DC

  • Suicides make up 8% of all firearm deaths in DC.
  • One in every five suicides in DC are by firearm.
  • In 2019, there were 12 firearm suicide deaths in DC.
  • DC’s firearm suicide rate was not able to be compared to other states in 2019, since so few firearm suicides were reported and therefore the CDC omitted this data for confidentiality purposes.

Data

Firearm Deaths in DC
2010-2019

Number of deaths

Suicide
Homicide
Other

The “other” category is defined as any firearm death that is not defined by the CDC as a homicide or a suicide. This could include unintentional, undetermined, and legal intervention. To obtain the number of deaths in the “other” category, the total number of firearm suicide deaths and firearm homicide deaths were subtracted from the overall firearm deaths in a given year.

* Denotes years in which fewer than 10 firearm suicides were reported. The CDC suppresses data in which fewer than 10 deaths are reported. For any year in which there were less than 10 firearm suicides reported, these deaths are collapsed into the “other” category.

 

Demographics

The majority of suicide decedents are males. In DC, Black males in particular are disproportionately impacted by firearm suicide.

Firearm Suicide Deaths in DC by Sex
2015-2019

Female
Male

Firearm Suicide Rates in DC by Sex, Race, and Ethnicity
2015-2019

Age-adjusted rate per 100,000

Male

The chart above includes one racial category: (1) Black.

The CDC considers firearm suicide rates based on fewer than 20 deaths “statistically unreliable” and suppresses firearm suicide rates based on fewer than 10 deaths. Fewer than 20 firearm suicides were reported during this time period for the following races and Hispanic Origin category and therefore are omitted from the above chart: American Indian/ Alaska Native females and males, Asian/ Pacific Islander females and males, Black females, White females and males, and Hispanic/Latino females and males.

 

County Variations

Firearm Suicide Rates 2010-2019

Age-Adjusted Firearm Suicide Rate per 100,000

  • 1.38

Notes:

  • The most recently available CDC data is 2019; as such, 2019 data is used where appropriate.
  • Unless otherwise specified, statistics reflect 5-year averages (2015-2019).
  • All rates listed are age-adjusted in order to allow for accurate comparisons between populations with differing age distributions.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Suicide Deaths and Rates per 100,000. WONDER Online Database, 1999-2019. Available: http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html.

 

This page was last updated March 2021.