Black women have a higher suicide rate than white women. Rich or poor, doesn’t matter — Black women in the highest income bracket kill themselves 20% more often than white women in the lowest.
When they do, they generally use handguns — most U.S. suicides are with handguns, because guns are such efficient killing machines.
This kept flashing in my mind reading Bob Chiarito’s piece in Wednesday’s Sun-Times, “Surprised Kamala Harris owns a gun?” This is not a criticism of Bob’s article. He recounts the stories of real Chicago women who purchase guns to feel more secure and talks to a gun safety instructor, who says that of her 3,000 students, none has ever had to use her gun. He mentions the risks.
Rather, I am writing to air the other half of the equation Bob cites only in passing. Guns get great PR in America. Yes, there is the increasingly muted horror at increasingly common school shootings. Some obscure town is projected into the news, parents race to the scene, terrified kids rush out with their hands on their heads. It all fades in a day.
How can that compete with Clint Eastwood? “Dirty Harry?” The movie opened on Christmas 1971, and more than half a century later, we all know the message: The man — or woman — with the gun gets the drop on the bad guys. “Go ahead, make my day.” Add all those surveillance videos of robbers getting gunned down on X. We never see videos of kids shooting each other.
I don’t want to ignore the value of guns as comfort objects. You may live in a dangerous area. You have a gun locked in a drawer, it gives you a sense of security. I live in quiet, safe Northbrook, am neither Black nor a woman. Who am I to have an opinion on this? To call guns “teddy bears with bullets?”
Well, someone whose job it is, in part, to warn people of perils they might otherwise overlook. If you buy a gun, the chances of you, or your family, being killed by a gun jump. Yes, you tell yourself, if you hear someone breaking in, you can calmly go and unlock the drawer and protect yourself until the police come.
But what if that break-in never happens? What about the rest of the time? Years and years? That gun sits there and is a menace only to the people in the vicinity — aka, you and your loved ones. You might have a dark night of the soul you never anticipated and use it on yourself. Or you might leave the drawer unlocked and your overly inquisitive nephew finds it.
I like to do the math. In 2020, the suicide rate among Black women was 3.4 per 100,000. As soon as I found that, I wondered how that compared to the murder rate — how does the risk of someone killing you compare to the risk of you killing yourself? — and stumbled into some staggering figures. The murder rate for Black women is 11.9 per 100,000. Black women are six times more likely to be murdered than white women.
On the surface, that would seem to be an argument for guns. Sure, owning a gun increases (actually doubles) the chances of you killing yourself. But your risk of being murdered is greater still, so get the gun.
Except owning a gun doesn’t reduce the chances you’ll be a victim of violent crime. Every step you take away from that locked drawer makes the gun inside less useful, and keeping it at the ready in your purse means it’s also more of a threat to you. Guns are rarely used in self-defense.
They are rarely used at all. Remember, most police officers never fire a shot in the line of duty outside the firing range.
If you’re going to live in terror otherwise, sure, buy a gun, lock it in a drawer, and tell yourself if something bad happens, it’ll happen in slow enough motion, close enough to the drawer, that you can get the gun and save yourself. It does happen. Rarely.
Or you can skip the gun, spare the expense and avoid the very real risk. It’s hard to shoot yourself with a gun that isn’t there. As a rule, I try not to meddle in another man’s — or woman’s — fantasy world. But I figure, I have this megaphone, maybe I can reach one person, save one life.
So before getting a gun, ask yourself first: Who’s going to get shot with your gun? How can you be certain?