However, there are perceived and real legal barriers to making both public safe storage maps and getting people to store firearms for others to become commonplace. There's multiple locations, multiple possibilities," she said.Ĭolorado, Washington State, Utah, Louisiana, and other states around the country have implemented some version of a safe firearm storage map or public messaging campaign encouraging people to store firearms outside of the home while at increased risk for suicide. "So we're just trying to make sure that there's a wealth of options for people to safe store, especially if you can't do it on that one-to-one basis. She hopes it will become a statewide resource and a tool for suicide hotline operators. Hegstrom is currently working on a local "safe storage map" identifying gun shops and other locations willing to store guns for the public. Othersshy away from the conversation, which Hegstrom says is a sign there's still a lot of work to do to normalize conversations about firearms and suicide. "Sometimes it's really well received because people do worry about this topic, and they don't always know what they can do," she said.
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Instead, Hegstrom talks to people about how to bring up tough topics with friends and family, like suicide and safe storage of firearms for anyone at risk. I'm not here to waggle my finger at you," she says. That's much higher compared to the national average of 60%.Īt a local gun show this spring, Lewis and Clark County Suicide Prevention Coordinator Jess Hegstrom set up a booth as she tried to blend into a sea of camo and folks wearing pro-gun t-shirts shopping for guns and accessories. Nearly nine out of 10 of Montana's gun deaths are suicides, according to state data. Montana has the second highest suicide rate across the country next to Wyoming, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similar maps have cropped up around the country in recent years.
Some Montana public health officials are building a map identifying locations that are willing to store firearms. They also want to encourage gun shops and shooting ranges to offer storage for the public. Public health officials hope that will encourage more people like Hossfeld to store firearms for family and friends. Montana lawmakers passed legislation to protect those that store firearms for others from legal liabilities in case someone subsequently harms themselves after picking up their gun. And that's the whole premise, Hossfeld says, of a Montana law passed earlier this year: to make it easier to help a friend get through a mental health crisis and alleviate the immediate risk of suicide until someone gets better.
His commander recovered and was very happy to get his weapon back, Hossfeld says.
So I just walked over and took the strap off, and said I was going to store his weapon for him in my toolbox," Hossfeld recalls. "We carried our sidearms in a shoulder holster. Hossfeld first stored a firearm for his National Guard commander in the 1980s after he talked about suicide.
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