How Will All These Guns Be Used?

Nathan Gagnon
4 min readJul 20, 2020

Many news agencies reported last week that guns have been selling at an increased rate both since the start of the pandemic and with the recent civil unrest surrounding the Black Lives Matter protest movement. 40% of sales are to first time gun owners, a class of buyer that usually accounts for 25% of gun sales. Early on, frightened citizens worried about possible volatility with regard to the scarcity of general supplies from food to paper goods armed themselves for possible clashes over resources. With recent calls to defund the police, citizens have taken upon themselves to protect their own interests with their first time purchase of a firearm.

Despite initial hysteria and concerns about the availability of meat, food and general goods, supplies have remained widely available, if at a slightly higher cost. While Black Lives Matter protests have not gone away, the nation is not seeing continued destruction of public storefronts and rioting that resulted in the immediate aftermath of the killing of George Floyd across the country. It seems unlikely that home protecting citizens will defend their households from marauding civil disobedients in search of toilet paper and retribution for Breonna Taylor. That scene from the Turner Diaries will likely remain fiction.

Those guns, though, will remain in America. What are some statistically relevant facts about our current situation and the existence of ever increasing guns in the household?

The United States economy is currently officially in recession and on the brink of depression. Unemployment is officially sitting at 11% with 40 million people having applied for benefits over the course of the pandemic. Unemployment filings continue to eclipse the million person mark. Our current low marks per week of unemployment filings are worse than the highest weeks from the Great Recession. What is more, economists have speculated that up to 40% of that job loss will be permanent, due to either business closure, positions being replaced by automation, or positions being eliminated. Time will tell if the reconvening congress, president Trump, or a possible incoming president Biden will enact any major policies that impact the immediate economic environment, the United States is looking at a prolonged fiscal fiasco. Those guns will remain in the homes of the un- and underemployed.

A 2012 study in the British medical journal The Lancet examined the impact of the Great Recession on suicide rates and found that with each percentage increase in unemployment, the suicide rate increased by a percentage point. What is more, the United States has seen a continued increase in recent years in suicide rates in nearly every demographic, increasing by 35% from 1999 to 2018. Men have continued to die by suicide at nearly four times the rate of women, accounting for 70% of all suicides. White middle aged men have been the demographic most likely to die by suicide. Coincidentally, white men have also been the group that accounts for the largest percentage of gun ownership. Suicide by firearm is also the preferred method for men, accounting for 50% of deaths by suicide. Lastly, a New England Journal of Medicine study from March of this year found an increase in suicide and recent handgun ownership. The study notes that an increase in handgun ownership by women displayed a stark increase in suicide by firearm.

What are some general trends to be gleaned? We are in for a severe and prolonged economic downturn. Economic downturn indicates a possible rise in suicide. Groups who own more guns (white men) die at a higher rate of suicide. If more people than ever are now buying guns, it is logical to expect that with the increased economic stress, more suicides from firearms will result.

Fear drives gun sales. Fear of an external intruder. Fear of Black rioters destroying your home. Fear of something on the outside coming in. While the protection from an external threat is often the inciting incident to purchase a firearm, it is the internal situation that is resolved by the presence of the gun. But, when the fear is not directed at some menacing external threat but your invasive thoughts of financial fear, the gun will play a different role. The gun will pacify the threat doing the only thing it can, shooting the intruder. With the extreme increase in gun sales of recent weeks and months, we need to similarly see an increase in mental health outreach. Fending off this invasion will be a lonely battle that far too many of these new gun owners will lose to themselves.

Sources:

https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-sales-surge-over-growing-safety-concerns-first-time-buyers-2020-7?fbclid=IwAR3wxH-NisIDyEN_yIg8PVa8L5m2iIJdgnDtTBiNwj10UCuF2pUKn5F62Fs

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/05/15/some-42-of-jobs-lost-in-pandemic-are-gone-for-good/#221af0ce50ab

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2007658

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Nathan Gagnon

Thinker. Writer. Coach. MakingKairos.com. Making Kairos on iTunes, Stitcher, or other podcast providers.