September is National Suicide Prevention month. Unless we can treat mental health with compassion and bravery every week, one commemorative month on the calendar won’t make enough of a difference to save the lives that end in suicide. Guns play an extra-lethal role in suicide attempts.
Here at Lock Arms for Life, our mission is to make gun ownership safer in every way. Suicide attempts are more lethal with firearms than with any other method. Whatever we can learn, teach, and practice about safe handling and storage will help save lives.
One important initiative is a safe storage registry. The State of Washington has created one of these, a directory of places like law enforcement offices, gun shops, and gun ranges that will take a gun owner’s weapon for safe keeping while the owner is having a mental health crisis. We’re working with organizations in Texas to help build this interactive map for this state.
The map is a great illustration of the fundamentals around suicide prevention. There are other, less showy things, though. A simple gun lock puts just a few more moments between the dire act that someone might consider and actually pulling a trigger. A gun safe, even a simple one that costs under $100, is another way to put needed time between desperate emotion and an act that can never be undone.
Our work with Austin’s Public Health, the Department of Public Safety, and Texas Gun Sense all aims our focus at preventing accidental death and injuries with firearms.
Our resources page provides the Get ACTIVE practices for gun safety. This month has a kickoff from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention for National Suicide Prevention Week. A strong lineup of resources is at the foundation’s website. The foundation is also hosting a full day of talks and resources on a Facebook Live event on Friday, Sept 10. Thousands of people have already signed up, and more than a million have logged an interest.
It will take many of us to prevent more fatalities and injuries as a result of firearm-related suicides. Throughout September and October, a collection of virtual events will keep the focus on mental health and suicide. We’re re-hosting the great awareness kit that the ASFP created as a way of spreading the word.
