WH veteran suicide prevention plan pushes gun “safety”
Resident Biden’s administration will be releasing their plan to combat veteran suicides. No surprise, they’re coming for your guns. Jeff LPH 3 sends in the Military Times article on the topic;
White House officials on Tuesday will unveil their new plan to end veteran and military suicide, with an increased focus on firearm safety and expanding mental health options for individuals in distress.
The plan, designed to guide prevention efforts in both the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, will also put an emphasis on a network of other support services — including financial and employment assistance — to provide “stability” to individuals transitioning from military to civilian life.
“Reducing suicide cannot be accomplished singularly through reactive policy change,” the new roadmap document states. “Rather, it requires a long-term strategic vision and commitment designed to create and implement systemic changes in how we support service members, veterans, and their families across the full continuum of risk and wellness.”
The move comes a week before Veterans Day and about 16 months after former President Donald Trump released his administration’s own plan regarding suicides, one that prioritized public awareness of the problem of military and veterans suicide as a way to engage all Americans in prevention efforts.
Orange Man bad, so they have to come up with a new plan. One that will be emphasizing “gun safety.” Since apparently every veteran having received at least basic firearms training isn’t enough. I guess all those firearm suicides could be prevented if people only knew that shooting yourself was going to be fatal. This is the immutable logic of those in the Biden admin.
The most potentially controversial part of the new plan revolves around lethal means safety, and discussions about encouraging individuals in distress to separate themselves from their personal firearms in the name of safety.
About 70 percent of all suicide deaths in 2019 were as a result of firearms. Veterans Affairs officials in recent months have stepped up public awareness campaigns on that potential danger, and the importance of gun safety for veterans and troops as well as their family members and friends.
“Studies have shown that creating environments that reduce risk and enhance protective factors where individuals live, work, and play can help prevent suicide,” the report states. “This includes efforts to reduce access to lethal means, including firearms and medications, particularly in times of crisis, and to increase safe storage practices for lethal means.”
White House officials hope to develop a new interagency plan — with input from Defense, VA, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security officials — on “addressing lethal means safety awareness, education, training, and program evaluation.”
The report does not discuss any plans to review firearms possession rules for individuals facing mental health issues, or for mandating safe storage of guns for veterans or service members.
But similar efforts have been met with resistance in the past from conservatives who view any discussion on firearms limits as an infringement of constitutional rights.
White House officials also plan to mandate lethal means safety training for VA medical personnel — including private-sector health care providers treating VA patients — and increase available training for “non-medical counselors, crisis responders, health care professionals, family members and other gatekeepers.”
They also plan increased “toolkits” to help troops and veterans interested in safe storage of firearms, to include developing maps of gun lockers and other storage options in their communities.
This sounds like it’s veering into red flag law territory, which will be done not through the legal system but through a doctor’s order. If the doctor says you’re crazy and commits you, suddenly you’ve got no 2nd Amendment rights. Which is why they want to involve the DOJ and DHS (neither agency having anything to do with Congressional mandates related to veterans).
If anything, this is the kind of thing that exacerbates mental health problems for veterans with PTSD. For many, the ready accessibility of a firearm for personal and familial defense is a comfort. I know many with PTSD that cannot sleep or leave the house without being armed. Audie Murphy famously admitted to needing to have a loaded .45 under his pillow when he slept.
We’re trained from Day 1 in basic training or boot camp that your rifle is your means to survive. You never leave your rifle behind. You take care of it and when you’re in trouble, the rifle will be there to protect you and your comrades. Now, you want me to give that up? Worse, they’ll give me a “toolkit” that directs me to put my firearm in someone else’s gun locker in the “community.” Come on, man.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Biden, Gun Grabbing Fascists, Liberals suck, Military issues, Veterans' Affairs Department
FOIST, and it’s no surprise that “Dpends” Biden and Company are trying to grab guns in the tradition of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and others.
“The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.” –Mao
Oh and after seeing this like 50 times, yeah, this totally works.
How about finding the gun locked and then getting pissed off and then driving head-on into a family of starving, undocumented, border crossing, gender fluid, toddlers…with each one holding a new puppy to complete yourself??
What’s old Gropy, poopy Joe going to do about THAT crisis.
Coming after my guns won’t prevent my suicide, but it may hasten YOUR demise.
Dog poops on the lawn – gun control! Their answer to everything. Except, of course rising inflation, election theft, foreign policy weakness, border crisis, out-of-control drug use and crime rates, or any other thing they should be addressing and won’t.
