BOISE, ID – Idaho has one of the highest rates of gun suicides for older Americans in the country. Data compiled by the Gun Violence Data Hub finds Idaho’s gun suicide rate for people age 70 and older was more than 22 per 100,000 residents between 2009 and 2023, the fourth highest rate in the nation. The research also finds that gun suicides among this population has increased dramatically between 2003 and 2023.
Aaron Mendelson, a data journalist with the Gun Violence Data Hub, said the research shows a clear geography for this issue.
“It’s quite often in western states, places like Idaho, rural Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, that see the highest rates of this,” he said. “And some of my sources said there is kind of the frontier mentality, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, take on everything by yourself.”
The research shows rural areas have the highest gun suicide rates for older Americans, and people over the age of 70 have the highest rate of any age group. Gun suicide kills more men 70 and older than car crashes, researchers found.
White men over 70 are far more likely to die by gun suicide than any other group, with rates three times higher than Latino or Black men and 15 times higher than white women. Mendelson noted that there are many reasons for the high suicide rate among older people.
“There’s no one thing, but we’re talking about factors like severe physical illness, pain, financial pressures, isolation, often the death of a spouse, a lack of mental health care, and the availability of firearms, these are all things that play a role, experts say, in these high rates of suicide among our older neighbors,” he added.
Mendelson said one of the most impactful interviews he did was with a woman who lost her husband to gun suicide in 2019.
“She said that suicide when she was younger was something that was kind of hidden and that we didn’t talk about it, and that things aren’t going to get better unless we talk about it,” Mendelson concluded.
