Increases in gun sales and suicide make for a deadly combination for AANHPI communities.

The rise in anti-Asian hate spurs increased gun sales by AANHPI. 

Last July, Sania Khan, a Pakistani American photographer who had recently moved to Chicago, was allegedly shot and killed by her ex-husband, Raheel Ahmed. Add their deaths to the growing number of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who die from gun violence.

Rising gun sales and the rising suicide rate is proving to be a deadly combination for the AANHPI communities.

Exploiting the increase in hate crimes against AANHPI communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the gun industry is targeting those communities as potential new gun buyers and future pro-gun advocates, according to a 2021 study from the Violence Policy Center (VPC).

“If the same right-wing forces that fostered this environment now encourage members of the AAPI community to take up arms as a self-protection measure, that would be the ultimate deadly irony, Varun Nikore, Executive Director of the AAPI Victory Alliance. "The vast majority of Asian Americans are immigrants, or children of immigrants, who are learning what it means to be an American. For far too many, being American means being able to pick up a gun to solve all of their problems. This is a lesson Asian Americans should not and must not learn.”

This ominous gun-buying trend could lead to a rise in suicides in AANHPI communities, a leading cause of death among that group, especially among young adults.

GUNMAKERS TARGET AANHPI MARKET

“Much like the tobacco industry’s search for replacement smokers, the firearms industry is seeking replacement shooters," says Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director, Violence Policy Center. "The targeting of Asian Americans is just the latest example of how gunmakers will cynically exploit any tragedy to fatten their bottom line, regardless of the lethal real-world impact of their actions.”

The study, How the Firearms Industry Markets Guns to Asian Americans, was released last year by the VPC, MomsRising, Newtown Action Alliance, AAPI Victory Fund, and Asian Americans directly impacted by gun violence.

The firearms industry and gun lobby are currently targeting minority communities in their marketing in response to long-term stagnation in the traditional gun market of white men.

An April study from the Annals of Internal Medicine, which surveyed more than half a million Californians, found that people who live with handgun owners are shot to death at a higher rate than those who live in gun-free homes. Women made up 84% of victims.

Data on firearm use by AANHPI is limited, as the group, even though they make up about 7% of the US population. However, AANHPI communities have historically had low gun ownership rates.

HIGH SUICIDE RATE

What is alarming though, is what the rise in gun ownership might mean to AANHPI communities, which have a high rate of suicide, especially among young adults. It would be like pouring gasoline on a fire.

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From 2015 to 2019, FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report documented justifiable firearm homicides committed by Asian Americans. By contrast, more than 3,000 Asian Americans died in firearm suicides, homicides and accidental shootings during the same time period. Among Asian American youth, the firearm suicide rate rose by 71% over the last decade – the largest growth of any racial or ethnic group, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before the pandemic hit US shores in 2020, young AANHPI had among the lowest rates of suicide for any demographic. According to Everytown, during that same period, young Asians and Pacific Islanders have the fastest-growing firearm suicide rate of any racial/ethnic group.

There are many factors elevating this risk of suicide, such as discrimination, ethnic marginalization, and acculturation. AANHPI youth harboring thoughts of suicide also indicate family conflicts and school pressures as significant stress-inducing factors.

Additionally, AANHPI are known to seek help at the lowest rate in comparison to other demographics, as evidenced by research showing that AANHPI adolescents are three times less likely than their white peers to have a mental health diagnosis or have received treatment prior to dying by suicide.

It is safe to assume that the additional pressures caused by the pandemic and the epidemic of anti-Asian hate from March 2020 when the pandemic was declared to the present day has only added to the stress.

Although there is no hard data to support the increase in gun purchases by AANHPI, there is anecdotal evidence that this trend is real.

Time magazine reports that at Jimmy’s Sportshop in Mineola, N.Y., where guns and pepper spray have been flying off the shelves since the pandemic, gun purchases by Asian buyers have surged 100% due to recent fears of attacks, according to Jimmy Gong and Jay Zeng, the shop’s Chinese American owners.

Al Allen, owner of Double Action Indoor Shooting Center and Gun Shop in Madison Heights, near Detroit, told Detroit News he's forced to shut down his store for two hours each afternoon to restock — "and the merchandise is going out as fast as we can bring it in," he said.

Allen said more Asians are buying guns from his shop than at any time in the 30 years he's been in business. "I'd say right now, Asians are about 35% of our customer base, and it's usually maybe around 8%," Allen said.

Today, youth firearm suicide has reached its highest rate in more than 20 years. As students continue to navigate changes in school learning environments — a result of the ongoing challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic — there is concern that the anxiety and loneliness already felt by many young people will continue to increase. This comes at the same time as an unprecedented surge in gun sales in the US, raising concern about the already growing rates of firearm suicide.

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the lives of teens and young adults well beyond the direct impacts of the illness itself. Experts are concerned that social isolation, along with fear surrounding the virus, can increase feelings of anxiety and loneliness,4 two factors that elevate the risk of suicide for people of all ages, according to Everytown, a gun-control advocacy group.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES) collected during the first half of 2021 found that one in five high school students seriously contemplated suicide and nearly one in 10 attempted suicide in the past year. Another recent CDC study uncovered a disturbing rise in the rate of ER visits for suspected suicide attempts among young people ages 12 to 25 during periods of the first year of the pandemic.

Students and families have had to adjust to a new normal as campuses resume in-person learning in the midst of this pandemic. 

LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AMONG YOUNG

Looking at youth and young adults, however, in 2019 suicide ranked as the leading cause of death for AANHPI young people, ages 15 to 24. Almost a quarter, 24%, of those suicides were by use of a firearm.

Consequently, the pandemic’s negative effects on mental health will likely continue as spikes in coronavirus cases due to variants have contributed to ongoing uncertainty. This ready access to guns is deeply concerning given that nearly three in four firearm suicides by young people take place in or around a home and over 80% of firearm suicides by children (age 18 or younger) involve a gun belonging to a family member.

But the gun industry has not shown any indication of abandoning their marketing strategy of selling guns to AANHPI communities. 

The gun industry frequently focuses on the self-defense use of firearms, a surefire draw for those AANHPI who have lost faith on the courts or law enforcement to protect them. The VPC study rebuts these false claims, citing unpublished FBI data showing that in 2019 alone, across the US, AANHPI committed only two firearm justifiable homicides and that, for the five-year period 2015 to 2019, AANHPI committed only 37 firearm justifiable homicides. During this same five-year period, 3,076 Asian/Pacific Islanders lost their lives in firearm homicides, suicides, fatal unintentional shootings, and other gun deaths: a ratio of 83 to one.

Using data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study also reveals that in the decade from 1999 to 2019 more than 10,000 Asian/Pacific Islanders died from guns in the United States.

“Historically, Asian Americans have owned very few guns, which is precisely why we have experienced low rates of gun violence," says Gloria Pan, Vice President, MomsRising. "Safety through gun ownership is a myth that gun manufacturers peddle, and one Asian Americans must not succumb to because every credible study has shown that more gun ownership in a community only leads to more gun-related injury and death."

Not surprisingly, the firearms industry and its financial partners in the National Rifle Association never acknowledge the harm guns inflict on our nation, and on communities of color in particular. 

The VPC study concludes: “For any American, regardless of race or ethnicity, bringing a gun into the home increases the risk of death or injury to the owner or a family member. If the marketing efforts targeting the AAPI community gain traction, the impact will be measured not only in dollars and cents in gunmakers’ coffers, but in increased death and injury among Asian Americans.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.