns and ammo in the history of the program.
The level of purchasing is almost to the level of pre-presidential election of 2016. Almost every presidential election is marked by a spike of firearm sales out of fear that the new administration will make gun sales more difficult.
California is not alone in this spike. Texas, Arizona, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Michigan and a number of others have a more than 90% one-year increase in firearm sales. Some states are well over a 100% increase compared with the previous March. Much of this was fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and the busiest weeks were at the initiation of the stay-at-home orders.
Research on guns has been limited in the past because of a paucity of federal funding and in part by researchers’ admitted fear of threats. The Dickey Amendment of 1996 mandated that none of the CDC’s funding be used to promote or advocate gun control. Although it does not technically stop research, it was coupled with direction from Congress to redirect all money that was being spent on firearm research to traumatic brain injury. This March, our Congress silently but explicitly stated the CDC can research gun violence, but provided no specific or new funding for such research.
A recent study, funded without federal dollars, reported on the risk of suicide for non-gun owners and new gun owners in California. Thanks to California’s robust requirements for reporting gun transfers and purchases, the researchers were able to follow 676,425 people who acquired a gun and then compare their death rates to the rest of the population of California. This is the largest study of new gun owners and also one of the only studies to examine the time frame from purchase to self-injury.
During a 12-year period, male gun owners had a suicide rate 3.34 times higher than men who did not own a gun, for women the suicide rate was 7.16 times higher, whereas death rates for all other diseases was the equal. It would be expected that some people who are suicidal go out and buy a gun and that alone will skew the numbers. In fact, the first 20 days after obtaining a gun is associated with a 100-fold increase in risk of suicide as compared to before the purchase.
A depressed person buying a firearm should be a warning sign. And anyone trying to assess or help a depressed person should ask about a recent gun purchase or intent to purchase one.
However, suicide after purchase did not account for all of the differences in risk. Just over half of gun suicides occurred after the first year of ownership. This implies that the person did not purchase the gun with the intent to commit suicide.
This study also could not assess the benefit of the 10-day waiting period in California. Suicide can be an impulsive decision and many states have no waiting period to purchase a firearm. It is possible that a 10-day waiting period actually saves some people from suicide as they might seek help or change their mind during that time frame.
All of this is important in the context of our societal stresses. Isolation from coronavirus social distancing, unemployment from shutdowns, illness and deaths from infection, and the accompanying feelings of loss of control can all increase stress, anxiety and depression. This is not the time to buy guns. This is a time to help one another recover and cope.
Dr. Salvatore Iaquinta is a head and neck surgeon at Kaiser Permanente San Rafael and the author of “The Year They Tried To Kill Me.” He takes you on the Highway to Health every fourth Monday.
