Gun Violence Prevention Month: What Mental Health Providers Need to Know about Firearm Suicide Prevention
- Allie Bond, PhD
- Jun 1
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 3
June means the end of the school year, long walks on the beach, and ice cream(!) which are some of my favorite things. And June is also Gun Violence Prevention Month. I wanted to take a moment to share why this work matters so much, and what we as mental health providers can do to help reduce the impact of firearms in moments of crisis.
A quick note before we jump in: while this post is primarily written for mental health providers, the resources shared here are not just for providers. If you're a firearm owner, family member, friend, or someone who wants to learn more about secure storage options and how to navigate conversations about firearms, this information is for you, too.
A Bit of Background
Let me start by sharing why this month is important to me, both as a mental health clinician and as a researcher. I love working with patients, but it’s actually my side job. My full-time role is as an assistant professor at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers University, where I study the intersection of firearms and suicide prevention. My research focuses on understanding who is most at risk for firearm suicide and identifying prevention strategies, like secure firearm storage, that can help reduce risk and save lives.
One of the most important things to understand about gun violence in the United States is that suicides account for ~50% of all gun deaths. Firearms are also the most lethal method for suicide with a 95% fatality rate, meaning that when someone attempts suicide with a firearm they rarely survive. Research has also shown that having a firearm in the home increases suicide risk for up to 5x for every member of the household, and that risk becomes even greater when firearms are not stored securely.
In this context, “secure storage” means storing firearms unloaded, locked, and separate from ammunition.
We, as mental health clinicians, play a really important role in reducing gun violence. As providers, we have the privilege of really knowing our patients and walking alongside them through some of the hardest and best times of their lives. Yet many of us are not routinely asking about firearm access or talking with patients about storage options that may reduce suicide risk. Most of us were never formally trained in how to ask about firearm access or navigate these conversations. Many of us were never even told that this is important to do!
At the same time, we already talk with patients about lots of aspects of health and home safety (which is how I think about asking about firearms). We ask about alcohol use, substance use, medications in the home, and other environmental risk factors because those factors help us understand safety and reduce harm. Firearm access can be approached the same way.
It makes sense that these conversations can feel intimidating. Firearms carry political weight in a way many other clinical questions don't. We may worry about saying the wrong thing, offending a patient, or opening a conversation we don’t feel prepared to navigate.
The goal of this blog post is to provide practical resources to help you feel more prepared navigating conversations about firearm access and secure storage options with patients.
How To Start and Have the Conversation
One Place to Start: Your Intake Forms
One of the easiest and most comfortable ways to start is by including a question about firearm access on your intake forms. This fits naturally within broader questions about health and home safety that we routinely ask about. Here is how we ask about firearm access in the background questionnaire in our practice:
You’re probably asking yourself, “Will people actually disclose that information on a form?” The reality is that we don’t have definitive research on that yet. Some people will, some won’t. But it's a place to start, and it’s one way to begin shifting our clinical practice.
If someone indicates they do have access to firearms, we recommend following up with them during the intake interview to learn more. When you do, approach the conversation from a place of curiosity, not judgment, similarly to how you might approach conversations about alcohol or substance use. You can ask what types of firearms they own, when they purchased them, and why they own them.
Research tells us that most people own firearms for protection, and that's important context. Their goal is often to keep themselves and their families safe, which is also our goal (common ground!). This allows us to take a collaborative approach to safety planning.
Keeping the conversation open, curious, and nonjudgmental is incredibly important. None of us enjoy being lectured about something we know a lot about, and firearm owners are no different. As a non-firearm owner, it’s not helpful for me to get on my soapbox about the risks firearms pose to someone who has far more lived experience with firearms than I do. Building trust and collaboration matters far more than trying to convince someone they should think like we think.
Three benefits of having this conversation:
It shifts social norms. Asking about firearm access, even on intake forms, moves firearms out of the realm of something “we should never talk about” and into routine health and safety assessments, right alongside smoking or alcohol use.
It provides deeper clinical insight. These conversations help us better understand our patients. If a patient goes to the shooting range every weekend, that tells us something meaningful about their hobbies, routines, and sources of social connection.
It opens the door for collaborative lethal means restriction. Just like we might discuss locking up medications or removing unused prescriptions from the home during periods of elevated risk, we can also talk about securing firearms during difficult periods.
