Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam Here, I wanted to mention here at
Speaker 1: the top that today's episode deals with the subject of suicide,
Speaker 1: to give you the opportunity to skip this one if
Speaker 1: you would like, and hey, take care of yourself, okay.
Speaker 1: In preparing for today's episode, we spoke with one of
Speaker 1: Utah's top gun lobbyists, Clark a passion He never thought
Speaker 1: that he'd have a colleague at the Harvard School of
Speaker 1: Public Health. Apascian is also chair of the Utah Shooting
Speaker 1: Sports Council and a certified instructor for Utah's concealed carry permit.
Speaker 1: In his experience, public health advocates have been liberal eggheads
Speaker 1: who sat squarely on the opposite side of the political
Speaker 1: divide over gun control. Appascian told us all would hear
Speaker 1: from them is lock up your guns, get rid of
Speaker 1: your guns. Guns are bad, And all they heard from
Speaker 1: us was guns are good, more guns. We need greater
Speaker 1: access to guns. But then he met Kathy Barber, a
Speaker 1: suicide prevention expert with the Harvard Injury Control Research Unter,
Speaker 1: who shared a simple, yet startling statistic in Utah of
Speaker 1: all gun deaths are suicides. Apastian had dedicated his life
Speaker 1: to fire arm training, safety, and advocacy, but he had
Speaker 1: no idea that the vast majority of gun related deaths
Speaker 1: in his home state, and more than two thirds of
Speaker 1: gun deaths nationwide, weren't murders or hunting accidents, but suicide.
Speaker 1: Apashian says, I had an epiphany. All the clamoring on
Speaker 1: both sides over homicides and the legal use of fire
Speaker 1: arms and accidents, the biggest bang for the buck if
Speaker 1: you want to decrease the number of gun deaths is
Speaker 1: going to be suicide. Nearly forty five thousand Americans die
Speaker 1: from suicide every year, and more than half of those
Speaker 1: deaths come from guns. States with more guns per capita,
Speaker 1: like Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado have higher suicide rates,
Speaker 1: not because gun owners are more likely to suffer from
Speaker 1: mental illness, but because suicide attempts with guns are nearly
Speaker 1: always fatal. That's why Barber at Harvard created the Means
Speaker 1: Matters campaign to explain the access to a gun in
Speaker 1: a moment of suicidal crisis can be the difference between
Speaker 1: life and death. The decision to commit suicide happens surprisingly fast,
Speaker 1: with tent of suicide survivors saying only five minutes passed
Speaker 1: between the moment they decided to end things and the
Speaker 1: suicide attempt itself. In that five minutes, people may reach
Speaker 1: for the most lethal means they can get their hands on.
Speaker 1: If it's a gun, the suicide attempt will be fatal
Speaker 1: between eighty five and n of the time. Other means
Speaker 1: aren't nearly as lethal it overdose of pills, for example,
Speaker 1: is deadly and only one point five percent of suicide attempts.
Speaker 1: Research shows that restricting access to a gun during an
Speaker 1: acute emotional crisis saves lives and gives people a chance
Speaker 1: to get help. Of suicide survivors do not go on
Speaker 1: to die by suicide, but for suicide prevention advocates like Barber.
Speaker 1: To get the means Matters message into the community's hardest
Speaker 1: hit by gun related suicides, they had to cross a
Speaker 1: gaping political and cultural divide. When gun store owners and
Speaker 1: Second amend It supporters here words like restricting access to guns,
Speaker 1: they think of government intrusion, more laws and outsiders coming
Speaker 1: in to take their guns away. We also spoke with
Speaker 1: Robert Gibea, the CEO of the American Foundation for Suicide
Speaker 1: Prevention or a f s P, which is the largest
Speaker 1: such organization in the country. He freely admits that neither
Speaker 1: he nor any of his state chapter directors could walk
Speaker 1: into a gun store or firing range and start talking
Speaker 1: about the deadly relationship between firearms and suicide. He said,
Speaker 1: we have zero credibility. We don't know the language. Groups
Speaker 1: like the a f SP needed partners on the inside
Speaker 1: who had that kind of credibility. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: Barbara helped launch the Gun Shop Project in New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: a two way collaboration between public health professionals and firearms
Speaker 1: dealers to educate the gun owning community on what they
Speaker 1: can do to keep friends and loved ones safe in
Speaker 1: times of emotional crisis. Taking their lead from the Gun
Speaker 1: Shop Project, now in more than a dozen states, GIBEA
Speaker 1: and the a s FP joined verses with the National
Speaker 1: Shooting Sports Foundation, the nationwide trade association for the firearms industry,
Speaker 1: to raise awareness of what gun retailers and gun owners
Speaker 1: can do to identify the warning signs of mental stress
Speaker 1: and keep guns temporarily out of reach of people in crisis.
