Health Chatter Podcast - Secure Firearm Storage Episode

Stanton Shanedling: Hello, everybody! Welcome to Health Chatter. And today's show, it's a little bit on the sad side because of the subject overall that we have to deal with. But hopefully, with the intervention that we're going to be talking about, we'll be able to be happy at the end. We're going to be talking about firearm storage today. We've got great guests with us. Stay tuned, just for a second, we'll get to them.

We have a great crew as always that helps us with our shows: Maddie Levine-Wolf, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard, Matthew Campbell, Sheridan Nygaard—all do our background research, our marketing, and get the shows out to you, the listening audience. So thank you to all of them. They've been with us for a long time now, and the show is closing in on our third year. So this is exciting.

Also with us is Dr. Barry Baines, who's our medical advisor, has been with us for a while now, and provides a medical twist to many of the questions that we hope can lead to some interesting discussions. So Barry, thanks for being with us. And of course there's Clarence. Clarence is my trusted colleague in putting these shows out to you, and it's been a pleasure working with him. He's a great friend and colleague. So Clarence, thank you.

Today, firearm storage. We have Dr. Tom Kottke. Tom has been with us on a couple of other shows because Tom is involved in a lot in his career. Actually, besides being a physician, he's been involved in many public health-related issues that he and I have some history together with. We'll touch base on that in a second. He's the medical director of well-being at HealthPartners. I think if I'm not mistaken, Tom recently retired, or still connected—recently retired, but still, I know he's still connected. If you know Tom, he'll be connected.

He obtained his medical degree from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine and trained in Internal Medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and the North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, trained in cardiovascular diseases and preventive cardiology at the University of Minnesota, and has been involved in many, many public health-related issues. He's unique in the sense that he carries on one hand the public health charge and on the other hand the medical charge. So Tom, thanks for being with us once again.

We also have Kathleen Anderson, a clinical social worker and volunteer educator at Be SMART, and hopefully at the end of the show we're all going to be a little smarter. But we'll get into the logistics of that. The Be SMART campaign educates on the importance of secure firearm storage to prevent childhood firearm injury and death, and she volunteers her time. So wow, noble, very, very noble!

And Thea Williams, who I just met. But it's interesting because I would almost call Thea an intervention person. This is her background—she works with people who unfortunately have experienced gun violence in hospitals in the metropolitan area in Minnesota. And, you know, what you do, first of all, on one hand is sad because we have to have people like you. And fortunately we do. And on the other hand, it's a point of contact for true education going forward.

So on one hand, we're really trying to do primary prevention here, getting people to be smart and lock up their firearms accordingly. And on the other hand, it's what we call secondary prevention after an event has happened. Well, okay, now let's get at least smart going forward. So Thea will tell us about the work that she does. But thank you for being with us, all of you today. It's a pleasure having you. Thank you.

Kathleen Anderson: Thank you.

Stanton Shanedling: All right, so here we go. Who wants to kick it off here? You know, Clarence, Thea, Kathleen—tell us about the immediacy and the real problem that we're facing right now.

Dr. Thomas Kottke: So I want to jump in here. And I think we have a real opportunity—I know we have a real opportunity to do something about gun violence. And that's because 60% of people who are killed by a gun are killed in a home. While it is the mass shooting at a nightclub or in a sporting event or a school that really upsets us and we fear, the fact of the matter is 60% of deaths from guns occur in a home, and 55% are suicides.

Okay, so there's a common vector here, there's one vector, and that is a fireable firearm. And if that is not available, those 60% of the deaths—basically, if those guns are secured, we have more than a 50% reduction in deaths from guns. So it's within our grasp if we choose to do something. But we do have to choose to do something.

And I learned about Be SMART about a year ago, then really tumbled to it. And, you know, Be SMART for Kids—it's besmartforkids.org. But we as common citizens, we both can do something, and it will happen if we do do something. We must do something. And I'm going to ask Kathleen to talk about Be SMART for a minute.

Kathleen Anderson: Yeah, sure. Thank you so much, Dr. Kottke. So the Be SMART program was launched in 2015 to promote responsible gun ownership in order to reduce child gun deaths. As Dr. Kottke mentioned, a lot of attention is paid to mass shootings, school shootings, but the reality is that the majority of gun deaths are happening in the home. And so many of those are preventable.

