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Abstract
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Clinicians are increasingly recognizing the utility of clinical screening, informed patient conversations, and counseling about safe firearm storage to reduce firearm injury and death (1). But preventing firearm-related injury and death requires pragmatic, community-based solutions to promote safer storage of firearms during periods of risk. Is it feasible to act locally to improve the safety of our patients? Is it practical, and will it work? Here, we describe our experience to date with a pragmatic effort in our community.
Temporary, voluntary storage of firearms outside the home is recommended for persons at risk for suicide (2) because firearm access increases the likelihood of a fatal suicide attempt and firearms are responsible for half of all suicide deaths in the United States (3). Because suicide rates are increasing (4)—and 60% of firearm-related deaths are suicides (3)—outreach to firearm owners about suicide prevention has increased. This has included “gun shop projects” (partnerships between public health professionals and firearm retailers) for development and dissemination of education about suicide warning signs and the rationale for reducing access to lethal means during times of risk (5).
How to facilitate out-of-home storage for persons at risk is an important question. Prior work found that 47.6% of firearm retailers and 74.8% of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the Mountain West region offered temporary, voluntary storage, and many retailers (49.8%) and LEAs (64.6%) reported having received storage requests in the past year (6). Yet, no published information existed on specific locations for firearm storage, which could pose a real-time barrier for individuals and families seeking options.
So, to support lethal means safety efforts in Colorado, we developed an online resource for the public and for clinicians who counsel at-risk patients. The statewide map displays firearm retailers and LEAs willing to consider requests for voluntary, temporary gun storage. This work was completed with input from the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition, an organization made up of clinicians, public health researchers, and gun shop owners focused on suicide prevention and gun safety ...
Language: en |