Michigan study that gave families tools to discuss firearm safety finds most did, and 40% changed their gun storage

Photo by Amr Taha, Unsplash

Rural America has the highest per-capita death toll from firearms, mainly due to suicides, and as the new year launches, it's a fitting time to discuss how to decrease the number of firearm accidents and suicides in 2023. A recently published study "shows early promise for an approach that seeks to reduce the risk of firearm injury and death in rural areas, while respecting rural culture and firearm ownership," reports the University of Michigan, citing a multi-discipline pilot study called the "Store Safely" project. "Rural America has the highest per capita death toll from firearms, higher than suburban and urban areas, and the main reason for this difference is firearm suicides."

In what researchers call an intervention, the project gave 45 families in Marquette County with "messages about safe firearm storage and teen firearm suicide," tailored to the rural audience, and "specific tips for improving safety," to implement in conjunction with its website, the university said in a press release.

Three weeks after the intervention, 86% of the parents said they had completed a firearm home-safety checklist suggested by the program, and 88% said they talked about firearm safety with another adult in the household. Nearly two-thirds discussed firearm safety with children in their home, and 40% reported that changed how they store firearms in the home.

Marquette County (Wikipedia)

Ewell Foster, a clinical psychologist in the UM Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, said “We are excited by these findings, and by the variety of actions that these families took, including changing to unloaded and locked storage, and moving hunting rifles to another location less accessible to children . . . . Putting time and distance between individuals who are at risk for suicide and highly lethal means like firearms is a critical part of a comprehensive suicide-prevention strategy."

The press release said, "The program’s materials emphasize the range of options that rural families have for reducing risk within the context of their lifestyle, which includes firearm ownership for both hunting and protection." The researchers "plan to increase the availability of the Store Safely intervention while continuing to evaluate its impact in other rural communities both within and beyond Michigan’s Upper Peninsula." For a related story and video, click here.

Western Kentucky county rocked by high-school shooting remains skeptical of gun control measures

A deadly school shooting rocked Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky this January, but that hasn't changed local attitudes about gun control very much, Dylan Lovan reports for The Associated Press.

Lovan focuses first on Jeff Dysinger, whose 15-year-old daughter Hannah was shot in the arm and chest. He doesn't agree with calls to curb military-style weapons. A former soldier who uses his AR-15 for sport shooting and hunting, he told Lovan, "I think everybody in rural Kentucky, we're all brought up with guns, I mean we've all been around guns our entire life. . . . Kids in cities like (Parkland, Fla.) don't get that." Hannah Dysinger said she supports more comprehensive background checks and, like her dad, wants to make sure the wrong people don't get their hands on guns.

Marshall County (Wikipedia map)

That stance is reflected by former sheriff Brian Roy, who was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Congress in 1996, the election after a Republican won the seat for the first time since the Civil War, partly because the one-term Democrat had cast a vote that helped put an "assault weapons" ban in that year's crime bill. "I think everybody here respects guns. We appreciate the opportunity to have them," Roy said. "We respect the Second Amendment. We're not going to be the type to go out and have any dramatic changes, because we've grown up with guns, for hunting."

Marshall County generally reflects the gun views of rural America. Lovan notes, "A Pew Research poll from April 2017 showed 63 percent of Americans in rural areas said it's more important to support gun rights than gun control, compared to only 37 percent in urban areas."

After the shooting, the conversation in Marshall County tended to focus not on gun control, but on improving security and increasing the presence of armed personnel in schools. School Supt. Trent Lovett said his students' familiarity with guns may have helped save lives; when shooter Gabriel Parker was changing magazines on his Ruger, some students saw the moment for what it was and were able to direct students to run.