Gun Owners Are Three Times More Likely to Die from Suicide or Murder-Related Occurrences

Citizens who have ready access to a firearm have a higher risk of dying from suicide and murder, a new study on past research has found.

The analysis, which was published in the "Annals of Internal Medicine" on Monday, found that people who had guns in their homes were about two to three times more likely to die from an arm-related occurrence, Reuters reported.

"There have been a lot of conflicting reports about having a firearm in the home," lead author and epidemiologist from the University of California, San Francisco Andrew Anglemyer told Reuters.

Researchers looked to 14 studies conducted between 1988 and 2005 that examined suicide risks among citizens who both did and didn't have immediate access to firearms. They also studied five analyses that considered gun access and murder risk, along with four other studies that looked at both murder and suicide risk, Reuters reported.

All of the studies except for one revealed that people who could reach a gun easily had higher risks of suicide and murder-related deaths.

"Most analyses will find some conflicting studies. That's not at all what we see here," Anglemyer said.

Those who had access to a gun were three times more likely to kill themselves using a firearm. Additionally, researchers also discovered a two-fold spike of murder-related risk for people who could reach a firearm easily.

Women had an even more increased risk of being killed, according to Reuters.

"The lethality of the weapons drives the increased risk of suicide and homicide completion," the University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Brian Smith and Rose Cheney wrote in an email to Reuters. "Firearms have very high case fatality rates, particularly in the case of suicide. Guns leave very little room for reconsideration of the choice to end a life."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, according to Reuters. Nearly 12 of every 100,000 people die by committing suicide every year.