Pending before the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Transportation is L.D. 1120, “Resolve, to Install a Suicide Barrier on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.” This worthy legislation seeks to address the dangerous risk that the bridge, over 100 feet tall with a lack of safety barriers, presents for people with suicide ideations. Indeed, the Penobscot Narrows Bridge has been the site of at least eight suicides, five of which occurred since 2013. The Memorial Bridge in Augusta was the scene of 14 jumping deaths prior to the installation of an 11-foot safety fence in 1983; there have been none reported since then.
In 2021, 277 Mainers died by suicide, the fourth leading cause of death among those ages 15-54. Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently released its second annual report setting forth data for firearm deaths in Maine from January through December 2021. Of the 178 total firearm fatalities, 158 of them were suicides. This represents a significant increase in firearm fatalities over 2020, when there were 154, with 132 of them due to suicide. Maine’s rate of death from gun suicide is 9.2 per 100,000 people, compared to a rate of 6.9 per 100,000 people nationwide, according to data collected by Everytown for Gun Safety.
I support safety barriers on high bridges. To significantly reduce suicide rates, however, we as a state – and as a nation – must also address the easy access to guns in this country.
Kim Anderson
Freeport
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