IT TAKES JUST ONE

Mass shootings and crime get the most attention, but more than half of people who die with firearms take their own lives. Misconceptions about guns and the psychology of suicide itself are getting in the way of keeping our loved ones safe. Here's what you need to know.

- MERYL DAVIDS LANDAU

WHEN GWEN LA CROIX THINKS ABOUT HER SON JONAH, she remembers the creative child drawing his favorite character, Sonic the Hedgehog. She recalls how, as a 6'2" teenager, he adored pickup basketball. And she marvels at how well he seemed to be doing, starting an early-college program while still in high school.

But one autumn night in 2016 is always at the forefront of her mind. She and Jonah, then 17, got into a disagreement about politics that escalated. Since second grade, Jonah had struggled with (and been treated for) mental health issues. When their argument finally ended, Gwen assumed that Jonah had gone out walking, something he did regularly to calm himself down. With her husband at work, Gwen took her younger children and her mother in-law out to run an errand.

While they were gone, Jonah, who turned out to have stayed in his bedroom, retrieved his father's handgun from a hall dresser and killed himself.

In the swirl of a busy life, Gwen, then 47, a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Milan, MI, hadn't realized that since the family had moved to a new home that summer, the gun, one of more than half a dozen in her husband's collection, was no longer properly secured in a locker. I had no idea the gun was in that drawer,” she says. Obviously, Jonah knew this. The tragedy ultimately broke up Gwen's marriage and sparked a mental health crisis for her other son, 6 at the time. The fallout is awful, and it continues,” Gwen says now.

The largest proportion of firearm fatalities in the U.S. gun violence epidemic, some six out of 10, happen via suicide, and the number is growing. Gun suicides now kill nearly 24,000 Americans each year an average of 64 every day), according to the advocacy and education group Everytown for Gun Safety, up 12% from a decade ago. Gun suicides in young people are up a startling 53% in that time frame.

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW CAN HURT US