When children get a hold of a gun, they often go off, and one in four times they are fatal. And we know that with the gun ownership rates that we have across the country, if people are not securing them, children across the country are at risk, and they're at risk of bringing those guns into schools, to play dates, and endangering others in the process.

And so our message is very simple: in order to reduce gun violence across our country, if you have a gun in the home, store it securely—by which we mean unloaded with the ammunition stored separately. And if you don't have a gun in the home, ask about guns in the homes that your children visit. And so whether that's grandparents, aunts and uncles, babysitters in the early childhood years, play dates, neighbors' houses for play dates, and then certainly in the teen years as well, and just having that a part of your normal check-in when you're preparing for a play date.

Dr. Thomas Kottke: So I love the acronym Be SMART. It's: Secure—secure your firearms, locked, unloaded; M—ammo, ammunition separate, locked; A—model, do it; R—ask, ask whether all firearms are secured; and T—practice.

There's three scenarios when you ask, either text or email, or I'm an old goat so I actually talk on the phone. One is: "Yes, are your firearms secured?" "Yep, they're all secured, everything's safe, locked up." Second is: "Are your firearms secured?" "No, I keep one, I really need one for protection." Well, let's go to the park instead, or why don't the kids come over here?

And then the third one, which just sneaks up on people, is you ask and the response is, "Why would you ever think I'm such a beast that I would have a gun in my home?" And you have to have a response to that: "Well, there's 40% of American homes have a gun in it, and I just don't know, and so it's better to be safe than sorry." And you may have to practice that in front of the mirror to practice it, be prepared, because I know one of my colleagues who asked and got that third response was so taken aback that she stopped asking, which is really unfortunate.

Stanton Shanedling: So what—couple things, hang on one sec, Kathleen. So what comes to mind for me is, I don't know—first of all, I don't own a gun, but I don't know who does own a gun. So like if I go to anyone's house, what am I just supposed to—do you have a gun? Oh, okay. Well, you know, it's not like a conversation starter. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of like—so it's like, how is it that I engage in that conversation with somebody? Does that make sense? How do you do it, or why would you do it, you know? Go ahead.

Thea Williams: Personally, if I feel comfortable allowing my kid to go to someone's house, then I should feel comfortable having that conversation because there are other avenues in which they can get hurt. So I would want to know who's going to be there. And if I can ask you who's going to be there, I can ask you, "Well, do you carry guns in your home? Do you have guns in your home?"

I don't know, that's just a natural conversation for me. If I was to get a response, "Well, why do you think I'm such a terrible person?" I'd say, "Well, it's not that you're a terrible person. It's that guns can be legally held in the home, and I'm just trying to figure out if that's something that you practice." Because if you do, then I would think I would want my child to maybe play outside, or maybe your kids can come over here because I don't have guns in my home.

Kathleen Anderson: Well, and another thing, Dr. Stan, I think parents, as their children are starting to go over to other people's houses that aren't family members, where you can't—I don't think anyone should be assuming whether or not there's a gun in the home. But I think we tend to with family. But it is natural and common now to ask questions about, you know, if there was going to be any transportation, you would ask about an age-appropriate car seat, or you're doing that dance of, "Oh, do you need to borrow my booster?" You know, we have safety conversations already. We talk about pets, allergens. We should be talking about screen time and internet access. I know I don't want my children going over to a house where kids are on YouTube for hours, right?

So modern parents are kind of getting in the habit of asking these questions, and it not necessarily being awkward, but just sort of a part of the getting to know you, getting to know whether I trust you to have my child over in your space. And we don't get defensive about, you know, whether I have a dog, right? Like that's not something to get defensive about. And part of what we're trying to normalize is that asking about a gun shouldn't be taboo. It's not a political question, it's a safety question.

And we actually got this feedback from our healthcare providers that, not even focusing on whether there's a gun in the house, but actually phrasing the question: "If you have guns in the house, how are they secured?" So I'm not asking you necessarily, like, "Are you a gun owner, are you not a gun owner?" I'm just saying, "Hey, if you are a gun owner, how do you secure your guns?" And in our experience, most gun owners are responsible gun owners. They're very proud, especially if they've got kids in the home. They're eager to talk about the lengths they go through to keep their kids safe.

