> Although the new data are consistent with other evidence that firearm violence has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic,5 the reasons for the increase are unclear,
Seems like there is a pretty obvious candidate for that, lockdowns.
Still, only time will tell, as they go on to say with the rest of that quote:
> and it cannot be assumed that firearm-related mortality will later revert to prepandemic levels.
When most people say "gun violence" they do not mean gun-as-tool-used-in-suicide, they mean nonconsensual use of a firearm against someone.
Suicides are way up. Gun murders are up too, but they're still pretty low in the scheme of things. They're "safe to completely ignore" low if you're not in one of a few specific counties in the US where gang violence causes 70-90% of the gun murders.
The movie plot/evening news gun violence stuff that you hear about is so rare as to be safely ignored in all parts of the US.
> The consensus among public health experts is that there is strong evidence that reducing firearm suicides in contexts where more-lethal means of attempting suicide are unavailable will result in reductions in the total suicide rate (see, for example, Office of the Surgeon General and National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, 2012; World Health Organization, 2014; for review, see Azrael and Miller, 2016).
[1] https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/suicide.ht...
It shows there is zero correlation.
For example, imagine we find that higher speed limits increase the rate of automobile accidents in a given area. That finding doesn't preclude that poorly maintained roads might also increase the rate of accidents. So just the existence of an area with a high level of car accidents and very low speed limits doesn't necessarily mean that there is no correlation or causal link between speed limits and automobile accidents. It may just mean that the area suffers greatly from other causes (like poorly maintained roads).
Similarly, I think it is fairly intuitive to assume that there are probably a host of causal factors in suicide rates. For sure, means isn't the only factor but it is an important one.
There's been research into means reduction, and it does seem to have an effect on reducing suicide. The hypothesis is fairly intuitive: many suicides are a response to a crisis, and a human in crisis-mode is not always a great problem solver; lack of an obvious means sometimes gives people some extra time to reconsider.
You can read a high level summary of some of the research here: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/
Unclear the portion that is suicides but homicides are the fastest growing segment beyond unintentional poisonings