 Today, I am speaking with a friend of mine who also happens to be a pro and we're going to discuss the very real danger of suicidal people at shooting ranges or getting shooting instruction that might choose that as a location to hurt themselves. So welcome, Sloan. Will you tell us a bit about yourself? Hey, shepherd. Thank you so much for having me on here and my background is in clinical mental health counseling. I got my master's degree in that in 2018 I've worked with veterans with PTSD and I've also worked as a crisis counselor. In the rural area of western Colorado and that allowed me to respond a lot to clients who are experiencing suicidal ideations, homicidal ideations, suicide attempts and psychosis. There are very interesting cases all people who have really kind of reached an emotional limit to and have with hit their bandwidth on their emotional coping skills that they have. And so everybody deserves somebody to talk to everybody deserves to be seen and heard. And sometimes a lot of people don't have access to that and so unfortunately they resort to suicides. So one of the gun ranges and gun shop owners come in is how can we allow suicide prevention aspects to come in for people who are trying to find means to commit suicide. Gun shop wounds as death for suicide actually hit about 60%. A lot of people think that the gun deaths in this country come from mass shootings or homicides in the cities but unfortunately the guns are pertaining more and more to suicides. Yeah, that's been interesting as I've looked at numbers over the years. It's been interesting for me to look at the, there are statistics out there that make guns look bad that that say you know there's all this gun violence. And it's like, well, you know ropes, what about rope violence people hanging themselves, but it would make sense if you want to get a job done whether it's screwing a screw in a board or whatever you want to do you're going to grab a tool that's handiest for it. And yeah, I hopefully we can learn things today that those of us that are around guns a lot and that are hanging around with people we don't know who have guns in their hands that we're handing to them. Hopefully we can find some ways to make sure we don't hand the guns to a people who we have any way of knowing our suicidal. So what are some of your kind of bottom line what's your general advice what kind of an opener to our conversation today do you have any good advice for us. Yeah, I would love to share some good advice on how to address it as a say somebody walks into your shop and they are looking to rent a weapon to kill themselves on your range. And this statistic actually is really low when it comes to firearms suicide. It's less than 1%, however, they do happen. And for some reason a lot of the articles I was finding to find are in were from Florida. So that was interesting. And they're really big state that is pushed back against all the red flag laws and all this so there's a lot of criticism on them for not implementing more structure, more policies and more red tape, so to speak. But as a mental health professional and looking at the red flag laws that are passed down. I'm not sure that's actually pro mental health those seem to be more. Let's use mental health to cover our attempt to really downplay the Second Amendment. And so I, I'm an advocate of people being able to have access to firearms. I'm an advocate of people being responsible with those firearms. And so, when it comes to people walking into your shop, they. What is their mental distress what is their emotional state, do they talk calmly are they talking rapidly are they not engaging at all do they have eye contact. So that's one of the first cues to pay attention to. There is an interesting statistics that I found recently around the time of deliberation of suicide in the time of getting their hands on a weapon to actually commit suicide was an average of 10 minutes. If you can engage on a personal level as the as the coach as the employee that's behind the counter about to rent the gun and just try to start a dialogue with an if one person is coming in by themselves to rent a gun and they kind of look a little sad. It might be the best way to describe it or kind of blank, like not really having any kind of emotional effect on them. If you can pick up those cues and then just try to ask a couple questions. One thing I've kind of wanted to get from you later is. Is there a questionnaire list that you guys offer through your range and if there is maybe in that process there's a couple questions that you can add that have a more mental health slant. And that way it's not all just talking but you can pick up cues on what they write in there. Okay, that's that makes good sense and so maybe it's not overtly. Do you plan to take this gun I'm handing you and blow your head off, but is kind of a little bit more intelligent way of getting that same knowledge. That's the hope behind it. They tend to not necessarily have any plans. They tend, they could potentially not have any idea about the gun that they're picking up. They might just be coming in and saying, Oh, that gun looks good. I want to try to test it. It doesn't matter. I don't really care about the safety protocols. I don't really care about training. I just want to shoot it. What's the ammunition like if they have no knowledge of the guns or any knowledge about safety protocols or they've never done their own training and they're not interested in their own training. Those might be little red flags that go off of like, well, maybe we should get you some lessons first, or maybe we should offer you bear spray or like something else besides, and that's more, instead of renting that comment was more towards if people are trying to buy firearms that they're not wanting to get any kind of more training or more information on they're just saying I want to take this okay cool. That allows your coaches your employees to kind of pick up on factors that they might not necessarily be there for a long term gun advocacy and gun usage more short term solution to a distressful situation in their life that's happening right now. It's really interesting the 10 minute thing that gosh and it's you know time is money but if whether a person is