Most gun deaths are suicides. A new safety campaign in Missouri seeks to reduce them
A new campaign promoting safe gun storage to prevent firearm suicides launched Monday in Missouri.
End Family Fire Missouri, a two-year campaign from the Missouri Foundation for Health, urges gun owners to practice safe storage techniques — like locking up their firearms unloaded and separate from ammunition — to help reduce gun suicides, the leading cause of gun deaths in the state and nationwide.
“With firearms playing such an outsized role in suicides throughout the state, we want to start a conversation about how we can encourage safer storage and look out for one another in moments of crisis,” said Jessi LaRose, a senior strategist with the Missouri Foundation for Health, in a news release announcing the campaign.
“The legacy of a single suicide tears through a community, leaving untold damage in its wake. We all have a part to play in preventing suicides, and making firearm safety a part of that effort makes perfect sense.”
In Missouri, six out of ten suicides involve a firearm, according to the Missouri Foundation for Health. Gun suicides have been on the rise in the state for years, and experts say easy access to guns is a major part of the problem.
In partnership with the Ad Council and Brady, a gun safety nonprofit, the Missouri Foundation for Health will produce videos and PSAs for End Family Fire Missouri. The campaign is a part of Missouri Foundation for Health’s larger initiative to prevent gun suicides.
End Family Fire, a national effort that launched in 2018, is dedicated to reducing gun deaths and injuries in homes. The campaign promotes safety techniques to encourage gun owners to shift their attitudes and behaviors around safely storing their guns.
“Missouri’s suicide rates are consistently higher than the national average. In fact, in 2020, Missouri’s firearm suicide rate was 1.5 times higher than the national rate,” said Colleen Creighton, the Brady director of End Family Fire, in the news release.
“This is a crisis, but one that is eminently solvable. We are proud to work with Missouri Foundation for Health to help raise awareness of the dangers of unsecured firearms in the home to help save lives.”
Since 2020, the Missouri Foundation for Health has been a supporter of The Star’s Missouri Gun Violence Project, a two-year reporting effort focusing on the gun violence crisis impacting communities throughout the state.
As a part of the project, The Star reported on how young veterans in Missouri have been dying by firearm suicide at a higher rate than older veterans and their peers in other states, the story of a 16-year-old girl who took her life with her father’s gun after facing bullying in her small town, and the efforts of a teen-staffed crisis hotline in St. Louis.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741.