Last year, more than twenty thousand Americans killed themselves with a gun. And according to the CDC, that number is increasing every year.

Saturday is World Suicide Prevention Day. And as I do every year, I will spend the day thinking about my daughter, Angela, and her father – both of whom died from self-inflicted gun shots.

Gun suicides account for two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States. But for too long, discussion of suicide has been stigmatized and kept separate from conversations about preventing gun violence. The argument has long been that suicide is a mental health issue – not an issue of gun safety. But the facts tell a different story.

My daughter Angela had three young children. When her depression did not overwhelm her, she was a loving mom. If I close my eyes I can still see her, cheerfully picking berries in our backyard and drawing chalk flowers in the driveway with her kids. Her children are trying so hard to remember the sound of her voice, but it gets more difficult every year.

Angela worked hard to survive her severe depression and mental illness. She was hospitalized four times, for stays averaging two weeks. She saw plenty of doctors, therapists, and psychiatrists. She tried a host of medications and even electroconvulsive therapy. None of this documented history of mental illness made a difference when Angela tried to buy a gun. She passed a background check and bought a handgun in May 2011. She killed herself that July.

Well-intentioned friends have tried to tell me that if Angela hadn’t had a gun, she would have found another way to end her life. But I know better. The truth is that the United States does not have a higher rate of mental illness than other developed nations. In fact, our overall suicide rate is 30 percent lower here than in other high-income nations. Our rate of suicide with a firearm, however, is six times higher.

Access to guns matters because research shows that most people who attempt suicide will not try again. But 90 percent of those who attempt suicide with a gun die immediately and do not get that second chance.