at a gun store or in our business's case. We're with our clients for an average of three hours each, but just taking that time at the very beginning to maybe look him in the eye and say so how are you doing today. Maybe that little and tell me if I'm on the right track here, maybe that showing the care to them could be the one little thing that at least helps them hold on another day. Is that is that true or is that just fantasy thinking. No, it's definitely true. Unfortunately, a lot of people who happen to be suicidal have nobody that's advocating for them have nobody that's listening to them. A lot of a lot of people who fit in that 50% of the 10 minute time range. They have something that just impacted them immediately and something like it just, it's so overwhelming and it just feels like there's no way out of this and so the easiest route is just to take care of it I'm, I'm a burden on my family. I can I don't have a job I can't find a job I just lost the job. I'm getting into divorce, the breakup they were cheating, like there's so many social economic factors that play into each other there's no one. So 10.1 thing that leads to suicide. There's so many different factors. And the other problem is that you can be a super seasoned psychologist seeing somebody for the first time and trying to do a suicide risk assessment on them, but people can adapt and they can lie very well if they really want to get an end to the end for them, paying attention to the people around you, having close relationships. Obviously this isn't going to come into effect with your employees and the customer, but if people could just engage more with the people around them with their family members with their friends. And if you start to send something off and just showing them that you care about them, that in and of itself can be a mitigating factor towards people suicide. Okay, now another question I watched a video some years ago of somebody that was at a range with a shooting instructor, and they took the gun and suddenly turned it on themselves. And I think they just grazed themselves and they actually hit the shooting instructor, but this person didn't really give any big warning. Are these statistics or are there general guidelines to people usually like to say a sentence of, I am just sick of it all, and then commit suicide, or is it kind of like the video I saw where there's not even that few words of tell everybody I love them, there's no final words, it's just kind of the go for it. Are there any numbers statistics anything that would help us there. Otherwise, I'm not exactly sure. I do know that it is a range, you have people who want to say something as a final stick it to the man I'm doing this because you guys have hurt me so bad I want to leave my imprint and hurt you. There's some people that have that kind of mentality. And there's others that actually are related that you might actually see people that are really calm and happy and joyful because they've made a final decision that that it's all going to end now. So there and they're not going to say anything. And then you have the people that have no facial affect and no verbal response so unfortunately suicide is a nasty mix of a very wide range of different responses and how people are going to finally complete it. Okay. Okay, there's a thing that you know there's the the joke or the saying in the gun world that the pro gun rights world that you know you never see people going in and doing mass shootings at gun stores or at gun shows that kind of thing. So there's this this idea that a homicidal person still has a desire to live at the end of the day, and thinks that they have an escape for that. And so there's kind of that that reason or that rational thought that they still have. What about suicidal people during those last moments right beforehand is reason still there are rational thought, or are they complete completely void of that. That's an interesting question chapter or shepherd sorry, and I would say that logical reasoning versus emotional reasoning. There's going to be an interplay of both of those. Can you reason with somebody. Listen to survivors of suicide attempts. They say that all they wanted was somebody to talk to them, somebody to ask them and authentically be there for them not try to fix their situation but just hear them. And so, I would like to advocate for that aspect of there is an ability to reason with them both on a logical side, but more peppered and flavored with some emotional reasonings within there. People don't want to be told that it's not that hard, you're like your life is fine. They want to know like, you know, this is really hard and I can understand where you're going through but life is precious and you have so much opportunity if you could just get through this hurdle, and and be there for you and if we can we take some stress out on the range by shooting at the target not at ourselves but like, because I would say that a lot of people are able to if you can. If you can exert yourself in some way that shows dominance that shows that you were able to succeed over something like that is invigorating and it brings some like life giving energy back. Like if you could get into a jiu-jitsu class and you start wrestling and you actually find out that you can actually hold somebody or at least not get choked out yourself. Or if you can make your circle on the gun range a little bit smaller and smaller as you go through like these all can be healthy outlets for trying to get better control of your life circumstances they don't have to be negative. If your coaches are able to just see people for the people that they are and try to relate on the emotional side with little pellets of logic thrown in there that I feel like would be a helpful approach to people who may be suicidal. Okay. What and you've mentioned so kind of to go back over the stronger points that you know if I if I only had 30 seconds to give advice to somebody to watch out so blank stare. Sadness despair if we can see that in a person. The flip side maybe elation or just this peaceful feeling of good now I've got a decision looks like I'm getting a way to solve this. What else avoiding glances are avoiding looking in the eye. What else am I missing