Christine Moutier, MD, Chief Medical Officer of AFSP yields the microphone to Bill Bussard of NSSF at SHOT Show suicide prevention lecture.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
The SHOT Show goes far beyond just guns.\u00a0 One of the hottest accessories today is the sound suppressor \u2013 silencer \u2013 which is riding a huge wave of popularity that has yet to crest.\u00a0 My old friend Jeff Chudwin is a retired police chief, several-time national patrol rifle champion, head of the Illinois Tactical Officers Association, and one of the great street survival gurus of all time. He has flatly stated that he thinks every police patrol rifle should be equipped with a silencer.\u00a0 Not just for tactical reasons, but also because of the risk of hearing loss in training with very loud guns. He cites the case of an officer he knows who lost 50% of his hearing when a brother officer fired a 5.56mm M4 rifle near him in the course of an on-duty shooting where naturally, no one was wearing ear protection.\u00a0 Today\u2019s silencers are better than ever, and we have gun-makers such as SIG and Ruger making their own.<\/p>\n
For some time now, the SHOT Show schedule has included not just show and tell\/show and sell, but training. Some of it has to do with marketing and management for firearms dealers and shooting range owners, but some of it also has to do with survival.\u00a0 Some highly-credentialed people are teaching initial police response to mass murder incidents, and offering tactics for unarmed civilians caught up in such atrocities.<\/p>\n
Today some of us from Massad Ayoob Group took a well-attended class on firearms dealers\u2019 role in suicide prevention. The National Shooting Sports Foundation has joined with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention<\/a> to help gun dealers recognize customers with suicidal ideation in hopes of denying those people the means to carry out impulsive self-destruction. \u00a0 Though some have the impression that this is a new concept, it actually follows in the footsteps of the New Hampshire Firearms Safety Coalition under Elaine Frank, and the Gun Shop Project spearheaded by gun shop owner Ralph Demicco, an active member of NHFSC.\u00a0 This program puts suicide prevention posters and literature into the shops themselves, and offers training for gun shop staff on how to pick up subtle indications of suicidal ideation.\u00a0 There have already been \u201csaves\u201d with it, and many other states have developed programs modeled on New Hampshire\u2019s. It is good to see a national organization picking up that ball and running with it, given that some two-thirds of the \u201cdeaths by gun violence\u201d that prohibitionists cite as a reason for you and I not to own firearms are in fact suicides.<\/p>\n Christine Moutier, MD, Chief Medical Officer of AFSP yields the microphone to Bill Bussard of NSSF at SHOT Show suicide prevention lecture.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
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