Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

About the author: The Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence was founded in 1978 as an educational charity dedicated to ending gun violence. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is composed of forty-four civic, professional, and religious organizations and 120,000 individual members that advocate banning the sale and possession of all firearms.

Suicides in which a firearm is used account for nearly half the annual suicides in the United States. Using a gun to commit suicide almost always results in death, while other methods—such as poisoning —are not always lethal. Since teenagers are especially impulsive, they may believe the answer to their problems is suicide. If a gun is easily accessible, an...