	Our current culture treats suicide with a very two-faced approach: while almost one in every two people knows someone who has died by suicide, we do not speak of it. Suicidality is kept locked away as if just breathing its name gives it more power, similar to one dark lord from JK Rowling’s timeless boy wizard books. However, suicide does not discriminate. Regardless of how much attention is paid to it, it continues to take and claim lives. Suicide is one of the only causes of death besides natural causes that spans every single civilization and culture – while the reasons behind it might shift from country to country the end result remains the same whether in Nairobi, Kenya or Edmonton, Canada: someone has taken their own life, and the lives of those who loved that person will never be the same again. While there are many means to achieve this heartbreaking end, by far the most lethal and successful method would be via firearm, or a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
	This review of published literature seeks to discover a common thread between firearm ownership and suicidality. It establishes the differences between regions and genders, and which areas might be more or less likely to possess a firearm or attempt suicide with one. It then moves on to analyze policy and programs that are put in place with intention of preventing firearm suicides, and argues that the correlation discovered might be more pertinent than we as average American citizens might realize.
	As noted by Siegel and Rothman, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in America, taking the lives of over 40,000 people each year. 
 Especially with the advent of cyber bullying and widespread Internet consumption among a newer subset of Americans, the suicide attempt rate among our younger citizens might still increase without intervention. Although suicide is a factor that does not mind circumstance, there are certain populations that are more prone to experiencing suicidal ideations and ultimately attempting suicide. 
	While the methods of attempt change and vary across the span of time, the ratios remain fairly equal. 
 Callanan and Davis go on to contend that the logic behind this is because women are less likely to know how to use and control a gun as compared to men, and therefore they are more prone to “other suicide methods such as poisoning or drowning”. Women are also oftentimes less impulsive than men, and less likely to be violent when angry – this leads to men sometimes grabbing onto a firearm as a knee-jerk reaction, and unfortunately this impulsive reaction is one that has disastrous long-term effects for so many more than just the victim.
	Additionally, Searles, Valley, Hedegaard and Betz came to the conclusion that people who live in rural areas are more likely to die by firearm suicide.
