Firearm Owners’ Perspectives And Acceptability Of Firearm Suicide Safety Strategies & Messages From Healthcare Providers

Suicide death via firearms accounts for more firearm deaths than homicide and is the leading method of suicide in the United States of America. Undeniably, if someone is experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB’s) then access to lethal means of suicide can be the difference between life and death, as most individuals who die from firearm suicide do so on their first attempt. The current study examined participants’ (N = 403) openness to 11 different secure firearm storage recommendations, with half the participants reading brief messages provided by medical providers and the other half reading the same brief message, only provided by law enforcement. The purpose of this study was to better understand which medical provider-delivered firearm storage recommendations and strategies firearm owners are more open and amenable to implement. It was hypothesized that participants in the law enforcement messenger group would be more open to firearm storage recommendations compared to the same messages from the medical provider messenger group. Participants were recruited based on owning at least one firearm, and on their suicidal ideation (SI) history using an online survey platform. Results indicated that (1) firearm storage recommendation messenger was unrelated to one’s openness to firearm storage recommendations, (2) owning a firearm for personal protection (versus all other reasons for ownership) was related to more openness for only two of the 11 storage recommendations, and (3) past month SI was at least partially related to more openness of two suicide-specific firearm storage recommendations, regardless of reasons for owning and storage recommendation messenger. As such, clinicians should not limit secure firearm storage recommendations to one option (i.e., remove firearms from the home), but rather be aware of other means of secure storage as some options appear to be at inherent opposition to some of those who own firearms for protection purposes. Findings further indicate that suicide specific means safety messaging appears agreeable within firearm owners who are at a high-risk of STB’s. Limitations and future directions are discussed.