One can’t help seeing the mordant grins on the faces of America’s fast-growing gun suicides as these people glance, on their way out, at one lucrative, self-congratulatory, and predictably failed effort to reduce gun suicides.
In 2016, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention teamed up with the National Shooting Sports Foundation to reduce suicide by 20% by 2025. (“Firearms were the leading cause of suicide among males and females in 2022. The rate of firearm-related suicide among males increased 31% after reaching a low of 10.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2006 to 13.5 per 100,000 in 2022.” By 2024, we see a “staggering” suicide rise.)
This article provides the gory details, but the main thing you need to know is that there is rather… uh… a glaring gap between the interests of anti-suicide crusaders and gun sellers.
The now-ended project did succeed in generating money for the two groups; and of course it enabled their leaders to use phrases like scaled implementation.