 Hi everybody. We're here today to talk about a new law that goes into effect on July 1st. And the law is about safe storage of firearms. You may be wondering why we're here talking about this, and really it's an act that's becoming law. And the short title for the act is Promoting Child Safety Through Responsible Firearms Storage. And it's that promoting child safety piece that really resonates because this is a community safety matter and it's a harm prevention matter as well. And so we want to talk to you about the reality of accidental injury and death by firearm and impulsive injury and death by firearm. So this may be considered a public safety announcement or a public service announcement, but we're here as clergy and community leaders. And so that changes it a little bit because while we are part of the public and we care about service and safety, we're here also because of the pastoral element of that. When it comes to injury and death, church communities and pastoral leaders are often engaged in those moments. And having been engaged in those moments myself, I know that there is anguish. And if there's anything that we can do to spare other families anguish, I'm in. So that's where I come from. And I know that my colleague and friends here feel that way too. My name is Sara Varasco and I am a pastor here at UCC Longmont. I am Amelia Richardson-Dress, also a pastor here at UCC Longmont. And my name is Ann Noonan. I'm a member here. And I also have some 35 years of experience in mental health and substance abuse issues. And the anguish that pastoral care feels is also very present in the behavioral health world. Yes. And the other community member that's behind the camera and the sound technician is Bill Decker. And so with that as an introduction, you know, let's jump in. So Amelia, you've spent a lot of time working with families with children and how to talk to children. So share with us your thoughts on how to talk with children about safe storage and guns in general. I think there are so many layers to this because you're needing to talk about guns in your own home, which varies across families, whether you have them, what you have them for, as well as what they might encounter. And it also varies by age. For really young kids, I think that anytime you have kind of an opportunity, and I see parents do this really well, even with a squirt gun, you know, around, oh, we don't point guns at people. Or we, you know, if you ever saw a gun that I hadn't handed you as a toy, don't pick it up. Those kinds of things that can begin to lay this foundation of this is just a conversation that we have, that's a safety conversation. And you can build on it as they get older. If you have guns in your home, then there are some more specific conversations that need to be happening about you know, you don't touch that gun. You don't show friends where those guns are. You would never try to open the lock. All of those kinds of things. And those happen the same way any other safety conversation happens, which is another way to gauge kind of what's appropriate at different ages. So you may, as a kid gets older, even if you have guns in the home because you're a hunting family and they are hunting, that conversation shifts a little bit. But some of those things remain the same, that you don't access a gun unless there's a parent around that you're only going to use it in certain circumstances. When you're talking about guns in other people's homes or situations that you're not in control of, I think that is also something that needs to happen whether you have a gun at home or not, because you don't always know whether a child might encounter a gun somewhere else. And so there again, just the same way you have conversations around alcohol, around drugs, around any safety issue that you might have. And those were both weighty ones too. But I mean, you have those kinds of safety conversations around you don't swim in a pool if there's no lifeguard present at certain ages. So these conversations that you have at different ages, you can use to gauge kind of the safety. But I do think that even if you are in a home that doesn't have guns, you need to talk to your kids about what happens if you see a gun in somebody else's home. And the answer to that is you don't touch it. You get an adult, especially if your friend is wanting to show it to you or anything like that, an adult needs to be brought into that situation. And your kids need to know just kind of the basics around that. Great. What about parent to parent conversations? Yeah, I think that as we become more aware of just the dangers of accidental deaths by guns by kids, it's really important to ask parents when your kid is going to their house, do you have guns in the house? And if so, how are they stored? I think sometimes those conversations feel awkward to us. Maybe it's because we don't want other parents to feel like we're judging them. Maybe it's because we're afraid of their reaction. And I think that's what makes it hard to ask that question. But I also think that it is important enough to ask to get past that awkwardness and just be centered that you're asking a safety question. And similar to kind of the how you approach it with kids along other safety issues, you can approach it with parents the same way. So you are likely talking about other safety issues. And it can fit right in there. I think it's helpful sometimes if it's not a cold start, you know, if it's, oh, I've been really aware of, you know, accidents that happen with guns and kids. How are your guns stored if you have guns so that you can ease into it a little bit, can help a little bit of that awkwardness. You might also ease into it just by saying, are there going to be adults