17-year old Tennessee girl commits suicide by gun, rumors of bullying

Morgan Johnson, age 17

17-year old Morgan Johnson had her life to look forward to.  She was an above average student in Englewood, Tennessee, and popular.

But there were rumors of bullying.  And then she was found dead next to her car in her church parking lot, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot.  A note was found, but its contents have not been released.

It's a sad commentary on our society that a bright and beautiful young woman could feel it necessary to take her own life, and that bullying may have led to this.

It is an equally sad commentary that young people are able to access firearms to commit such an act.  Guns are FAR more likely to kill in a suicide attempt than other causes.  More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal.  In comparison, only 3 percent of attempts with drugs or cutting are fatal (Miller, 2004).

From one good source on youth suicide, around 43% of youth suicides are performed with a gun:

Information on how youths obtained the gun
they used in a suicide was recorded by police or
the coroner/medical examiner for 44 of the 63
firearm suicides. Among the 44, 82% used a
gun belonging to a family member, usually a
parent. Among the cases in which a youth used
a family member’s gun, 75% of the reports
(n=27) included information about how the gun
was stored. Among those, 64% were stored
unlocked. When the gun was stored locked, the
youths either knew where the key was kept,
learned the combination, or broke into the
cabinet.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.