Giving up our gun-buying rights is a form of self-defense through suicide prevention
This column contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know might be struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255.
In its recent opinion striking down New York's handgun law, the Supreme Court places the Second Amendment right to bear arms "above all other interests." That's a direct quote, and they mean it.
As far as the court is concerned, whether a gun safety measure saves lives is now irrelevant to its constitutionality. The right to bear arms prevails at law, no matter how many people it kills.
Gun suicides in the United States claimed 24,292 lives in 2020 – that’s 66 people each day. The court's legal analysis does not care.
Supreme Court's faulty rationale
A key premise of the court's faulty rationale is that the lack of a "distinctly similar historical regulation" may be evidence that a new regulation violates the Second Amendment. In other words, unless a gun-safety law looks very similar to a law that existed at the nation's founding, it may be unconstitutional.
The only way this makes any sense is if legislators in the 1700s considered every possible gun regulation, adopted all proposals that they thought were constitutional and rejected all the others solely because they were unconstitutional. To use legislative inaction to delimit the outer bounds of a constitutional right is just silly.
Value the Constitution?: Then you must be fine with the Supreme Court nixing New York's gun law
Our elected officials might be stuck in this morass, but you are not. The Second Amendment protects a right; it does not create a duty. Legislators cannot force you to own a gun. Neither can the court.
The purpose of the right to bear arms, according to the court, is self-defense. But there is a strong argument that, at least for some of us, the best method of self-defense is choosing not to bear arms.
Gun suicides vs. gun murders
Gun suicides claim more lives than gun murders. A study involving a cohort of more than 26 million California residents found the rate of suicide by firearm was nearly eight times as high among men who own handguns as that among men who don't own handguns. For women, the rate of suicide by firearm was 35 times as high among handgun owners as it was among those who don't own handguns.
Some argue that if you limit access to guns, people will just choose to die by another method. Some do switch methods, to be sure, but many do not – and most who seek another method when they cannot obtain a gun survive that suicide attempt because guns are far more lethal.
Secretary-general of the U.N.: 5 steps to help us kick fossil fuel addiction and save the planet
The risk of suicide is much higher among people with mental illness, and access to firearms makes the risk of a completed suicide far higher still. Accordingly, the two of us have decided not to own guns. One of us suffers from major depressive disorder, and the other suffers from bipolar disorder.
Our choice to refuse to possess guns is a choice to protect ourselves from our mental illnesses. But in a suicidal crisis, either of us could walk right into a gun store to buy a firearm. To test this, we recently went to a gun shop and within about 15 minutes made it to the last step in the process to purchase a handgun.
Three states lead in 'voluntary do-not-sell list'
A solution to this problem already exists in three states: In Utah, Virginia and Washington, you can temporarily suspend your own ability to purchase a firearm. You can change your mind later, but there is a cooling off period before you can again buy a gun.
I've buried many gun violence victims: Court decision means I'll bury more
This is sometimes referred to as a "voluntary do-not-sell list." Signing up will reduce your risk of impulsive gun suicide. Being unable to purchase a gun in that crucial moment can save your life.
Research shows that many people want to sign up, and dozens have already done so. A majority of gun owners support the law.
Unfortunately, those three states are the only ones with laws that allow people to protect themselves in this way. A resident of one of the other 47 states needs a federal law or a new state law in their state.
But there is hope.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, have introduced the Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act, and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., has joined as a cosponsor. The bill would allow people to enroll themselves voluntarily on a do-not-sell list
Call and email your representatives and senators to urge them to pass the bill. No matter how sweeping the court makes the Second Amendment, we the people can choose not to exercise it, now or later.
Call 988: Finally, a three-digit suicide prevention hotline
It will take time to pass new laws, but you can do one more thing right now. The number of participants in each state (but not their names) is publicly available and periodically reported. Signing up today by mail in Virginia – which allows nonresidents to register for its do-not-sell list – will send a powerful message to the Supreme Court about its dangerous and illogical expansion of gun rights: Thanks, but no thanks.
Heather Elliott and Fredrick Vars are professors at the University of Alabama School of Law. Vars and Ian Ayres co-authored the book "Weapon of Choice: Fighting Gun Violence While Respecting Gun Rights."
This column is part of a series by USA TODAY Opinion about police accountability and building safer communities. The project began in 2021 by examining qualified immunity and continues in 2022 by examining various ways to improve law enforcement. The project is made possible in part by a grant from Stand Together, which does not provide editorial input.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Suicide prevention: How we took control of our 2nd Amendment rights
