Strengthen Lethal Means Safety and Firearm Access Policies in the Community

Before You Begin

When implementing this strategy, it is important to understand and acknowledge the political tension that surrounds addressing firearm access and availability in the United States. For many, firearms carry great cultural importance, and serve a variety of purposes including their use for hunting, sport shooting, as means of protection, etc. At the same time, individuals may associate firearms with danger, grief, and pain. In order to be successful in reducing youth access to firearms to those in crisis or at risk of harming others, your community will have to explore how to best balance interest in personal firearm ownership and Second Amendment rights with public health and safety concerns. 

While there may be disagreement surrounding what should be done, there will likely be agreement on the need to prevent unauthorized access and protect youth from firearm injury and death. To best prepare your community for this work, it is suggested that you complete the following steps prior to selecting individual implementation activities.

• If unfamiliar, learn about firearms and responsible firearm ownership. To effectively engage in conversations about firearms, it is important to have a general understanding of firearms themselves, as well as the practices that responsible owners abide by. This general knowledge is important so that your efforts do not alienate firearm owners in your community.

Resources:

• Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention & Policy created a short video “Firearm Basics: The Start of Productive Conversations about Guns” to explain the basics of firearms (e.g., how they work, how they are used).

• BulletPoints hosted a webinar “Guns 101 & Firearm Storage” which covers the basics of firearms and responsible storage.

• This University of Colorado Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative one-pager, this BulletPoints brochure and this Project ChildSafe infographic cover basic firearm storage device options and practices. 

• Consider how language and communication about this topic can engage or alienate different groups. When talking about firearm injury and violence, it is important for written and verbal communication to resonate with and engage, rather than alienate, a variety of individuals. Intentional reflection and planning around communications can help your community successfully move forward action with the support of a variety of stakeholders.

Resources:

• “Rethink: Talking About Firearm Injury and Gun Violence”, a recorded webinar hosted by AFFIRM and the University of Colorado Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, discusses appropriate language to use when addressing firearm-related injuries and violence.

• The article Talking About “Firearm Injury” and “Gun Violence”: Words Matter in the American Journal of Public Health offers guidance on language that can help promote respectful conversation and collaboration around firearms and violence involving firearms.

• Ensure your efforts include representation, support, and input from firearm owners. Firearm owners are a critical stakeholder in reducing firearm access, injury, and violence in a community. Ensuring that firearm owners are a part of your efforts will help ensure you can successfully reach firearm owners and that your efforts are respectful, relevant, and appropriate. These partners can also serve as “trusted messengers”, helping to build trust and strong relationships between the firearm community and public/mental health agencies and organizations, which have historically been seen as “at odds”, to better collectively address common goals.,

Resources:

• “Engaging Firearm Owners in Firearm Injury Prevention”, a webinar from BulletPoints, discusses this approach.

• Analyze existing policies and community-based activities that impact firearm availability and access in your community. Many of the suggested implementation activities outlined below first require an understanding of what laws, regulations, and requirements currently impact the sale, ownership, and possession of firearms in your community. Depending on which state and/or county you reside, several of the suggested implementation activities may already be in place.

Resources: 

• Explore what local and state firearm policies are in place for your community. Information about state policies can be found using the RAND Corporation’s “State Firearm Law Navigator” or “State Firearm Law Database”. Additionally, you can use the State Firearm Laws Database.

• Colorado communities can explore local businesses that support temporary, voluntary safe storage using the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition’s Gun Storage Map. Additionally, a few other states have safe storage maps (see page 7).

• Explore states that have existing partnerships between local firearm communities and public health professionals here.

• Use data to understand firearm access and sales in your state. Various data sources can help your community understand youth access to firearms, as well as identify the firearm businesses that you can partner and engage with.

Resources:

• Colorado communities can review Healthy Kids Colorado Survey results (beginning in 2019), which includes data on youth access to firearms. Non-Colorado communities may have similar indicators in their states, which can be accessed in the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System results.

• Colorado communities can review Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System results (beginning in 2020), which includes data on household access to firearms (including those with children). As of 2020, no other states collected these self-reported data. 