Hey, ever time someone gets stabbed, Democrats call for banning AR-15s– it’s a kneejerk reaction where they want to go.
They don’t give a shit about veteran suicides-likely, they believe it’s removing trained people that would likely be against their policies, and trying to take away firearms owned by the same would be icing on their bullshit cake.
Democrats wanted to take guns away from freedmen after the civil war to intimidate them from voting Republican (and to keep from getting shot wearing KKK robes while doing it).
I’ll just leave this here:
https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/
Call
1-800-273-8255
and Press 1
Text 838255
This free support is
Confidential
Available every day, 24/7
And serves
All Veterans
All Service members
National Guard and Reserve
Their family members and friends
Call a friend.
A few friends are still around because they trusted that, if they called me, I would actually listen to them and not simply pass them off to the next level the current suicide-prevention/resiliency/BATTLEMIND/ACE contracted PowerPoint demanded.
When they needed a drink, I bought them a drink. When they needed all the alcohol or firearms removed from their house, I did so (with their full permission). When they needed to be passed up to the next level and receive actual, professional-level care, I drove them to the VA and sat with them until they went through those locked doors.
Some vets, sadly, don’t have someone they can call – and, while I’m so far batting 1,000, I’ve been more lucky than good – it’s an important thing that thing those hotlines and facilities exist. I’m no expert, I just try to be a good friend; sometimes (often?) an expert is needed…. sometimes, it’s just a friendly ear and a shoulder to cry on. It’s not necessarily one or the other.
My point is that what is a systemic, yet deeply personal issue for each individual involved cannot be addressed by blanket bureaucracy.
And, if you’re getting your buddy to seek help, ESCORT your buddy there and don’t “get your buddy in a headlock and drag him to see someone” because that’s violent and not properly caring him. (Guidance from our Chaplain during ACE training because of our responses.)
I disagree. Thankfully it didn’t come to this, but one instance actually could have called for an involuntary (and combative) incarceration. Fortunately, I had one, very specific, insight into his circumstances while another friend had another, equally specific, insight and the two happened to work to get him to agree to the treatment he needed. Kismet is the only reason we didn’t have to physically drag him to the ward.
Most often, in my experience, the ward does more harm than good – but in some cases it makes all the difference. Again, they reached out to me because they trusted me to listen and assess rather than simply act by some rote checklist.
All options should be on the table, none should be the go-to plan.
Upon rereading, I realize you weren’t arguing for a specific method, you were pointing out an idiotic approach.
When results are what truly matters, what’s “proper” means fuck-all.
””” “Reducing suicide cannot be accomplished singularly through reactive policy change.” so we’s gonna get proactive like a muhfaq’r.
You punk b*tches only have the rights we say yous has. You want that cash, we needs to enn sure our, i mean your safety.””” -retards
I’m going to throw this out there: Leave me the hell alone, VA. Shove your ‘toolkit’ straight up your assholes.
They need to get Alec Baldwin under control first. Maybe limit Hollywood to nerf guns until they get some competent training.
“I stand behind Alec Baldwin (because it’s the safest place to be).”
Best ever double entendre lyrics…
“How could I leave this behind?”
Their double entendre goes to eleven.
“Raise Awareness”…FFS…Why is it that everytime I hear that term, my FIRST (ht 2 KoB) thought is of another group of scam artists in Elko NV? And now we have another group of scam artists taking that term to a National Level. And looking to be aided and abetted by health care folks that are addicted to the sugar teat of grubermint payouts (Medicare/caid, VA/Tricare ect).
If anything, we need to “Raise Awareness” of how we are beset upon by an oppressive, freedom robbing grubermint, AT ALL LEVELS. No need for a safe for my gunz. They are all resting safely, in a quicksand bog at the bottom of a flooded lake. Damn a buncha leaky boat.
Buck.Joe.Fiden.
Yet another Biden-Bait-&-Switch maneuver with equal measures of stupidity and willful blindness, built, back, better..
A drooling idiot knows the actual issue isn’t the weapon that facilitates a Veteran’s suicide. The real issue at hand is what circumstances CAUSES/MAKES a Veteran commit to the act of their suicide. This is not any kind of cohesive plan, this is vague hopefulness at best. As any Veteran knows – HOPE is not a plan and this myopic form of ‘gun control’ is decidedly NOT the way to end Veteran suicides. However, this does seem like a rather short route to REALLY pissing off a lot of Veterans, REALLY quick. Oh and Joe? A word to the wise – there’s no recovery from a Veteran’s resentment that come’s from government interference..