And it's a point of pride for them. And that's something that we really want to celebrate in these conversations—that's the goal, is that people that are choosing to have guns in the home are storing them securely and taking this very seriously. That's what we want to highlight. If someone gets cagey or defensive, then that's just not a house that you want your kid going to, because all it takes is one curious game of hide and seek to end in a tragedy. And you can't—there's no going back from that. You know what I mean? Like, that's it.

And so on the other side, I know Dr. Kottke asked the question—I ask it as a part of all of those safety questions. I also am working on volunteering that information. So, you know, if someone's coming to my house, I say, "Just a heads up: we have a small dog, he's very friendly, no guns in our house. Are there any allergens that I need to be aware of?" And just kind of sandwiching it in with those other safety questions to help normalize it as well.

Stanton Shanedling: Barry, go ahead. Thanks, Kathleen. Go ahead.

Barry Baines: Stan, I'm going to give you the script. But Kathleen actually did a great job on that. But the idea that from a public health perspective, if 40% of people own guns—okay, I think sitting here, I don't own one, Stan, I know you don't own one, I can ask everybody—but if you don't own one, it's highly likely that people that you know own a gun. And so, you know, just from that perspective, getting put off by "What do you mean, do I own a gun?" But I think it's the idea that the focus isn't that you own a gun, it's that it's securely stored.

And the other piece I wanted to bring in—the problem from a suicide perspective is that gunshots are highly lethal. And so suicide attempts using guns oftentimes are very successful. And that's part of the issue. I mean, there's other ways that people do attempt suicide, but many of them you have time and you could save the person. And oftentimes, you know, it's depression or whatever the ideology of that is. But that's the thing to me—the lethality, how lethal gunshot wounds are, not only for suicide but also accidentally killing somebody, just make it critically important.

And, you know, the other thing is we could say, "Well, I just listened to this great show on Health Chatter about firearm safety, and yeah, I'm going to ask my friends about it, just to hear." And I would imagine that this is even more critical if you have little kids, you know, if you have young children going around, although oftentimes it's older adults, aunts, uncles, grandparents who are minding the kids. And so I think, no pun intended here, everybody's fair game for secure firearm storage because it is ubiquitous when 40% of the population own firearms.

But it is like an accident waiting to happen, isn't it, if we don't do something? And I like, even in our beginning conversation here, that this isn't a hard bar to get over to start the conversation. It's not accusatory, it's not judging people, it's about practices. And I say we have car seats, bicycle helmets is another one that has changed. So I think we have a good way to get some traction here.

Stanton Shanedling: Clarence, go ahead!

Clarence Jones: Some of the resistance people have to this issue—I mean, you know, you can talk about the death of a child, but there are people that actually resist, you know, talking to them about their guns or their storage. What are some of the things that come up? Why people just, "I'm not going to do it."

Dr. Thomas Kottke: So let me jump in on that. There's a couple of things. One is, "I need my firearm. I'm afraid of a home invasion." I would argue that in that case you really want—there's biometric lockboxes that open in a flash, and you want to know that that pistol is in that box. Because many years ago they did a survey in Austin, Texas. They called people out and said, "Do you have a pistol in your home?" "Yep, I got a pistol." "Where is it?" "It's in my bedside table."

And they said, "Well, would you go look and verify?" They went, came back and said, "It's not there." Where was it? It was in the kid's backpack. But if you really fear a home invasion, you don't want that weapon going walkabout on you. You want to know where it is, and it's in that biometric lockbox—100 bucks at Dick's Sporting Goods or Menards or wherever you want to go. But you want that pistol secured.

And the other thing—we've changed, don't you know? Our group, when I was at the University of Minnesota, is one of the groups that started eliminating smoking in hospitals. When I was in training, you could smoke in bed recovering from a myocardial infarction. And I remember somebody said, "You know, I found—they said your smoke-free program doesn't work because I found a cigarette butt in the back stairwell of the parking ramp."

Well, no, it does work, and there will be people who resist. Probably 5% of the population will blow it off. But the other 95% will do it. And our kids can live with that.

Stanton Shanedling: You know, Thea, I've got a question for you. Tell me some happy things, okay? Because I know that you're involved with intervention. Tell me something that you've heard that you're really happy about, given the fact that you're dealing with this all the time. But do people circle back to you and say, "Because of you, I'm making damn sure that our firearms are secure"? Do you hear good things coming from this?