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is the federal  regulatory and enforcement agency for firearm retailers in the United States. Communities can access a list of active licenses for firearm retail locations within their county to help understand retailer density and to guide partnership identification and development.

• Identify and connect with other organizations and individuals working or interested in this area, as well as those that hold decision-making power. Working with other organizations and/or individuals is the best way to maximize your coalition’s power and allows for a greater influence. Before selecting implementation activities, your coalition should take time to understand who is already working in this space, who has power to influence decision making, and what efforts are already underway. Reaching out to these organizations and individuals can help you form partnerships and learn from current and/or previous systems-level work in this area. 

Resources:

• The National Academy of Community Organizers offers A Guide to Power Analysis in Community Organizing, which can help coalitions understand where power sits within a community around a particular issue.

• Ensure current policies do not have unintended consequences that further entrench health inequities. 

Resources:

• The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence offers a “Racial Equity Impact Assessment Tool for Gun Violence Prevention”, as well as a report on a “Racial Equity Framework for Gun Violence Prevention”

• The Race Matters Institute of JustPartners, Inc. offers a free guide on conducting a Racial Equity Backmap, which helps groups and individuals consider and identify the various drivers of a given inequity.

• Consider using an Equity Impact Assessment to better explore and

understand such consequences. Both the Center for the Study of

Social Policy and Race Forward offer free resources.  

• The Government Alliance on Race and Equity offers Racial Equity Toolkit An Opportunity to Operationalize Equity.

Community-Based Activities to Promote Universal Secure Firearm Storage Practices and Behaviors

• Partner with healthcare providers to encourage culturally appropriate firearm safety counseling as part of regular clinical practice. Since physicians and mental health practitioners routinely discuss patient lifestyle choices that can affect health and safety, they have the unique opportunity to promote universal secure firearm storage practices among their firearm-owning households during routine medical visits. It is important that clinicians provide this counseling in a respectful way, so your partnership should also encourage provider training in this area.

Resources:

• This BulletPoints resource discusses basics on how clinicians can engage patients in discussions about firearm access, risk, and safety.

• The BulletPoints hosted a webinar “Firearm Ownership”, which covers common reasons for firearm ownership and how knowledge of these reasons can help healthcare providers discuss safety recommendations with patients.

• Partner with stakeholders to educate parents on the importance of secure firearm storage within or outside the home in preventing unauthorized access among youth. Parent storage practices are a key component in limiting adolescent access. There are a variety of options available to store personal firearms in the home, and trusted messengers in your community can help parents understand which options work best for their households.

Resources:

• Project ChildSafe, developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, produces and archives a variety of resources on secure storage and safe handling practices that can limit unauthorized youth access, including resources specifically for parents.

• The U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) website contains resources and guidance on keeping children safe in a home with firearms.

• Promote existing education/communication campaigns on safe storage as a tool to prevent unauthorized access to firearms. Public health communication campaigns have been successful in addressing various public health concerns (e.g., tobacco, drunk driving), and can be considered to promote universal secure storage in your community. An important consideration when developing an educational campaign is the correct messenger, so previously discussed partnerships with firearm owners and firearm businesses are helpful supporting activities when considering this option.

Resources:

• Colorado has released an educational campaign called Let’s Talk Guns Colorado to encourage conversations about firearm safety. 

• The RAND Corporation discusses education campaigns, including past efforts around firearm safety, here.

• The National Shooting Sports Foundation has partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to develop and implement a suicide prevention education campaign for individuals and businesses.

• The CDC offers a guide for creating effective social marketing plans, which can help guide your efforts.

• Encourage local firearm safety instructors to include information on responsible storage and suicide prevention as part of their regular course offerings. Many firearm owners learn responsible firearm behaviors from instructors, making them an important messenger in the delivery of information on reducing unauthorized access and preventing firearm suicide.

Resources:

• Means Matter at the Harvard School of Public Health offers guidance and slides for firearm instructors to use.

• Partner with local organizations to provide free or low-cost firearm locking and/or storage devices. Several community agencies (e.g., law enforcement agencies, mental or public health agencies, healthcare providers) that have regular contact with firearm owners may be interested in partnering to provide free or subsidized firearm locking devices. Oftentimes this is done in conjunction with education campaigns and/or partnerships with firearm businesses.