What the Conversation Sounds Like in Practice
To give you a sense of how naturally this can flow in an intake session, here is an example of how a collaborative conversation on firearm access might look:
Clinician: I also saw on your intake paperwork that you have access to a firearm. I'd love to learn a bit more about that. What type of firearm do you have?
Patient: Umm yeah, I own a handgun.
Clinician: Okay, what's your reason for owning a handgun?
Patient: I really want to be able to keep myself and my family safe. People can be crazy and if someone breaks in in the middle of the night, I want to be able to defend us.
Clinician: Got it, so safety sounds like it’s an important value for you. Makes sense, like you said there’s a lot of unpredictable situations in the world. Can I ask, how do you typically store your handgun?
Patient: Well, I want quick access to it for that middle-of-the-night break in-threat, so I keep it on the top shelf of my closet, which is right near my bed.
Clinician: Got it, keeping it close lets you quickly access it if someone breaks in. Why the top shelf in your closet and not your nightstand drawer?
Patient: I mentioned before, but I have young kids and I worry that if I kept it lower they would be able to reach it and something bad could happen.
Clinician: Yes, that lines up well with what you were saying before about keeping everyone safe. I wonder if there have ever been times where you felt like it might not be safe for you to access your handgun?
Patient: What do you mean?
Clinician: Well, sometimes when people have been drinking or are taking certain medications, they feel like they’re not in their “right mind” and it might not be safe to use a firearm.
Patient: Ahh yeah, I mean I never take it with me when I go out drinking because it seems like a bad combination - alcohol and a gun.
Clinician: That makes sense, when you might not be in your normal headspace. What about if you were going through a particularly tough period, like a major life stressor, depression, or thoughts of suicide?
Patient: Hmmm yeah, I probably shouldn’t be handling my gun then if I wasn't in the right headspace.
Clinician: Have you thought about how you might change the way you store your firearm during one of those periods?
Patient: No, I haven't really. I mean, I would still want my family to be protected, but maybe my wife could hold onto the firearm for me so it’s not as easy for me to grab. Is that what you mean?
Clinician: That makes sense to me. Creating a bit of space between you and the firearm during a tough period can be a helpful safety strategy. Could your wife use a lock or a lock box? Something quick for her to unlock if there was a home invasion, but that you couldn’t access without her?
Patient: We’ve actually talked about that. They make pretty advanced safes where you can program it to your thumb print. That could work.
Clinician: Really? That’s pretty cool! How do you feel about looking into those with your wife just so you have it if you ever need to create that space?
Additional Firearm Suicide Prevention Resources
Each heading is hyperlinked and will take you directly to the website
Lock to Live and Firearm Life Plan are particularly useful interactive tools that can easily be integrated into safety planning. You can walk through them together during session, include them in follow-up emails, or provide them alongside other mental health resources for clients to look at on their own.
The next two resources are more clinician-focused and are designed to help you continue learning and feel more comfortable having these conversations.
An interactive tool that helps people think through secure storage options for firearms and medications. The online tool focuses on practical, personalized planning and is designed to support conversations around safety without judgment.
A personalized planning resource, kind of like an advanced directive, that helps individuals think ahead about firearm safety, coping strategies, and support systems. It encourages collaborative decision-making and emphasizes planning ahead.
A collection of firearm safety and suicide prevention resources that includes information on secure storage, patient education materials, and guidance to support conversations about firearm access and safety.
An evidence-based educational resource created for healthcare providers to support conversations about firearm injury prevention and safe storage. The site includes clinical guidance, training materials, and practical tools for incorporating these discussions into routine care.
Final Thoughts
Asking our patients if they have access to firearms matters. It matters to fully know our patients, to understand their health and home safety, and assess potential risks. And while asking about firearm access may feel uncomfortable, discomfort does not mean we shouldn’t ask. It means we need tools, training, and opportunities to practice these discussions.
As mental health providers, we don’t need to be firearm experts. We just need to be willing to have thoughtful, respectful conversations about safety, like we already do with so many other aspects of our patients’ lives. To help you do this, we created an infographic with the aforementioned resources. This can be downloaded so you can easily refer to these resources.
*Statistics included in this blog post come from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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