Fellow Advocate,
Last week, I shared the latest installment of our Deadly by Design storytelling project, where Abby described her pain at her father’s preventable murder during a middle school dance in Edinboro, PA.1 Now, on this final day of National Suicide Awareness Month, we’re uplifting stories of Pennsylvanians who have lost loved ones to firearm suicide – which accounted for 60% of gun deaths across the Commonwealth last year.2
Edie Khoury lost her husband, Micky, and her brother-in-law, Mark, to gun suicide in separate incidents. They were both military veterans who knew how to handle firearms. And like many veterans, they both struggled with mental health and thoughts of suicide. But neither of them owned a gun themselves.
Unfortunately, the gun owners around them were not responsible and did not securely store their weapons. This allowed Micky and Mark – in a moment of crisis – to seek a permanent “solution” to a temporary problem. They were able to easily access those weapons and take their own lives.
