Rural Americans tend to think of their communities as safer than metropolitan or urban neighborhoods, according to the June 2007 Rural Tracker poll. That's one reason this quote about the rate of suicide among rural young people caught our attention: "Rural suicide rates by firearms among kids surpass the rate of violence from homicide in the inner city," said Dr. Nels Sanddal, president of the Critical Illness and Trauma Foundation . "Rural kids are also more likely to complete suicide than urban kids."Sandall is quoted in "Suicide in Rural America," an article appearing in the most recent issue of The Rural Monitor , published by the Rural Assistance Center. "Parents in rural America look at the national news and say they’re glad they don’t have to worry about drive-by shootings," Sanddal said. "But the reality is that children being raised in rural America are often at greater risk of not making it to their 21st birthday than kids raised in the urban environment."