in the house? I mean, that's kind of a conversation that would be super normal. I'm sending my kid over, are you going to be home? So you would already be kind of checking, assessing the safety of the home. And then that is a natural bridge and just some of these other issues. Yeah, it is. And I also think it's fair to keep in mind that if you are talking with a parent and the reaction isn't good, or if you're really hesitant about asking that question, maybe this needs to be a playdate that happens in your house for a while until you get to know the other parent better. There might be something there that you're kind of paying attention to, and that's fine. There's other places for kids to play together. There are. There are. And along those lines of the conversation, this is also going to be a law that goes into effect on July 1st. It's going to be required that any firearms in a home not be accessible by children or anyone that is ineligible to own a firearm. So if the firearm is not on an adult's person, it needs to be safely stored, which means locked away in a place where kids can't get it. It also means that ammunition needs to be stored someplace else, separate from where the gun is. So if there is not an adult on the premises, that absolutely needs to be the case. And even if the adults are there, if it's not on their person, it should be in a place where kids don't know. I don't think there's a need to tell kids where a gun is stored. Is that your sense? That is my sense. I think there are sometimes in families, kids know if it's a family, you know, if it's a hunting family, a sport, you know, it may be a situation where they've seen parents take it out and so they know. And then it needs, they don't need to know how it's locked. And if you have a gun in your house that you're not taking out, you know, it's there for protection or self-defense or, you know, something like that where you've never had it out, then I don't think the kids need to know it's there. Let's move now to impulsive behavior. And Anne, what can you say to us about, you know, self-harm and family fire? I know that's a term that you use. And how this new law can help to save lives and prevent injury? Well, building on what Amelia talked about in terms of accidental death with children getting a hold of guns and having deaths or serious injury, that's family fire. It's an accident or an event that happens within a family home. Similar to that, we would talk about domestic violence being family fire. It's not strangers. It's people that we love that we're living in the same household with. And then as you're mentioning, impulsive behavior like suicide. Suicide is 300% more likely to be completed in a home that has a weapon in it. So we really have to pay attention to that. And people make an assumption that suicide is a one-on-one correlation with mental illness. And it's not. Many suicides happen for folks that do not meet criteria for mental illness. It happens impulsively in talking with folks who have survived suicide attempts. They talk about it being maybe five minutes between the impulse and the activity. And so if the gun is readily available, this is where you have a kid coming home from school in despair over something embarrassing or shaming that happened and then has immediate access to a weapon. And then of course using a gun as a suicide method is almost always fatal. And so now you're talking about an impulse that turns into a death. So we want to pay attention to that. I think one of the reasons that people link suicide and guns and homicide and guns and mental illness, it's twofold really. It's that if it's only mentally ill people that do these things, then that's somebody else. That's not me. That's not my family. We don't have that problem in our family. And so it's a way to kind of separate us from that. And then the other piece of it is really the stigma around mental illness that mentally ill folks are more likely to be violent. And in fact, what we know is they're more likely to be victims of violence. And again, it is not a majority of folks who commit suicide who have mental illness. It's again, they could be intoxicated. They could be, you know, impulsively upset. Other things can create that feeling of despair and desperation that leads to that kind of action. And Anne, I've heard you say before you've compared statistics from one country to another where there's the same level of mental illness, but not the same level of gun violence. Well, you said it exactly right. When we look at mental illness levels across the world, especially let's take Europe, our levels of mental illness are really very similar in almost every area. And yet our levels of gun violence and gun deaths are exponentially bigger. So it's not mental illness that is driving gun deaths. It's something else. Yeah. And we certainly don't have the answer to that. And there's a lot that we're not going to be able to say today. But there is one sort of misunderstanding that guns equal safety. And that doesn't prove to be true either. If that were true, the United States would be the safest nation in the world based on our number of guns. So there's something missing there. There's some kind of connection that's being made that doesn't hold up statistically. And one other thing I would say is that this law about safe storage is really just a piece of harm reduction. And we use harm reduction strategies in every area of our life, you know, driving prescription medications, tide pods, you know, keep them out of the reach of kids. I mean, and those are the kinds of things that are just creating kind of guide rails bumpers for keeping something that people want to have access to owning a weapon. Fine. And here are some of