Speaker 1: Gibbia said the partnership gives us both access and credibility.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, our volunteers in that community are
Speaker 1: welcomed into that gun shop, and we've already provided materials
Speaker 1: to eight thousand retailers across the country. Jacqueline Clark owns
Speaker 1: the Bristle Cone Shooting Training and retail Center outside of Denver.
Speaker 1: She's worked closely with the Colorado chapter of the Gun
Speaker 1: Shop Project to make sure that the pamphlets and training
Speaker 1: materials addressing suicide prevention contain the type of language that
Speaker 1: connects with her customers rather than alienating them. Clark said
Speaker 1: a lot of the mental health messaging tends to come
Speaker 1: from the left and hardcore Second Amendment people are always
Speaker 1: worried that they're trying to take their guns away or
Speaker 1: recommending that they surrender them and never getting them back.
Speaker 1: Clark says that the people who frequent her gun range
Speaker 1: and retail store are responsible firearm owners who come in
Speaker 1: for a training class or to ask the staff a
Speaker 1: question because quote, they want to do a good job.
Speaker 1: The suicide prevention message that resonates with them is something
Speaker 1: called the Eleventh Commandment. Any gun owner who has taken
Speaker 1: a basic safety course knows about the ten commandments of
Speaker 1: firearms safety, things like always pointing the gun in a
Speaker 1: safe direction and keeping your finger off the trigger until
Speaker 1: you're ready to shoot. Barbara at Harvard said the eleventh
Speaker 1: commandment is to be alert to signs of suicide risk
Speaker 1: in friends and family and help keep guns from them
Speaker 1: until they've recovered. Once you say it, it makes sense
Speaker 1: to people, especially if they understand that you're not attacking guns.
Speaker 1: A pocean in Utah doesn't necessarily see suicide prevention as
Speaker 1: a gun safety issue. To him, gun safety is avoiding
Speaker 1: accidents by teaching both adults and children how to use
Speaker 1: and store a gun safely. With suicide, Apochian says, we're
Speaker 1: talking about purposefully grabbing a gun to do harm to ourselves.
Speaker 1: It's a complete a different realm. He thinks, a more
Speaker 1: effective suicide prevention message follows the model used by campaigns
Speaker 1: against drunk driving. If your friends had too much to drink,
Speaker 1: aposhi And says, you take their keys and do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to not let them drive home because you
Speaker 1: care about them. The same thing, he says if a
Speaker 1: friend is going through a painful divorce, just lost a job,
Speaker 1: or is experiencing symptoms of PTSD. You go to their house,
Speaker 1: put your arm around them, tell them you love them
Speaker 1: and are worried about them, and suggest that you baby
Speaker 1: sit their guns for a few days, not take their
Speaker 1: guns away, but put them in temporary storage outside the home.
Speaker 1: The ultimate goal of suicide prevention partnerships between public health
Speaker 1: advocates and the firearms community is to make gun owners
Speaker 1: aware of the issue and to feel comfortable having those
Speaker 1: hard conversations. There are no new laws being proposed or
Speaker 1: restrictions placed on access. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Speaker 1: has run models showing that of half of Americans who
Speaker 1: buy a gun between now and get a pamphlet about
Speaker 1: suicide prevention, and only one in five of them actually
Speaker 1: read it, it will still save nine thousand lives. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: If you're in a bad place, I know how lonely
Speaker 1: it can feel, but you're not alone. Reach out to
Speaker 1: a friend or family member, or google suicide prevention to
Speaker 1: find a number you can call, or even text or
Speaker 1: chat if you hate phones as much as I do.
Speaker 1: And of course, for more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com