Thea Williams: Circle back, sometimes. I think the best thing that I feel I hear is when I'm at an event in my community and I have loads of gun locks, and I'm passing them out, and people want to actually know how to use them—how do I apply them to my gun?

Stanton Shanedling: Good.

Thea Williams: That makes me happy when people want to know. Or they take my gun lock and they say, "I don't own a gun, but my cousin does, or my brother does, or this person I know does," and they take them and bring them to family members. That makes me happy because I know that I'm doing something that could actually be effective.

Stanton Shanedling: Okay, so the other thought that came to my mind was point of sale. Okay, so, you know, use me as an illustration. I want to go to, you know, wherever—Scheels or Dick's or wherever—and I want to buy a gun. Doesn't point of sale have some kind of a responsibility when they sell you the gun to give you education, information, sell you a device to make damn sure that that device is locked up safely in your home?

Dr. Thomas Kottke: So, I want to jump in on that. And I think that's the wrong question because that's saying, "Oh, this is somebody else's problem. If somebody else would just take responsibility, if somebody else—"

Stanton Shanedling: Oh, I'm not saying somebody else altogether, but as part of being smart.

Dr. Thomas Kottke: Yeah, but we can't control them. We can't control them. I mean, it's like, you know, this thing at Fleet Farm where, you know, the straw purchaser—I can't control that. But what I can do and what each one of us on this podcast can do is ask, and we can ask our friends to ask. Okay, so there's things we can do that will make a difference.

Stanton Shanedling: Gotcha, gotcha. Go ahead, Kathleen.

Kathleen Anderson: Oh, just to answer your question too about the point of sale. There are, you know, secure gun storage is supposed to be covered in gun safety classes and permitting classes. The issue is that there's no universal standard across all points of sale about what you're supposed to do. And so there are certainly responsible gun stores and shooting ranges and such that try to emphasize this message, that certainly take firearm suicide risks, as Barry alluded to, very seriously, and do pass on that information.

We do have partnerships with some law enforcement officers or offices across the state when they're issuing gun permits where they pass out information about secure storage. Mendota Heights is one of them. And so there are movements in different pockets with different individuals and agencies that do take this message on. But it's not universal. But the more we can get that message out and again, kind of create that cultural shift and that pressure for everybody to take this message seriously, the better.

And so there is opportunity for action there. I did want to circle back quickly to Clarence's question about resistance to the message of secure storage. Dr. Kottke brought up a great one—one of the biggest ones that people say is that, you know, the whole reason I have a firearm in my home is for protection, and I need to be able to access it instantaneously. There are devices out there for sale that allow you to do that and do that quickly.

When we table in the community, one of our groups has a biometric safe—their personal safes—and they reset the code so that people can show people just how quickly you can get into a biometric safe using a code in the event that you should need to access your firearm quickly.

Some of the resistance I get is people saying, "My kids know better. I talked to my kids about gun safety, and my kids know better." And the doctors in the room are laughing. The parents that know anything about child development are laughing because we know that kids may hear better, right? They may have been told better, but that doesn't mean that they know better. Kids, the child brain is just not developed to the point where they can understand the risk.

And, you know, children as young as two and three can pull a trigger, often with fatal results. And so a big part of our training, when I do my presentation, my free presentation in the community, is time permitting, I actually like to start with a grounding exercise where I ask everybody to imagine, think back to their own childhood and teenage years, and think about a time when they did something that their parents had explicitly told them not to do.

And, you know, Dr. Kottke's nodding his head because he's got his own story, right? But we hear all sorts of things when I ask people to share back. You know, we hear about playing with broken glass, playing on railroad tracks. And then there's almost always a teenage boy who talks about getting into the liquor cabinet and then getting into the gun cabinet. And that's the thing that we want the adults in the room to start to remember—that kids do all sorts of stupid stuff because of curiosity, peer pressure, impulsivity, recklessness. And that doesn't make them bad kids. It's just part of growing up.

And it's our job as adults to prevent them from having that access, not the job of impulsive, curious kids to keep themselves from accessing a gun. You know, we don't tell toddlers, "I told you not to get into the bleach," right? Like we lock up the bleach. And that's a big part of our message—just that even children that go through gun safety training courses are just as likely to touch a gun when they come across it. Their brains just aren't developed enough to keep themselves from that compulsion. So that is a huge myth that we hear, just that idea that "my kids know better."

