With nearly
half of all suicides in the U.S. military committed with a privately owned
firearm, Congress and the Pentagon are moving to implement policies that will
discourage at-risk members of the armed forces from retaining their personal
weapons.
As suicides
continue to rise in 2012, the Defense Department officials are developing a
suicide prevention campaign, part of which will encourage friends and family of
the potentially suicidal to convince the soldiers to give up their
weapons.
The Pentagon’s
move would be hugely controversial as some lobbyists may construe it as gun
control.
Gun rights
groups - along with many service members themselves - are likely to oppose any
policy which could seem to limit a citizen’s private ownership of a firearm. The
Daily Mail
Suicides in the
military rose sharply from 2005 to 2009, reaching 285 active-duty service
members and 24 reservists in 2009. NY Times The numbers are
on track to outpace the 2009 figures this year, with about 270 active-duty
service members, half of them from the Army, having killed themselves as of last
month. NY Times According to
Defense Department statistics, more than 6 of 10 military suicides are by
firearms, with nearly half involving privately owned guns. In the civilian
population, guns are also the most common method of suicide among young males,
though at a somewhat lower rate. NY Times The rising
figures are of greater concern to the military staff considering the efforts
from the suicide prevention campaign. The Daily Mail John Ruocco, a
helicopter pilot, killed himself in 2005 between deployments in Iraq. His wife,
Kim, said he felt unable to seek help. The Daily Mail She said: “He
was so afraid of how people would view him once he went for help.” The Daily
Mail "He thought that
people would think he was weak, that people would think he was just trying to
get out of redeploying or trying to get out of service, or that he just couldn't
hack it. In reality, he was sick," she said. The Daily
Mail "He had suffered
injury in combat and he had also suffered from depression and let it go
untreated for years." The Daily Mail
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