Sharp Increase In Gun Suicides Signals Growing Public Health Crisis

When Dorothy Paugh was 9, her father bought a pistol and started talking openly about ending his life. Her mother was terrified but didn’t know what to do.

“She called our priest and called his best friend,” Paugh recalled. “They came and talked to him, and they didn’t ask to take his gun away.”

Her father was 51 when he shot himself to death.