Experts say: Restrict troops access to firearms to reduce the high rate of suicide

http://www.stripes.com/news/experts-restricting-troops-access-to-firearms-is-necessary-to-reduce-rate-of-suicides-1.199216

The horror of war, repeated deployments, the operations tempo, failed relationships, financial problems, legal trouble, depression, PTSD, TBI.
Many reasons have been suggested to explain the substantial rise in the suicide rate of soldiers that began in 2004.
Numerous prevention efforts were launched, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on studies and task forces, resilience programs and increasing access to mental health care.
Yet eight years and hundreds of deaths later, the suicide rate hasn’t improved. The number of suspected suicides in 2012 among active-duty soldiers was 166 at the end of October, surpassing the 165 total for all of 2011.
What’s gone wrong? Why hasn’t the Army or Defense Department been able to reduce the number of suicides?
Experts say it’s because efforts have ignored the most evidence-backed, proven prevention method: making suicide harder by restricting access to lethal means.
“There are two ways to reduce suicide: You can make it harder for them to die in an attempt, or you can heal underlying distress,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, the associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“The idea is to restrict methods that are the most lethal, to provide a second chance,” Miller said.
“Means restriction,” as it’s called in public health, has been proven to reduce the suicide rate in a wide variety of places.
In 2006, after years of suicides among young men in the Israel Defense Forces, authorities forbade the troops from bringing their rifles home on weekends. Suicides dropped by 40 percent, according to a 2010 study by psychiatrists with the IDF and the Sheba Medical Center.