The Hardest Conversation in West Virginia Is the One That Saves the Most Lives

By Shawn Paul Cosner, Founder & President

Let’s talk about the thing nobody wants to talk about.

In West Virginia, firearms are the method in 85.5 percent of veteran suicide deaths. That is well above the national figure, and anyone who knows our state knows why: guns are part of life here. We hunt with them, we work with them, we trust them, and most of us were trained on them by the United States military. Nobody in this organization is interested in lecturing veterans about firearms. We own them too.

But here is what the research says, plainly: a suicidal crisis is usually short. Minutes to hours, not weeks. When a person in that window has immediate access to a firearm, the crisis is far more likely to be fatal. When there is time and distance between the impulse and the means, even a little, people survive, and the overwhelming majority of people who survive a suicidal crisis do not go on to die by suicide.

That is all lethal means safety is. Not confiscation. Not a registry. Not anyone coming for anything. It is a gun lock. A lockbox. Ammunition stored separately for a hard season. A trusted buddy holding onto a firearm for a few weeks, the same way you would hold his keys after too many beers. It is veterans doing what veterans have always done: watching out for each other when one of us is in a bad stretch.

The most natural partners in this work are not clinics. They are gun shops, sportsman’s clubs, and ranges, places where the conversation can happen between people who respect each other and the Second Amendment both. That is exactly where we intend to have it.

If you are in a hard stretch right now: dial 988 and press 1. And if you are not, but you know somebody who is, be the buddy who holds the keys.