the guideposts for having that safely or more safely. And in recent conversations, I've learned that there are many people that are already practicing safe storage. And I just want to say thank you. You know, thank you for that. And if this is a new practice for you, please understand that you have many options. I have a couple demonstrations here today. One is a cable lock that is provided from Project ChildSafe. These are available at public safety right here in town. Up to three locks per family can be received. And it comes with very detailed instructions. And this is also a keypad and a biometric safe. And as you'll see, this opens very quickly. So in terms of access, it really is about as fast as unlocking your cell phone. It could be a three number code or a four number code. It could also do fingerprint. And you know, these kinds of safes can be bolted to a wall. They can be locked to something else so that they're immovable. And they are a little bit more expensive. And here at UCC Longmont, we're making a commitment to giving these away. And so we're going to give away as many as we can. We're working with a local merchant in town who's going to help us plan an event for the end of July. So stay tuned for more information around that. And we recognize that this conversation is happening here in Longmont, but we hope it's happening in other places in Colorado too. And we hope that this conversation maybe will start more conversations. And it's also worth saying that maybe with the onset of this new law, maybe this is a good time to evaluate if gun ownership is a good fit for your family. Maybe it was at a time, maybe it no longer is. There are alternatives because when it comes to self-protection, I think again there's this idea that having a gun will protect you, but it also increases the risk of harm and accidents and accidental death. And so people who have guns for self-protection rarely have to use them. It's very different when you're hunting. Even when I go hiking, I use bear spray. I mean, I have it. I haven't had to use it and I'm thankful for that. But to own a weapon requires two things. It requires one that you'd be willing to use that, and that's a very big decision if you would be willing to use it. And also it requires training and ongoing training for all people that will have access to it. So some of the alternatives are alarm systems. I lived in a home where the detached garage was being broken into, and we had an alarm system. So waking to that sound was really scary, but I just ran to the front door and opened it. The alarm went off and the intruder ran away. There's an item called a screecher that emits a very loud sound that can be at the bed stand or wherever you are in the house, and that can also deter people. And there is something called pepper gel, which is different than pepper spray, because it doesn't come back to you in a cloud. And with a tendency to wipe your hands away, it actually makes it more unpleasant and more difficult for anyone who is invading your space in a way that feels harmful. And so, you know, those are alternatives to gun ownership, but if you do feel that it is the right choice for you, then you have these safe storage options. We also want to have an opportunity for those that don't feel like gun ownership is a good option for them at this time. And if you have weapons, you can always turn them into public safety at any time or any police department. But there will also be an opportunity to turn it into raw tools, which is an organization out of Colorado Springs, which turns guns into garden tools. So it transforms them into something that is life giving and helps to work the earth. And it sends a really positive message. And it's really meaningful for people to contribute in that way. So at the end of September, we'll be having that type of event here. There is an event planned in Boulder for June 13th at Community UCC. So wherever you live, if you're seeing this and are interested, you can check it out. And we'll have some little resources at the end of this video for you to check. But before we sign off, is there anything, Amelia or Ann, that you would like to say? I think the point that you have both highlighted about this kind of false sense that guns equal safety is especially what really comes to me in terms of kids and their access. And it is something that we sometimes hear about, well, we would want kids to have access if they needed it. But that doesn't make them safer to have access to a gun, which is why I don't think they need to know where the guns are or where the keys are. So that can sound like a hard line, but I do think it's an important one, keeping in mind the broader context that we've talked about the impulsivity and that there's other ways to help kids truly be safe. And what I would add is that I really hope that talking about safe storage turns the temperature down on these conversations because we tend to really frame gun issues in a very black and white way. And this is not black and white. It's a safety measure. It's safety measures that we would take with other things that could be potentially dangerous in our lives. And we don't think twice about that. So let's kind of have the conversation that's not as charged, but that really it's offering options, safely store, get rid of them. You have all kinds of options with it. And it's not the political hot potato that it sometimes can be. Yeah, nice. Nice. Well, as promised up front, we told you that we weren't going to cover everything and we haven't. But we hope that this video encourages conversation and reflection. A few resources are going to follow. And if you have any questions, do feel free to reach out. That's it for today. Thanks for joining us.