Jack Reed: Action Needs To Be Taken To Prevent Suicides In Veterans

In a Senate Appropriations Committee markup meeting last week, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) spoke about suicides in veterans.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Madam Chairman. There is a crisis in veteran suicides in the United States today.

00:06And no wonder, no generation of American fighting men and women have endured the kind of traumatic,

00:13constant deployments that this generation has seen over the last two decades, at least.

00:21And as a result, we have serious, serious problems with PTSD and other issues, schizophrenia, etc.

00:29There are approximately 6,500 veterans a year who die by suicide, and 70% of those involve firearms.

00:42We have to ask ourselves, what is one way for us to reduce this?

00:47And it's first to do what Senator Murphy says, is look at the problem analytically

00:52and determine whether or not informing authorities and gun shop owners about the status of these individuals will save lives.

01:04They have literally given their lives in many respects for the country.

01:10And this is just a sensible analysis so that we can go forward with knowledge to make better policy to help our veterans.

01:18I'll just conclude by saying, I think everyone hears, when they go back home, a story about someone, a veteran, taking their life.

01:27Just a week or so, I was there, and one of my friends said, gee, did you hear about so-and-so?

01:32I said, no.

01:32I said, well, you know, he's about late 20s, and he seemed to be okay, but he killed himself two weeks before his wedding.

01:41We have serious problems here, and this deals with it, and I would urge passage.