Gun Shops + Suicide Prevention: Brave Conversations at the Point of Sale
New Hampshire is one of the first places where mental health advocates and gun shop owners have teamed up to help prevent suicide.
Removing lethal means has been shown to be one of the more effective ways to prevent suicide – whether it is barriers on a bridge, changing formulas of commonly found toxins such as pesticides, or removing guns from households where individuals are in crisis.
The Means Matter initiative, based at the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, targets the specific ways people use to take their lives in its suicide prevention efforts; and the use of guns is a major focus. People using guns consistently account for more than half of all suicides in the US. Guns are, unfortunately, the surest and swiftest way to take one’s life.
While NH’s suicide mortality rate of 16.4/100k population is above the national average of 14 deaths/100,000 people, the Granite State has a special distinction in suicide prevention. More than 10 years ago, NH began an initiative that brings medical and mental health advocates together with gun shop owners to prevent suicides.
A recent article produced by the Granite State News Collaborative and published in the NH Business Review details how Elaine Frank, then director of the NH Firearms Safety Coalition and Ralph Demicco, then a firearms retailer, co-founded the Gun Shop Project to engage New Hampshire’s firearm community in preventing suicide. By 2011, at least 57 percent of the state’s gun shops were displaying their suicide prevention materials.
Today, similar Gun Shop Projects are under way in more than 20 states, according to Cathy Barber, who directs the Means Matter Campaign at the Harvard School of Public Health.
In New Hampshire, a state with relatively few homicides, 118 out of 129 firearm deaths in 2020 were suicides, or about 91 percent, according to the NH Office of Chief Medical Examiner, as quoted in the NH Business Review.
Barber, in the NHBR article, says a key to the success of this prevention initiative is avoiding the politics of gun control. “Barber prefers to emphasize a message about protecting one’s family, which fits into the culture of the gun-owning community.” The gun-safety advocates, for example, began using suicide prevention materials prepared by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a gun owners’ group.
But the gun shop initiative remains a difficult subject. More than a dozen gun shops and target ranges were contacted for the article, but only two agreed to be interviewed, Granite State Indoor Range and Renaissance Firearms.
The article reports: “In the fall, the Granite State Indoor Range in Hudson began displaying the NSSF posters and brochures with the headline, “Start a Brave Conversation.” To date, the response has been positive, says Matt Bishop, a spokesperson for the local retailer.
“The brochures outline where to go for help and explain some of the risk factors, including substance misuse, PTSD, stressors like divorce and a family history of suicide.
“We address the problem just by kind of talking about it, bringing it up,” he says, although Bishop acknowledges it’s an uncomfortable conversation for a gun shop to initiate. He only became aware of the NSSF partnership in September, and he says it will have a big impact. “I think we are getting there. I think it’s just a slow burn,” he says.
Click here to read the article.
If you or someone you know is struggling emotionally, please reach out and get support. In New Hampshire, Call/Text 1-833-710-6477 speak to trained and caring clinical staff. You’ll be served by compassionate providers from mental health centers in your community who can help you access vital resources in an emergency. Or call or text 988 for the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for free and confidential support.