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ABC News: COVID-19’s impact could include 20 more firearm suicides per day this year, analysis shows

7.7.2020

The study comes from the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, a non profit organization which advocates for gun control. Researchers at Everytown looked back at prior crises that led to massive unemployment, including the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession that ended in 2010.

The Great Recession, for example, led to an estimated 4,750 additional deaths by suicide — though not all specifically by firearms. Based on Everytown’s research of the impacts of unemployment on suicide from past recessions, the researchers estimate this economic downturn could lead to a 20 to 30% increase in the number of lives lost to suicide in the United States in 2020: an additional 5,000 to 7,000 lives.