So……it’s a good thing that I’ve never been to VA?
Firearm suicides are too messy! If ever I want to “off” myself, I’ll take some medication that will permanently lull me into the arms of Morpheus.
So how’s the VA going to start restricting every method of self-murder? (oops … channeling Danny-boi)
The ads they are running are quite chilling. And I question how much training some of the folks handling the locks have had.
Oh, well. They may be Hollywood productions and therefore are above and beyond the sort of safety and knowledge normal people should have about firearms.
Never mind. All the lefties can sleep well tonight knowing that they are “doing something.” Bless their little hearts.
Boiling the frog slowly?
This is just the latest PC method of painting veterans as murderous gun nut psychos.
The turd they’re polishing for the last 50+ years is shiny and pretty, but it’s a turd all the same.
The only recent murderous gun nut psycho I know of is Alec Baldwin.
P.S. Let’s go Brandon!
After listening to Baldwin wax wise on the use of firearms in movies and gun “safety,” I think the best way to prevent Alec from shooting anyone else on a movie set it to surgically remove his index fingers, cuz I don’t think you can ever train him in safe gun handling.
Screw these gun grabbing bastards, all of them.
My gun ownership is one measure of my mental stability. I enjoy having them as a means to my own security.
Emotional Support AR-15, M1911, Glock or what have you.
The most weapons safety conscious folks in the United States are going to have more weapons safety foisted on us/then? Who at the highest levels thinks/thout this is a goog plan?
Da, comrade, proletariat cannot resist “social justice” if they have no guns to shoot themselves!
Funny,,, it’s the gun and not the mentality pulling the trigger! Whatever is going on in the mental state of the individual is not on the firearm. I have had friends, and unfortunately watched, suicides happen. It was never the “gun”! It was coming regardless of the avenue!
I struggle with depression. I’m also a firefighter paramedic after I got off active duty. This has allowed me to see the mental health system in action there’s no way I’d approach a “mental health professional”. I’ve learned how to use cognitive behavior therapy, extracurricular activities like a heavy weight training program, and over time found a few close people I can can i confide in. Despite what anyone says there’s still a heavy stigma attached to mental health. Here is a word of caution: For a lot of reasons I won’t bore you with, you can’t always count on the system to respond perfectly. If you make an attempt on your own life and fail, consider this: Sometimes the police will investigate and take whatever action they think is necessary. They may take you to a hospital, or they may not. They may let you go on the promise you won’t try to kill yourself again. They might even take you to jail, especially if you endangered someone else in your attempt. It doesn’t take much to be petitioned. The ease in which this can be done is alarming. If you go or are taken to a hospital by friend or family or the police, sometimes the doctors will treat you and let you go home. Sometimes they will admit you to a psychiatric ward in the hospital. Or, if they do not have a psychiatric ward, they may make arrangements to send you to a state mental hospital. It depends on the hospital and how the system works in your town or area. Sometimes, if the doctors think you need inpatient psychiatric care and if you are unwilling to go voluntarily, they will put you in a psychiatric facility even if you do not want to go. most governments have laws on the books that permit them to do this. And you can lose your freedom, at least for a time. Now then, if you are reading a lot of “sometimes” as we go along here it is because, despite laws designed to prevent suicide, these laws are… Read more »
Most corporate/government decisions these days involve some level of risk aversion with respect to antagonistic litigation and the probability of its use based on current protocols and procedures at said corporation/government department.
Litigation can ultimately be a decisive motivator to act as conservatively as possible as you point out.
“gun safety” is usually located in or near the trigger group.
“Let’s Go Brandon”
I was given an introduction to the world of the “72 Hour Hold” 8 years ago. I won’t go into detail about it, but I was sent to the psych ward of the Minneapolis VA Hospital. I had no say in the matter, I had no recourse to fight the order. I had no access to counsel, I had no right to see the report that had been made against me…I had no due process protections of any kind.
And I’ll tell y’all a little secret; if you want to turn a man from a sane and rational human being into a drooling, paranoid crazy person; put him in a psych ward. You have to be careful of everything you say, do, don’t do, don’t say, look at, don’t look at, like, dislike, love, hate (oope can’t say hate), or talk anything about your mother without the fear that they’ll read something into it.