Resources:

• The Colorado Office of Gun Violence Prevention provides grant funds to local organizations to provide free storage devices and lockboxes. 

• King County in Washington launched the “Lock it Up” initiative, which worked with local firearm retailers to offer a discount on select storage devices and lockboxes. 

Encouraging Voluntary, Temporary Removal of Firearms During Periods of Heightened Risk

• Support partnership infrastructure between local public and mental health agencies and firearm businesses to educate on and promote lethal means safety in your community to prevent firearm suicide. Collaborations between public/mental health agencies and firearm businesses (e.g., retailers, ranges, gun clubs, etc.) can help ensure safe storage and suicide prevention efforts reach the firearm community. Examples of partnership activities can include business location displays and provisions of safe storage promotion and suicide prevention materials and suicide prevention training for firearm business employees and/or customers.

Resources:

• Learn the basics of lethal means safety at the Means Matter website.

• The National Shooting Sports Foundation has an online training developed for firearm owners, retailers, and employees to better understand suicide and their role in preventing firearm suicide.

• A common example of these partnerships is called Gun Shop Projects, which are currently operating in many states across the country. A list of these partnerships, as well as contact information, can be found here. 

• Colorado currently operates its own Gun Shop Project partnerships throughout the state. Local communities can contact CDPHE’s Office of Suicide Prevention to understand if funded efforts are currently happening in their county/community.

• Partner with healthcare providers to ensure clinicians receive lethal means safety counseling training. Healthcare providers within primary care, emergency or urgent care, and behavioral health settings should be prepared to deliver lethal means safety counseling to a patient with an elevated risk of suicide. This counseling should include messages about a voluntary, temporary reduction in access (e.g., removing from the home, changing firearm safe code).

Resources:

• “Breaking Through Barriers: The Emerging Role of Healthcare Provider Training Programs in Firearm Suicide Prevention” is a robust resource that discusses the role lethal means safety counseling can play in preventing suicide, as well as the importance of adequate training for healthcare providers.

• Means Matter provides Recommendations for Clinicians when providing lethal means counseling.

• CALM (Counseling on Access to Lethal Means) is a common training for healthcare providers.

• Understand and educate community members on local options for voluntary, temporary storage of firearms available in your community. Temporary storage of firearms is sometimes available at self-storage facilities, local gun shops and shooting ranges, and law enforcement offices. Additionally, in some states storing firearms with someone you trust is also allowable. 

Resources:

• Learn more about typical voluntary, temporary safe storage locations and processes here and here.

• A common activity that helps educate communities about temporary storage options is the creation and distribution of safe storage maps. These maps often compile information on agencies and businesses that will consider requests for voluntary, temporary safe storage. Colorado communities can use the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition’s Gun Storage Map. 

• Other states with safe storage maps are listed here (see page 7).

• Expand local options for voluntary, temporary or permanent removal of firearms from a home. Your community can work with local agencies (e.g., law enforcement, public safety groups, mental health organizations, etc.) to expand options and standardize practices around storing and disposing of firearms upon the request of their owners.

Resources:

• Colorado communities can contact the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition to support efforts to expand options within their localities. 

Policies and Regulations to Reduce Unauthorized Access and Limit Availability of Firearms in a Community

• Educate stakeholders on state-level Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) and their role in restricting access to firearms among those considered at high risk to themselves or others. ERPOs, also known as Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVROs) or “Red Flag Orders”, allow certain parties to petition a court to prohibit individuals in crisis and posing an imminent risk of harm to themselves or others from purchasing or accessing firearms. Additionally, these laws require the individual in crisis to relinquish any firearms they possess while the order is in effect. ERPO laws address the fact that oftentimes individuals display warning signs before engaging in firearm violence, and allow for intervention before the violence can occur. 

Resources:

• The U.S. Department of Justice published model legislation for states to develop ERPO laws. 

• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health maintains a robust ERPO Toolkit which includes information on current state-level ERPO implementation, the ERPO process, as well as a variety of resources for communities interested in learning more and/or advocating for ERPO laws.

• Information on and the process for filing a ERPO in Colorado is found on Let’s Talk Guns Colorado. 

