In observation of Gun Violence Awareness Month this June, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Service Members, Veterans, and their Families Technical Assistance Center (SAMHSA’s SMVF TA Center) invited Joe Bartozzi, President of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and a military family member himself, to share his thoughts on safe and responsible use of firearms. Below he highlights his personal ties to the SMVF community, the work of Project ChildSafe, and NSSF’s partnership with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide and promote lethal means safety.
The SMVF TA Center helps states, territories, and communities across the country strengthen their behavioral health and crisis care systems serving SMVF. What advice would you offer those considering strategies to support lethal means safety among the SMVF population?
As with anything related to this difficult topic, respect for the personal choices of the SMVF community is critical. For example, regarding firearms, I would urge caregivers not to discount the emotional attachment that some Veterans or their families have to firearm ownership. Based on my observations, I am convinced that if caregivers fail to acknowledge and control their biases against firearms, Veterans will not seek help when they should. Any strategy that involves providing care to the SMVF population ought to include some level of training or familiarity with firearms and their safe and responsible use. While not intended to make firearm experts or advocates out of caregivers, there ought to be at least some understanding of the history, connection to their service, hunting, sport shooting experiences, and other Second Amendment elements that can help to provide context and appreciation for such choices. Veterans are a proud segment of our society. They value our freedoms, just as the rest of us do. I am well aware that there is, at times, a reticence to ask for help or admit that issues in their lives might require the assistance of others. We want to provide them, their friends, families, and caregivers with the tools they need in a dignified and responsible manner. The outreach through NSSF’s partnerships with AFSP and the VA are valuable tools to help in those times.
NSSF has demonstrated its commitment to the SMVF community’s mental health and well-being through collaborations with the VA and AFSP, to name a few. As a military family member yourself, are there any specific resources you and/or your family utilize to ensure the health and safety of your loved ones?
NSSF is fully committed to mental health and suicide prevention efforts, and I am very proud to be a part of this effort. I work in and represent an industry that employs a large number of Veterans. Of course, being the son (and son-in-law) of a Veteran, and the father of two Veterans, these efforts are both professional and personal to me.
Regarding specific programs I utilize, there are basically two that are my “go-to” resources. One is the materials related to Project ChildSafe found on the website and distributed to the community at large. The other resource I would point to is the VA-AFSP-NSSF “A Toolkit for Safe Firearm Storage in your Community.” Not only does the toolkit provide easy-to-follow and informative information on the secure storage of firearms, but it also provides guidance on identifying warning signs of possible suicidal thoughts and engaging others in the community to get involved. It contains various links to valuable resources on these and other related topics. I was proud that NSSF was asked to contribute content related to firearms to the toolkit and input that helped avoid terms and content that could be interpreted as culturally insensitive to firearm owners. NSSF was very concerned that many folks could be “turned off” by that document if it was not presented in a way that was respectful to gun owners. I was pleased that AFSP and VA welcomed our input. I am very proud that this toolkit is a document that I can use and share with my family without reservation.
You have dedicated a great amount of your time and career to promoting the safe and responsible use of firearms. As we observe Gun Violence Awareness Month, do you have any ideas for local community efforts to promote lethal means safety awareness among SMVF? Do you have examples of successful events or promotions you’d like to share?
Safe and responsible use of firearms has certainly been a focus not only for me but for members of our industry as well. I was fortunate to be on the leading edge of the movement to include locking devices with every firearm sold in the late 1980s while working for O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc., a firearms manufacturing company. I am proud that NSSF helps to educate gun owners on the wide variety of options available for the secure storage of firearms when they are not in use. Our industry supports and funds several programs that work to keep firearms out of the hands of people who are not legally qualified to possess them. We actively work to prevent thefts, accidents, misuse, and suicide through a variety of outreach and collaborative programs, including some in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE). We create and freely distribute firearm safety and secure storage training videos and documents, firearm locking devices, and parent and educator resources through Project ChildSafe and its community partners.
My advice regarding local community efforts is twofold: (1) to focus on those elements that we all can agree on rather than dismiss or disparage efforts by our industry based purely on political or philosophical grounds, and (2) to remind SMVF that they help to reduce the misuse of firearms in their communities by encouraging law enforcement to participate in Project ChildSafe and providing regular secure storage reminders. We can all request firearm retailers and shooting ranges to use the AFSP-NSSF “Have a Brave Conversation” Suicide Prevention Toolkit and for communities to use the VA Community Toolkit.
To provide some examples of programs that have been working, I would point to three in particular: (1) Project ChidSafe; (2.) our collaborative efforts with AFSP and VA; and (3) our longstanding partnership programs with BATFE.
Project ChildSafe has been providing free safety toolkits—including free gun locks—since 1999 and has distributed more than 40 million kits to date. Project ChildSafe has been awarded state and federal grants, and we have worked with well over 15,000 community partners in all 50 states and all 5 U.S. Territories to deliver impactful and lifesaving information. The program provides the means to immediately secure firearms to keep them inaccessible to unauthorized persons and those not legally eligible to possess them. A recent Project ChildSafe video based on a true story of how utilizing a Project ChildSafe lock likely saved a young woman from taking her own life with a firearm was widely viewed and drove substantial traffic to our other free program resources.
Our work with AFSP and VA is helping to build trust for gun owners so they can have productive and brave conversations with mental health providers or trusted family members. We believe that our expertise and credibility regarding firearms have opened doors to gun owners—Veterans and non-Veterans alike—and have created an environment that gun owners can trust to respect their rights but also acknowledge that it’s OK to seek help when needed.
Our partnership with BATFE demonstrates that even though we may not agree on all matters relating to firearms, we can come together and work on areas of common interest, such as preventing illegal purchases, burglaries, and robberies of federally licensed retailers. This is a model of success based upon mutual respect for the areas where we have a unity of interest and a constancy of purpose.
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