4 June 2022 | New Scientist | 21RATES of suicide using a firearm
have declined globally in the past
three decades, but remain high
in high-income nations. In the
US, rates are lower than they
ere in 1990, although they have
been rising ever since 2006.
Irena Ilic at the University
of Belgrade in Serbia and her
colleagues analysed data from
204 countries and found that,
between 1990 and 2019, the global
rate of firearm suicide decreased
by 2 per cent a year on average.
That fits within a broader
global trend of falling suicide
rates, says Paul Nestadt at Johns
Hopkins University in Maryland.
But the drop in gun-related
suicides probably reflects
tighter firearm restrictions.
“There have been a variety of
countries recognising the role
of guns in suicide, and that is
likely contributing to decreasing
rates,” says Nestadt.
Each year, more than 700,000
people worldwide die by suicide,
according to the World Health
Organization. More than three-
quarters of suicides occur in
low and middle-income countries.
But for those suicides involving
a firearm, rates are greatest
in high-income countries,
including the US, France, Canada,
Switzerland, Finland and Norway.In the US, 23,365 people died
from firearm suicide in 2019.
That is 5.76 per 100,000 people,
but just looking at men and boys,
it is 10.13 per 100,000, according to
the new analysis. China, Japan and
Singapore have some of the lowest
rates, with less than 0.03 firearm
suicide deaths per 100,000 people.
Several studies have shown
that stricter gun control laws
are associated with lower rates
of firearm suicide. For instance,before Australia passed legislation
restricting firearm access in 1996,
gun-related suicide rates were
falling by an average of 3 per cent
a year. After the laws were in place,
they dropped by 7.4 per cent a year.
Austria saw a similar decline
after the introduction of gun
controls in 1997. Such measures
have been shown to reduce
firearm suicide rates in the US too.
Although such rates are lower
in the US than they were in 1990,
they have been rising since 2006,
coinciding with growing access
to guns. Since 2000, the number
of firearms made each year
has nearly tripled, according
to a recent report from the
US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives.
Because suicide attempts are
often impulsive acts, access to
guns increases the risk of death.
A 2020 study that followed
26 million California residents
for 12 years found that men
who owned handguns wereeight times more likely to die from
firearm suicide compared with
those who didn’t. For women who
owned a handgun, the likelihood
increased to 35 times.
Of all suicide attempts, 8.5 per
cent result in death. That rises to
90 per cent when a gun is used.
Gun access doesn’t mean someone
will die by gun versus another
method, says Nestadt, “it means
someone will die by gun instead
of surviving. And, importantly,
for people who survive a suicide
attempt, the vast majority never
go on to die by suicide later.”
Beyond access to firearms,
childhood poverty, alcohol
consumption and unemployment
are also associated with firearm
suicide, according to the analysis
by Ilic and her colleagues (PLoS
One, doi.org/gp7gcg). ❚Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans:
116123 (samaritans.org). Visit
bit. ly/SuicideHelplines for hotlines
and websites for other countriesGun violence
Grace Wade
Firearm suicides are increasing in
the US, despite declining globally
Technology
A QUANTUM computer made
of charged atoms can catch its
own errors when performing
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step towards more reliable and
practical quantum computers.
Conventional computers
routinely flag and correct their own
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quantum computers will have to
do the same. However, quantum
effects can make errors cascade
quickly through the qubits, or
quantum bits, in these devices.
Lukas Postler at the University
of Innsbruck in Austria and his
colleagues have now built a
quantum computer that runs
any calculation without errors.
Any operation of a quantum
computer can be broken down
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quantum gates. These can be
applied to a qubit by hitting it with
a laser to change its quantum state.
The researchers created a set of
gates that are building blocks for
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and that keep even the most
complex of them error-free.
They used electric fields to trap
14 calcium ions in place, forming
two so-called logical qubits, each
made of seven entangled ions.
Two more qubits served as
“flags” that let the computer
know when some erroneouscomputation needed to be corrected
(Nature, doi.org/gp7f68).
“With this universal set of
gates, you can approximate
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can possibly want to do with a
quantum computer,” says Postler.
The researchers demonstrated thateach of the logic gates within their
system works, reducing the errors.
While this set-up would be useful
for certain quantum computers, it
may not work for more complicated
systems, says Christopher Monroe
at the Joint Quantum Institute in
Maryland. For quantum computers
that use superconducting qubits,
such as Google’s Sycamore, error
correction from the get-go requires
devices much larger than 16 qubits,
he says. The new quantum
computer isn’t yet big or reliable
enough to tackle any practical
real-world problem, he adds. ❚Quantum computer
does any calculation
without errors
Karmela Padavic-CallaghanCHRISTO
F^ LAC
KNER
/UNIVERS
ITYOFIN
NSBR
UCKA vacuum chamber where
ions are trapped to form
a quantum computer23,365
Number of people who died from
firearm suicide in the US in 2019