A Pentagon-appointed committee says easy access to guns on military bases leads to more suicides

From the American Homefront Project:

An independent Pentagon committee formed last year to study military suicide released its report in February, detailing more than 100 recommendations to address the problem.

But while the Department of Defense announced immediate action on a number of the proposals — all focused on various aspects of mental health care – the department deferred action on some of the committee’s strongest recommendations, which addressed access to guns.

Instead, it formed a working group to “assess the advisability and feasibility” of the firearms recommendations, among others.

Suicide rates in the military have been on the rise for the last decade, according to the Defense Department.

Craig Bryan, a clinical psychologist and professor at Ohio State University, said addressing access to firearms is especially important to combating suicides in the military because service members are more likely to use guns to kill themselves.

Bryan, an Air Force veteran of the Iraq War, was among the experts who wrote February’s report. The committee spent almost a year researching military suicides.

He said that while just over half of all suicides in the U.S. involve a firearm, that number increases to two-thirds among military suicides. In the National Guard, the rate is four-fifths.

He said the committee heard over and over again from military leaders who were in the dark when it came to which of their service members even owned guns.

“We were really struck — we’re hearing multiple times from military lawyers, investigators … ‘the way that we discovered this service member had firearms on base was when they used it to kill themselves,'” Bryan said.

The committee recommended the Pentagon change the way guns are sold at military base exchanges. Those are essentially on-base department stores, selling everything from clothes and jewelry to electronics. Service members don’t have to pay sales tax on most items, making the exchanges attractive places to buy big-ticket goods such as TVs, computers, and appliances.

At almost 100 exchanges, service members can buy guns. Army and Air Force exchanges sold just over 74,000 guns in 2022, and Marine Corps exchanges sold more than 10,000, according to the services. The Navy said it made a “business decision” in the 1980s not to sell guns at its exchanges.

“We very quickly started learning that a significant percentage of service members who were dying by suicide on base were actually purchasing the firearms from that on-base military exchange,” Bryan said.

While military members have rights under the Second Amendment, Bryan said, the committee’s mandate was only to recommend actions that could curb suicide. He said base gun purchases kept coming up.

“Although we don’t know the exact percentage, a large number of the suicides occurring on military bases were in essence sort of tied to firearm purchases, again, on base, maybe just a couple miles away from the barracks.”

In 2021, one of those guns was purchased by Marine Sgt. Anthony Muhlstadt at Marine Corps Base Twentynine Palms in California. Muhlstadt was 23 years old and committed to being a Marine “grunt,” said his mother, Tanya Mort.

Muhlstadt bought the gun at the base exchange. Situated in the Mojave Desert, Twentynine Palms is an isolated, sprawling base. Muhlstadt, who was single, lived in the barracks, where he was not supposed to keep his gun.

But periodic room inspections never uncovered the firearm, which, by regulations, was to be kept at the base armory. Muhlstadt started experiencing symptoms of depression and was prescribed the antidepressant Prozac, Mort said.

Then, on Nov. 19, 2021, Muhlstadt used his gun to kill himself.

The act appeared unplanned, Mort said, because earlier that day her son went shopping for batteries and body wash. He also bought an extra trigger lock, she said, because he was planning on storing his gun at another Marine’s off-base residence while he went on leave.

Bryan said research supports such scenarios and is why the committee recommended action on guns.

“Amongst military personnel, over half — close to 60 percent of service members who attempt suicide — have this rapid intensification where they they first think about suicide on the day that they try to kill themselves,” he said.