CW: Mention of suicide. If you or someone you care about is experiencing suicidal thoughts, help is available. Please call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to speak with someone now.

Fellow Advocate,

Firearm suicide is responsible for over 60% of gun deaths in Pennsylvania, particularly in rural communities.¹

This September, National Suicide Prevention Month, we’ve made a conscious decision to bring this staggering fact to the light and break the stigma surrounding suicide in our Commonwealth.

This coming Monday, September 16, at noon, we’re hosting a Firearm Suicide Prevention Lunch & Learn featuring Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, Americans for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Eastern PA Director Samantha Bruno, and our own Director of Firearm Suicide Prevention and Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow Dr. Jay Breneman. Will you join us for this informative half-hour session and learn about the drivers of firearm suicide in Pennsylvania and how you can get involved in suicide prevention, a key tenet of our work to #EndGunViolence?

COUNT ME IN

Every community in Pennsylvania is affected by suicide, and almost all of our neighbors have painful stories of families torn apart by an impulsive and desperate act. But this all-too-common tragedy is veiled under layers of shame and silence.

Here are some jarring facts you may have missed about this silent epidemic:

Firearm suicide is a leading cause of violent death for Pennsylvanians aged 10 and older, with the rate continuing to rise across many demographics.^{2, 3}
Year after year, firearm suicides in Pennsylvania have claimed more lives than firearm homicides.³
Many of Pennsylvania’s rural counties experience suicide and firearm suicide rates nearly double, and sometimes triple, those of urban areas, far exceeding both the state and national rates.³
Means matter: nine out of ten people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide in their lifetime, but nearly all suicide attempts involving firearms are fatal, compared to only a small percentage of other suicide methods^{3, 4, 5}

It’s time to talk about our firearm suicide crisis publicly, and unabashedly. On Monday, we will have an educational and frank discussion among expert panelists about how to address this crisis head-on.

I’m asking you again: will you join us on Zoom Monday for our Firearm Suicide Prevention Lunch & Learn with Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, AFSP Eastern PA Director Samantha Bruno, and CeaseFirePA Director of Firearm Suicide Prevention and Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow Dr. Jay Breneman? This is a free event, but registration is required, so please click here to RSVP.

RSVP NOW

Hope you can make it,

Adam Garber
Executive Director
CeaseFirePA Education Fund

¹https://www.ceasefirepa.org/issues/firearm-suicide/

²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). https://wisqars.cdc.gov/.

³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. "Underlying Cause of Death 1980-2022, and 2023 Provisional." CDC WONDER Online Database. https://wonder.cdc.gov/.

⁴Conner, A., Azrael, D., & Miller, M. "Suicide Case-Fatality Rates in the United States, 2007 to 2014: A Nationwide Population-Based Study." Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 171, no. 12, 2019, pp. 885-895. doi: 10.7326/M19-1324.

⁵Gross, Brian W., et al. "An Epidemiologic Overview of 13 Years of Firearm Hospitalizations in Pennsylvania." Journal of Surgical Research, vol. 210, Apr. 2017, pp. 188-195.

CeaseFirePA
P.O. Box 60095
Philadelphia, PA 19102
United States

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