Mindy McCready: Would Gun Control Have Prevented Suicide?

Could Mindy McCready’s suicide have been prevented with better gun control?

Country singer Mindy McCready, whose music seemed only a shadow of her troubled personal life, made several suicide attempts in the last ten years. This time she used a gun and succeeded.

Shooting suicides such as that of Mindy McCready are renewing attention in the national debate over gun control even after the Newtown massacre began to fade. Almost 20,000 of the more than 31,000 gun-related deaths each year in the US are due to suicide. That number outweighs even gun-related homicides.

According to USA Today, suicide attempts involving guns have proven to be 85 percent effective, making firearms the leading method of suicide in the US. In comparison with pills, which result in two percent successful suicides, guns are by far the most lethal.

Psychiatrist Kenneth Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, commented:

“It’s access to weaponry that turns desperate people into suicides.”

So owning a gun made Mindy McCready kill herself? Most of us think it goes a little deeper than that.

Mindy McCready, 37, died in her Arkansas home Sunday after shooting herself. She had gone into rehab last month after her boyfriend, record producer David Wilson, shot himself. It is statistically proven that people whose loved ones commit suicide are more likely to do it themselves.

The loved ones of those who commit suicide often contemplate the reasoning behind why the loved ones wanted to die. Mental health professionals attempting to prevent suicide say the means is more important.

Do you think a mental health issue is less important than the way suicide might be attempted? Was Mindy McCready’s suicide a gun control issue?

How long will it be until Mindy McCready’s death becomes a gun control issue?

— Joe Jetts (@JoeJetts) February 18, 2013