Maine Investing $230M in Behavioral Health After Gun Deaths

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine will make investments $230 million in statewide suicide prevention and psychological well being companies after a report discovered that greater than 85% of gun deaths in 2020 have been suicides.

The state report launched this week concluded that 132 of the 154 individuals killed by weapons in 2020 died by suicide. In keeping with the report, 118 of the suicides affected males, The Portland Press Herald reported Wednesday.

The analysis carried out by the state’s Heart for Illness Management and Division of Human Companies coincides with the gun management debate that has reignited throughout the U.S. after 19 youngsters and two academics have been killed in a faculty capturing in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 Black individuals have been killed in a racist capturing in a grocery retailer in Buffalo, New York.

Many states have adopted so-called crimson flag legal guidelines, which take firearms away from individuals who might do hurt to themselves or others. Florida handed a regulation after the Parkland highschool capturing in 2018. In Maine, a “yellow flag” regulation requires a medical skilled to log off earlier than weapons can be eliminated. Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins has pushed for one thing related on the federal stage.

State lawmakers and advocates have additionally referred to as for an overhaul of Maine’s psychological well being system and additional limiting entry to gun possession for individuals in disaster, the Press Herald reported.

Rep. Lori Gramlich, a Democrat who sponsored the invoice that led to the report, stated “essentially the most alarming information level on this report is relating to suicides and that’s a psychological well being situation.”

Greg Marley, director of suicide prevention on the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness of Maine, stated he was not shocked by the info however he hopes the report will enhance consciousness across the position of weapons in suicide and creating preventive measures.

Maine is beneath the nationwide common in relation to gun violence, however has a a lot greater fee of suicide and suicide makes an attempt utilizing weapons, in keeping with Everytown for Gun Security, a nonprofit which tracks gun deaths throughout the nation.

This story was first printed on June 8, 2022. It was up to date on June 9, 2022, to appropriate the headline to say the state is investing cash in behavioral well being, not simply suicide prevention; and the story to say cash is being invested in suicide prevention and psychological well being companies, not suicide prevention and psychological well being consciousness.

Copyright 2022 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.