And what's really upsetting to me when I hear it is the sort of backhanded insinuation that a kid who does access a gun had it coming, you know, kind of this idea that, especially when there's survivors in the room that are testifying on behalf of their child that they've lost due to an accident and unintentional shooting, this idea that their kid didn't know better. And it's like, no, the adults didn't protect the children. That's what happened here. So that's my piece on that part of the resistance to that message.

Dr. Thomas Kottke: And the other question is, what about the kid at that home who's from the third household or the fourth household or the fifth household? Do we know they've been taught? We don't. And so it's our responsibility to protect kids. I mean, that's part of the American ethos. And part of that is simply storing guns safely.

Stanton Shanedling: And hopefully it goes beyond kids. I mean, it's for all of us really, when you really think about it. Go ahead, Clarence.

Clarence Jones: Okay, I want to just thank you, Kathleen, for your comments. I mean, you said a couple of different things that resonated with me. What you said—kids do stupid things, right? Okay. But now there are some adults. And we took a look at this in our research. It says that some adults might think that zip ties, ropes, and strings qualifies as secure gun storage. What would you say about that?

Kathleen Anderson: Generally, we try to be a little bit diplomatic that the best storage device for you is the one that you're actually going to use. But that rope, zip ties, hiding—I mean, none of those—it needs to be locked in some way. Anything that can be easily cut isn't going to prevent a resourceful teenager from getting into it. Or we haven't even touched on gun theft yet, but unsecured guns in cars are the leading cause of guns on the black market, and it's driving all sorts of other car break-ins. And then the guns get into the hands of people who are otherwise barred from having them, and then they're using those guns in crimes. I mean, the add-on effects of unsecured guns is catastrophic for our country as we're seeing.

And so having a locked device, all the better if the ammunition's stored separately, is the gold standard for us. And the biometric ones are great because they have such instantaneous access to the person who's charged with having that gun, who's allowed to have that gun.

Clarence Jones: Thank you for that diplomatic answer. I'm glad that you phrased it like that. Yeah, but I do think that people will say, like, "You know, this works just as well," you know what I mean? And I know that some of our listeners might be listening, and they may have a unique way of storing their guns, you know. So I just think at least enter the conversation.

Stanton Shanedling: I have a question for you, Tom. We've been, you and I for sure, have been involved in public health issues that have a long time frame attached to them. Okay, take smoking. It took a long time. It really did. It took a long time and a really strong, concerted public health effort to have smoke-free environments, etc. It took a long time to get kids in child restraint seats and people buckled up. It took—when I say a long time, it took a long time for public psyche to embrace it and be comfortable with it and know that that's just part of what we do now.

What has really struck me about this topic is the immediacy, the absolute immediacy of the situation. We are seeing more and more people getting shot accidentally or what have you, daily. I mean, your numbers here indicate that. So how is it that we might be able to deal with what seemingly feels like a long haul here to get everybody on the bandwagon when we're dealing with an immediacy of a situation? Do you have any thoughts on that, Tom? Yeah, besides just starting?

Dr. Thomas Kottke: Yeah, I wouldn't wring my hands over that. I mean, it's very easy to get going. I mean, in your social network, you can protect the kids by asking and by asking people to ask. And then it's done. You have protected the kids in your social network by being smart. Okay? And yeah, it's, you know, Semmelweis, always washing hands before delivering a baby, took obstetricians 18 years. Surgeons, clean hands, took them 25 years. Max Planck, the physicist, said, "You know, you never change anybody's mind. The old guys just die, and the young guys grow up believing in your theories."

And so we can hang the crepe around this. But the beauty of this is that we can change—we can change in our social network almost overnight, almost overnight. And I want to go back to who has a gun. I was talking to a preventive medicine doctor about this, and she said, "Oh, yeah, my husband just bought a pistol." Like, oh, you know, like that would be the last person I would believe would have a pistol in their house. But, you know, in a boy's head, yeah, don't ask.

So you never know. And so what you need is you need to have that comeback that says, you know, "40% of households have a firearm in them. Many of them are unsecured. I just ask. Thank you very much for securing your firearm, or thank you very much for accepting my question." There's no moral—it's not a moral question, not judgmental like that. But I want to hear some more from Thea and what she's been up to.

