Officials are looking at suicides as a major cause of gun death in America. In Maryland, a mental health gun control task force is considering recommending that medical personnel report suicide threats to authorities while suicides also take center stage in Massachusetts.
Baltimore Sun: Psychiatrists, Mental Health Advocates Uneasy With Gun Policy Prescriptions
Sitting around a broad table in a nondescript office in Reisterstown last week, more than a dozen mental health advocates, medical professionals and law enforcement officials stared tensely at one another. Nearly a month after the state-created task force issued a report outlining its findings on psychiatric patients' access to firearms, several members were questioning a key recommendation -- that mental health professionals should be required to report to law enforcement all patients who threaten suicide. "Some people say they would be reporting every single person who walked through their door," said Dan Martin, a panel member representing the Mental Health Association of Maryland (Rector, 1/28).