that would be a good kind of summary or recap of what to watch out for. Somebody who's not a gun enthusiast or a gun advocate and necessarily somebody that's just coming in because they want to find a means. And so if they have no knowledge no history of training and no interest in pursuing that. I don't know what a caliber is or what type of ammunition they need that could be some signs and they're just saying okay well what goes with this. Those can just be little cues that you can pick up on and start to question a little bit further. What do you plan on doing with this. The initial kind of like if somebody were to walk into your shop and you ask them like as they're as you're engaging in and questions about certain thing or the gun access. If you're able to ascertain how like how's life going for you and just kind of pick up on their first immediate response. Okay, some people want to vent. Some people will tell you I lost my job and I'm going through a divorce and all this stuff and so there's certain things that are cues that life is a bit disturbed. Then maybe that would be a good sign to pick up on as well. Okay, okay. Have we not talked about have I not asked about that would be good for gunman, like, like myself like our coaches like gunstore owners. What else would be a, what else I haven't I asked that would be a good thing to think about. Yeah, so one thing that I'm thinking about that you could ask is how can gun stores be one of those barriers in suicide prevention. There is a coalition that started in New Hampshire, and they're currently called connect I think, but if you were to look up the gun shop project. They did this, and they are advocates for gun policies, which usually throws people who are gun right activists up in arms, and they reached out across the aisle so to speak, and they asked gun shop owners and they asked range owners to come together and just look at the statistics. And so one gun shop owner in particular. It was brought to his attention that three, they weren't the gun ranges it was a gun shop. So three guns within a week period that were purchased from his shop resulted in suicide. And so he felt like it's not necessarily he doesn't agree that our second amendment needs to be taken away or that limitations need to be put on that, but he does care about people and he believes that people should have a barrier in place in the sense of here's all the information I can give you. And they have reached out to multiple states, and multiple states have reached out to them and they come in and they do training, and they approach it from a systematic mental health side social barrier side, all kinds of different information that they try to highlight for business owners for gun shop owners gun range owners, and I just feel like that's a really unique. And inspirational and actually working towards prevention response that I've seen so far. Okay, wow that's good to know about that resource. And then also you are available in this short training session that we're doing now in the, the quiz afterward. This is a good first step. And you are available to come to a range or a business like ours and provide live training as well as soon as the whole phobia of 2020 goes away. You're available to travel for that and you also do zoom sessions or for training or tell us a little bit about your practice and what's available if somebody wants to follow up and get more training. Gotcha. So currently I do private practice counseling through the voluntary community. And so you can find me via website, which is restored empower calm. And I'm also on telegram. And if people have access to that it's just at restore and power. I do zoom calls, I do voice and video calls through telegram if people want a more encrypted route, although I'm curious if there's any real encryption out there or how secure and save everything really is but that's a step of trying to do that. And then if people want in person trainings I would love to travel for that I would love to be able to help wherever I can. And shop owners the gun range owners like yourself that are taking the initiative to trying to help support the idea that we want to prevent suicide just like everybody else. I think is a great investment in your time and resources because it's going to help with the wave of backlash that comes from suicide happening. This shows that you guys are trying and you're wanting to encourage people to still have guns still go shooting and yet still take care of their lives as well. There was one statistic I wanted to bring up because I found this really interesting. There's data from 1999 to 2017, where there's a steady increase from 1999 to 2006 of 1% of suicides a year. And then after 2006 it goes to about a 2% increase every year and so we've continuously been on an increase of people committed suicide. A little outlier of that was 2009 and that jumped to between 4% and 6% depending on the statistics that you're reading, but that was in my head a correlation to the housing market crash. And so there's been astronomical crashing of the economy in this last year that a lot of people aren't talking about and with that has come loss of jobs, loss of housing, loss of food availability. And if you can extrapolate from 2009 into what's coming in this next year, I would suggest that we should be more aware and vigilant on the potential risks and suicides that are coming. That is such a good point. The whole crisis that the government, the media have created since March of 2020. Yeah, I've lost a friend to suicide over it and I know that they call it the year of suicides this last year. We're recording this in March of 2021. So that's a very good point that it's not going to end just when if they decide to turn scientific and get rid of masks and allow people to move freely, it's not just going to be completely over then. There's still going to be lots of divorces, lots of bankruptcies still happening, businesses closing, houses being taken away. So yeah, this is a particularly important time to pay close attention. Thank you. Well, that brings us to a close. Thank you Sloan so much for coming on and giving us some ideas on how we can all achieve the goal we want, which is saving lives. Thank you. Thank you, Sheppard.