Boston, MA -- In the first nationally representative study to examine the relationship between survey measures of household firearm ownership and state level rates of suicide in the U.S., researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that suicide rates among children, women and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have guns. The study appears in the April 2007 issue of The Journal of Trauma.
"We found that where there are more guns, there are more suicides," said Matthew Miller, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at HSPH and lead author of the study.
Suicide ranks as one of the 15 leading causes of death in the U.S.; among persons less than 30 years old, it is one of the top three causes of death. In 2004, more than half of the 32,439 Americans who committed suicide used a firearm.
April 25, 2007
Lawmakers urge closing gaps in federal-state gun laws
WASHINGTON -- Grappling with the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history, lawmakers said Sunday they want to eliminate a gap between state and federal laws that can allow someone with a history of mental illness to buy guns.
Members of Congress have shown little political appetite, however, for attempting to expand federal gun control in response to the massacre at Virginia Tech.
Seung-Hui Cho, who gunned down 32 people on campus and killed himself Monday, was evaluated at a psychiatric hospital in late 2005 and deemed by a judge to present "an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." That should have disqualified him from purchasing a gun under federal law, experts say.
But Virginia court officials insist that because the judge ordered only outpatient treatment -- and did not commit Cho to a psychiatric hospital -- they were not required to submit the information to be entered in the federal databases for background checks.
Lawmakers pushed Sunday to eliminate such breakdowns. They called for uniformity between state and federal reporting to make background checks more dependable.
Members of Congress have shown little political appetite, however, for attempting to expand federal gun control in response to the massacre at Virginia Tech.
Seung-Hui Cho, who gunned down 32 people on campus and killed himself Monday, was evaluated at a psychiatric hospital in late 2005 and deemed by a judge to present "an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." That should have disqualified him from purchasing a gun under federal law, experts say.
But Virginia court officials insist that because the judge ordered only outpatient treatment -- and did not commit Cho to a psychiatric hospital -- they were not required to submit the information to be entered in the federal databases for background checks.
Lawmakers pushed Sunday to eliminate such breakdowns. They called for uniformity between state and federal reporting to make background checks more dependable.
April 24, 2007
How Should Universities Respond to Potentially Violent Students?
For the most part, universities cannot tell parents about their children’s problems without the student’s consent. They cannot release any information in a student’s medical record without consent. And they cannot put students on involuntary medical leave, just because they develop a serious mental illness.
Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, and what action to take, always so clear.
“They can’t really kick someone out because they’re writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem withdrawn and hostile,” said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University. “Most state laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.”
Nor is knowing when to worry about student behavior, and what action to take, always so clear.
“They can’t really kick someone out because they’re writing papers about weird topics, even if they seem withdrawn and hostile,” said Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services at Harvard University. “Most state laws are pretty clear: you can only bring students to hospitals if there is imminent risk to themselves or someone else, so universities are in a bit of a bind that way.”
April 15, 2007
Phil Zimbardo on the Daily Show
Stanford social psychologist Philip Zimbardo discusses his book The Lucifer Effect and similarities between the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib.
Resisting the Drums of War
Social psychologist Roy Eideslon discusses the ways in which the Iraq war was sold to the American public by exploiting five core concerns: Vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness.
April 8, 2007
A Shock Wave of Brain Injuries
About 1,800 U.S. troops, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, are now suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) caused by penetrating wounds. But neurologists worry that hundreds of thousands more -- at least 30 percent of the troops who've engaged in active combat for four months or longer in Iraq and Afghanistan -- are at risk of potentially disabling neurological disorders from the blast waves of IEDs and mortars, all without suffering a scratch.
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