Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/suicidal-ideation/)
Daily, an average of 17 U.S. veterans has resorted to suicide, taking their lives at a 52.3% greater rate than other Americans did in 2019, when 6,261 veterans died by suicide. Firearms were involved in 69.2% of those deaths. Veterans aged 34 and younger died at a higher rate than any other former service members.
It had been scarcely a year since his son was discharged from the Navy following a suicide attempt, Ramon Day said, and only a few months since he’d voluntarily undergone in-patient care at Mental Health Resource Center in Jacksonville, Fla. So, when then 25-year-old Tyler Day returned from a Department of Veterans Affairs counseling appointment and offhandedly mentioned that he’d bought a gun, his father was stunned.
“You having a gun upsets me a great deal,” Ramon Day said, recalling his fright over his son’s revelation back in the summer of 2011. “If you would do me a personal favor, return the gun.”