Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
A statewide suicide prevention initiative welcomed a third safe storage site for firearms owned by at-risk individuals at My Gun Shop in Pelham on Friday.
The initiative, Storing Ammunition and Firearms to Enhance Resilience Together, or SAFER Together, works to prevent suicides among active duty service members, veterans and first responders by assembling a network of storage sites for firearms, a leading cause of death by suicide. The initiative partnered with Bearded Warriors, a veteran suicide prevention nonprofit based in Huntsville.
My Gun Shop is the third store in the state to opt in to the storage program, after Redland Rifle Co. in Birmingham and Walter Craig’s in Montgomery did in June. Participating stores will offer free safes for individuals at risk of suicide to temporarily store their firearms until the risk has lessened.
“As a veteran and a retired federal law enforcement officer, I’ve lost too many on both sides,” said Scott Recchio, owner of My Gun Shop, which has four safes available. “The studies don’t speak. The veterans, the retired officers, the former officers, those are the ones we have to listen to, and if this can bring one of them out of whatever dark hole they’re in, I’m gonna be behind it 100%.”
The program was made possible by the Houston/Hunter Act, which took effect in June after being enacted in April. The law established firearm hold agreements in the state of Alabama that shield federal firearms licensees — including gun store owners like Recchio — from potential legal liability for returning firearms at the end of the hold agreement.
The namesakes of the law are Houston Tumlin, an Army veteran, and Hunter Whitley, a UA student and retired Marine, both of whom died by suicide using a firearm.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for people in this community,” said Shannon McDaniel, Whitley’s mother, adding that Whitley valued mental health, especially after returning from serving during the Afghanistan withdrawal. “If this program was around then, there’s a possibility he might have used it, and he might still be here.”
According to the 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 17.6 veterans died by suicide per day nationally in 2022, and the suicide rate per 100,000 veterans is over twice as high as the rate for the non-veteran adult population. 73.5% of veteran deaths by suicide in the U.S. were by firearms in 2022, the report said.
The report added that research shows that many suicidal crises are impulsive and often last less than 10 minutes, and the department has made secure firearm storage a “key element” of its suicide prevention strategy.
“When I got introduced to the SAFER Together program, I realized this was a compassionate, sensible approach to giving those who are in a crisis an opportunity to safely secure their firearms and ammunition in a time of crisis, so that those who were maybe desiring to harm themselves won’t be able to harm themselves,” said state Rep. Russell Bedsole, who sponsored the Houston/Hunter Act.
To store firearms, the owner can visit a participating location and speak with an employee. After the employee executes a firearm hold harmless agreement, the owner may then store them in a safe accessible only to the owner. Firearms may then be retrieved whenever the owner would like during normal business hours.
My Gun Shop in Pelham has four safes for use in the firearm storage program.Beyond safe storage, SAFER Together offers recovery support. During the storage process, owners receive folders containing mental health resources such as the Veterans Crisis Line and information about opting into an optional peer support program.
Peer support is the “center of gravity” of the storage program, said Jason Smith, Alabama National Guard resilience and risk reduction coordinator and suicide prevention program manager, who helped start the SAFER Together initiative.
“Friend to friend, that’s what gets us out of that fighting hole,” Smith said.
SAFER Together members emphasize that the storage program is “voluntary, confidential and temporary,” and that it is designed with respect for participants’ Second Amendment rights. Only owners can store and retrieve their firearms, which remain legal in possession of the owner, not the store.
Temporary hold harmless agreements are confidential, and because the gun store does not legally acquire the gun under the agreement, it does not record the firearm in its acquisition and disposition records. Additional protections are in place for retrieval of firearms, obviating the need for background checks and records of a transaction.
Ty Oswald, founder of Bearded Warriors, said that service members, law enforcement and first responders face an “untold” reality of risking career advancement opportunities if they report mental health struggles to a supervisor.
When using the storage program, “nobody has to know that you have something going on,” Oswald said.
Ultimately, SAFER Together’s goal is to have one storage site in each county.
“Suicide doesn’t discriminate,” McDaniel said. “It’s really important that the communities come together and families and friends and we all do what we can to help.”
If you are in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to speak with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. If you are a veteran in crisis, dial 988 and press 1 or text 838255 to speak with the Veterans Crisis Line.
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