A rising number of older Coloradans are dying from gun suicides. Why?

DENVER — Death reports from counties across Colorado illustrate a concerning trend in the state — the growing number of older Coloradans dying by gun suicides.

Rocky Mountain PBS, in collaboration with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence in America, reviewed dozens of autopsy reports from gun suicide deaths in Delta, Fremont, Gunnison and Montrose counties.

These communities have some of the state’s highest rates of gun suicides among older adults, which The Trace and Rocky Mountain PBS are defining as people ages 70 and up.

The deceased include a former high school principal, a ski patroller and a roughneck-turned-surgeon. Many of the victims had a history of chronic pain, heart disease or depression.

According to CDC data analyzed by The Trace, Colorado has a higher rate of 70+ gun suicides than all but 13 states. In fact, more Coloradans 70 years and older die from gun suicides than car crashes.

Rocky Mountain PBS searched through more than 30 obituaries that corresponded with the people in the coroners’ reports. None of the publicly available obituaries we found included a cause of death, part of the reason The Trace calls suicides in elderly populations a “hidden public health crisis.”

The United States has “an ageist approach” to handling depression and suicidality in older adults, Dr. Emmy Betz, an emergency room physician and suicide expert at the University of Colorado Anschutz, told The Trace.

“We’ve got to stop assuming that it’s OK for for older adults to die by suicide,” she said.

Between 2018 and 2023, more than 650 older Coloradans died by gun suicides. About 85% of them were white men. In general, men are much more likely to die from gun suicides than women. From 2004 to 2024, approximately 87% of all gun suicide deaths, across age groups, in Colorado were men.

The counties with the highest rates of gun suicides in Colorado are largely rural. Many of the obituaries Rocky Mountain PBS read included details of the deceased’s love of fishing, hiking and ranching — hallmarks of outdoor recreation in the Mountain West. But the bucolic landscapes also come with isolation.

Older Coloradans struggling with mental health often report feelings of loneliness, especially after the death of a spouse, said Patrick Moran, a licensed clinical social worker based in El Paso County. 

“We're in the West and rugged individualism is something that a lot of people adhere to, especially males,” Moran said. “And that makes it very tough for them to really connect with other people, especially after a spouse is gone.”

The availability of firearms also plays a role in the high rates of suicide. Colorado law forbids the state from maintaining a database on individual gun ownership, but the state estimates that more than a third of Coloradans own at least one firearm, and public polling shows that gun ownership rates are higher in rural and white communities — the same communities that have higher rates of gun suicide deaths.

Another contributing factor to poor mental health is declining physical health, said Dennis McDowell, a licensed clinical social worker at the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly in Colorado Springs.

“I'm not counseling them to get ready to conquer the world,” McDowell said about his clients, all of whom are 55 and older and eligible for Medicaid. 

“I'm counseling them about letting go gracefully, seeing the value of their past and their life. And so that's kind of a challenge because you're talking to people that aren't, you know, putting on their running shoes. They're taking off the running shoes,” he said.

McDowell has been an LCSW for more than 40 years. He recounted an incident from about five years ago when a PACE participant, who was waiting on a cancer diagnosis, told McDowell that he would kill himself if the case was terminal.

“I reached out to him after I knew the [cancer] testing had happened and he did not respond,” McDowell said. He later learned the man had died by suicide.

Suicide rates among older Coloradans remains stubbornly high, even as rates among teens are at 18-year lows. What can be done to reverse this trend in Colorado?

During the 2025 legislative session, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill creating a voluntary “do not sell” registry in an effort to prevent gun suicides. Colorado is the fifth state to enact legislation of this kind, often referred to as “Donna’s Law,” which allows people who are concerned about their mental health to ban themselves from purchasing firearms.

States that have passed Donna’s Law report low participation in the programs. Fredrick Vars, a University of Alabama law professor who first pushed for Donna’s Law, thinks registration will rise with more awareness.

The Colorado Sun reported that senior centers are investing more in mental health programming, and some government agencies are trying creative outreach. In Park County, which has the highest known rate of gun suicides in Colorado, the Ute Pass Regional Health Service District installed LED boards on some of its vehicles that share messages about mental health resources. One of the messages reads, “FEELING SUICIDAL? ASK ME FOR HELP.”

But for older Coloradans in rural parts of the state, access to health care remains a challenge. There is only one mental health provider for roughly every 1,282 people in rural Colorado, according to a 2024 report from the Colorado Rural Health Center. The same report found that as of 2023, all but two Colorado counties — Adams and Larimer — had a shortage of mental health workers.

McDowell is 69 years old. He has worked with older patients for a long time, but only recently did he start joking that he now works with his peers.

His silver hair and glasses give him a kind of “street cred” among his older clients, he said.

“I think just having somebody interested in talking to them and remembering the stuff they said last time and asking them about it, and using their name — I mean, there's all these things that set off little positive synaptic responses that they just don't get if they're in isolation.”