• Educate stakeholders on how laws requiring a minimum age requirement for purchasing and possessing a firearm may reduce firearm injury among youth. These laws make it more difficult for young people to obtain and carry firearms, ultimately reducing the potential for unintentional and intentional injuries. While current federal laws outline age restrictions for both sale and access, states can choose to impose additional requirements that extend beyond those at the federal level. While Colorado passed a law in 2023 to increase the minimum age to 21 to legally purchase a firearm, it has yet to be implemented as the law is currently being decided in courts.  

Resources:

• The RAND Corporation has compiled the research supporting the effectiveness of minimum age requirement laws here.

• Learn more about implementation at the federal- and state-level here.

• Educate stakeholders on how state-level comprehensive child-access prevention (CAP) laws can decrease youth firearm deaths and injuries, as well as reduce gun carrying among youth. CAP laws look different across states that currently have them in-place, but ultimately hold gun owners accountable for the safe storage of their personal firearms. The strictest versions of CAP laws hold firearm owners criminally liable if a minor gains access to a “negligently stored” firearm. Colorado’s equivalent law is called the Safe Storage of Firearms Act. 

Resources:

• The RAND Corporation has compiled the research supporting the effectiveness of CAP laws here.

• Learn more about CAP laws and implementation across the U.S. here.

• Educate stakeholders on firearm purchase licensing laws’ role in promoting responsible ownership and reducing firearm related deaths. Firearm licensing laws, sometimes referred to as Permit-to-Purchase laws, require individuals that want to purchase a firearm to apply for and obtain a license from a public agency (e.g., law enforcement), making them an effective strategy in ensuring firearms are owned by responsible individuals. More specifically, these laws require potential firearm owners to pass a background check prior to the time of sale and can include required periodic renewals and mandatory safety training courses.

Resources:

• “The Impact of Handgun Purchaser Licensing On Gun Violence”, a resource from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, discusses firearm licensing laws, the research supporting their effectiveness, their application in several states, and public opinion on their use.

• Learn about the various types of licensing laws and how they have been implemented at the state- and local-level across the U.S. here.

1. Firearm Violence Prevention |Violence Prevention|Injury Center|CDC. (2021, May 04). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html
2. Development Services Group, Inc. 2016. “Gun Violence and Youth.” Literature review. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 
3. Prevention Institute Full Recommendations for Preventing Gun Violence (Rep.). (2018, March). Retrieved https://www.preventioninstitute.org/publications/prevention-institute-full-recommendations-preventing-gun-violence
4. Personal Firearms: Programs that Promote Safe Storage and Research on Their Effectiveness (Publication No. GAO-17-665). (2017).
5. American Public Health Association. (n.d.). Gun violence. Retrieved November 24, 2021, from https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/gun-violence.
6. Marian E. Betz, Jill Harkavy-Friedman, Fatimah Loren Dreier, Rob Pincus, and Megan L. Ranney, 2021: Talking About “Firearm Injury” and “Gun Violence”: Words Matter. American Journal of Public Health 111, 2105_2110, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306525
7. Henn, Morissa & Barber, Catherine & Hemenway, David. (2019). Involving Firearm Stakeholders in Community-Based Suicide Prevention Efforts. Current Epidemiology Reports. 6. 10.1007/s40471-019-00198-1. 
8. Barber C, Frank E, Demicco R. Reducing Suicides Through Partnerships Between Health Professionals and Gun Owner Groups—Beyond Docs vs Glocks. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(1):5–6. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.6712
9.  Marian E. Betz, Jill Harkavy-Friedman, Fatimah Loren Dreier, Rob Pincus, and Megan L. Ranney, 2021: Talking About “Firearm Injury” and “Gun Violence”: Words Matter. American Journal of Public Health 111, 2105_2110, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306525 
10.  Henn, Morissa & Barber, Catherine & Hemenway, David. (2019). Involving Firearm Stakeholders in Community-Based Suicide Prevention Efforts. Current Epidemiology Reports. 6. 10.1007/s40471-019-00198-1. 
11.  Barber C, Frank E, Demicco R. Reducing Suicides Through Partnerships Between Health Professionals and Gun Owner Groups—Beyond Docs vs Glocks. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(1):5–6. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.6712