Study Reveals That Whites More Likely to Shoot Themselves Than African Americans

A new survey has found that whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else. According to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a white person is five times likely to commit suicide with a gun than to be shot with a gun.

The survey found that for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns, the Washington Post reports.

According to the report, where a person lives matters too. Gun deaths in urban areas are much more likely to be homicides, while suicide is the dominant form of gun death in rural areas.

States with the most guns per capita, such as Montana and Wyoming, have the highest suicide rates and states with low gun ownership rates, such as Massachusetts and New York, have far fewer suicides per capita.

Suicides and homicides are volatile human dramas. Both acts shatter families, friends and sometimes communities.

But the reactions are as different as black and white, and those differences shape the nation's divided attitudes toward gun control, the report said.

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For example, African Americans tend to be stronger backers of tough gun controls than whites. A Washington Post-ABC News Poll found that about three-quarters of blacks support stronger controls, compared with about half of whites.

The poll also found that two-thirds of city dwellers support stronger gun controls, while only about a third of rural residents back them.

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Source-ANI