Thea Williams: Well, just to piggyback from that, I think it is an uncomfortable conversation. That's the reality. But there are lots of uncomfortable conversations, like the one you would have if they actually went to that friend's house and was harmed or killed. That would be a very much more uncomfortable conversation to have with that parent. So you have to weigh your options. It's not uncomfortable if you care about your kid's safety. It's not uncomfortable to ask if they have alcohol in the home, and is it locked up? It's not uncomfortable to ask if they're going to be going somewhere other than home. So we just have to, like Kathleen said, normalize it, because I fear the conversation about why that kid was over there playing with a gun and now my child is dead. It's more uncomfortable than any other conversation we can have prior to that.

Stanton Shanedling: It's a good point, really good point. Better to be proactive when there is no harm.

Dr. Thomas Kottke: And our friend Rachel Weigert, who's an ER doc over at Children's, says the most disheartening thing in the world to hear is the wail of the parents over the body of a dead child. And if you want to lose a friend, have somebody shot in your house. Remorse forever.

Stanton Shanedling: Right, right. Barry, go ahead. And then Kathleen. Go ahead, Barry.

Barry Baines: So 95% of gun owners are responsible gun owners. I'm going to have to make—and actually I'm getting into proactivity here, and just an idea to hear what some of the experts will say—I'd have to assume that gun owners probably would hear a message differently from another gun owner than they would from, let's say, Stan or me who are not gun owners going out and telling people about gun safety, and that we should do that.

So my question is, because so many people do own guns, I'd like to know two things: if there have been any community efforts to recruit gun owners to be sort of like, I'll call them ambassadors or volunteers for polling within their block, their neighborhood. And the reason why I ask that is there was an effort a couple of years ago about storm drains because they get all muddied up with leaves and twigs and stuff like that.

So our neighborhood association sent out a thing—who would like to volunteer to own one storm drain? You could sign up for a storm drain, and every month or so, or every few weeks, you know, it's near your house, and they send you a bag and a shovel, and you could scoop it up. And then quarterly you just report back. And so, of course, then it gets to be a little contagious. So I signed up for one, so my name—and I put these little signs out. And then my neighbor across the street said, "Well, wait, what are you doing there?" I said, "Well, you know, I signed up for storm drains. Matter of fact, there's one across the street. Maybe you want to sign up for that." "Oh, yeah," they did that.

So I'm wondering, because so many gun owners are responsible, aren't they a prime community resource to really be able to get the message out on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis? And if you agree with that, can you tell me if there have been any efforts that have shown ways to get that community involvement in that educational piece?

Stanton Shanedling: Kathleen, I'll bet you have an answer on that one.

Kathleen Anderson: I do, and that's a great point. We talk about gun owners being the most credible messengers for secure storage. And one of the things—so whether that's law enforcement, veterans, people who are hunters or do it for sport—we are always welcoming and encouraging them to center themselves in that conversation because they can practice that M, right? The modeling, responsible behavior.

I'm not sure where you got the figure 95% of gun owners are responsible gun owners. We believe that the majority of gun owners want to be responsible gun owners. But the figure looks more like about 50% do not practice secure storage. And so I just wanted to make sure that was clear because we can't assume that 95% of people are practicing secure storage. It really is more half and half.

But all of the leading national gun violence prevention organizations that I'm familiar with—Giffords, Brady, Everytown—have gun owner caucuses and kind of subgroups for people who identify as gun owners who are committed to common sense solutions to reduce gun violence. And so those groups exist, and any platform we have to call more gun owners to get involved in that very particular lane of the advocacy is an opportunity to take. So any gun owners that are listening, if you could please join our efforts, you really are the most credible messengers when it comes to being responsible and taking common sense precautions to prevent gun violence in our communities. So thank you for teeing that up for me.

Barry Baines: I just did easy math, Kathleen. I took 5% resistors. I just subtracted that from the 100%. And again, you could still be a responsible gun owner and not do what I say, not what I do. But that would be more amenable—they're not going to totally resist. That's just—

Kathleen Anderson: Sure. I just, we're so focused on giving people the numbers, and I didn't want anyone's takeaway to be that, "Oh, well, they said 95%, so 95% of people are practicing secure storage."

Barry Baines: I didn't mean that they were practicing that way, but they might be amenable.

Kathleen Anderson: Okay.

Stanton Shanedling: You know, there are lessons learned from that, though. We do know—as a matter of fact, I remember doing my doctoral work on this—we do know that modeling is important. And so, for instance, parents will buckle up themselves knowing that they're modeling good behavior for their kids. Yeah, okay, so it's that same idea. Clarence, go ahead. And then Tom. 

Clarence: Great. Okay? So I got my gun locked up. What do I do with my ammunition?

Thomas Kottke: Lock it up separately somewhere else in the house.

Kathleen Anderson (she/her): Yup. The idea is not having it in the same place. If you have a lock box, don’t store the ammunition next to the gun in the same device. Even just having it stored separately in the house is a barrier.

Thomas Kottke: Yeah, there is a spectrum. We like both locked separately. And, you know, some people might say, “Well, I’m not comfortable having an unloaded firearm in that lock box.” That’s not ideal, but it’s a heck of a lot better than having it in your desk drawer.

I wanted to go back to Barry with a couple of things. One, we can… I own a gun. I have a rifle up at the lake. It’s locked. It’s got a trigger lock on it, so I’m one of those people who owns guns.

But you know what connects us socially is we’re all parents or grandparents. That’s our social network. Whether or not we own a gun, I really bristle at the idea of “let somebody else do it.” If we all take a little action—ask, ask, ask—we can solve this problem. We don’t have to rely on anybody else. In our social networks, we can solve the problem of unsecured firearms.

Stanton Shanedling: We all own it. We all own it.

Thomas Kottke: Yeah, we own it. But what I like about Barry’s example is this diffusion of innovation. When you see other people doing it, you do it. People like me lock up their guns. Oh, I better lock up my gun, or I’ll be embarrassed the next time I go to a party and someone asks, “Do you lock up your guns?”

It shouldn’t be an embarrassing conversation—it’s just part of a safety check. We all… we do see this in other areas: car seats, smoke-free environments, seat belts. Culture does change.

Stanton Shanedling: Absolutely. Change for the better.

As grandparents, it’s really interesting. When our grandkids come to the house, a kind of sixth sense kicks in. Suddenly, all the cabinets with poisonous liquids are locked up, all the electrical outlets have covers, corners of furniture are padded. We do these things because they’re toddling around and we want them safe.

One more—this should be a slam dunk.

Tell me a story. From the minute somebody comes in, you see these people in the hospital—hopefully with a brighter outcome—but a typical story you run into dealing with this in a hospital setting is important for people to hear.

Thea Williams: I think the most important part to hear is the aftermath of a child getting hold of a gun, or being in the presence of a gun someone else is holding irresponsibly.

When they come into the ED, you see a whole team of medical staff trying to save this child’s life. Outside with the family, they’re anticipating answers—they want good answers, and it’s not always good. You are stressed for the parents because you want a good outcome too.

When it’s not, the aftermath is so sad. People are wailing. Emotionally, some can’t handle themselves. Some even throw up. It’s heartbreaking. Even if the child survives for a few days, the impact on the family is huge. People fly in from out of town. It doesn’t just affect the nuclear family; it affects everyone. It’s emotionally draining.

We do it because we want to see these numbers go down. We don’t want to see another child come in and have to provide resources to the family or even coffins.

We have therapy and resources to help us deal with these situations. We offer the same to our clients. But it’s sad, and it’s preventable. Making the conversation normal is key. If we’re going to be gun owners and want our rights, we should be able to speak about safety and preventable measures. It should be a normal conversation—not something people are ashamed of or want to hide.

Stanton Shanedling: Well, if I could, I’d put my arms around you for doing the work you are doing. It’s sad as it is, but you’re helping. You’re really helping.

Thomas Kottke: This is an outtake, but you really should do a health chatter on gun violence interrupters.

Stanton Shanedling: Alright. Firearm storage—it’s okay to ask.

Thomas Kottke: No, do it!

Stanton Shanedling: Diffuse the message, model the behavior, and be smart. I encourage our listening audience to check out our website. We’ve got background research on this on the front end of the show.

Human Partnership is our community sponsor. They’re an incredible organization doing excellent work on this and many other issues. Check them out at humanpartnership.org. Check us out at healthchatterpodcast.com.

I want to thank our guests—they’re second to none for doing the work they do. Hopefully, this will help spread the message even more for our audience. Our next show will be on veterans’ health, which should be interesting to see what our veterans are dealing with. In the meantime, everybody, keep health chatting away.