Suicide hits gun owners hard, but few were talking about it — until an industry insider began
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text “HOPELINE” to the National Crisis Text Line at 741741.
As a 21-year-old who grew up in San Francisco, Mike Sodini was plenty uncomfortable at his first gun show in 1998.
Sodini’s family ran a firearms business in New Jersey, but he was raised on the other side of the country by his mother. He knew almost nothing about guns, yet he was expected to step into the business after college.
At the gun shows, Sodini saw a lot of tough guys, some who he would discover were quietly living with depression and other mental health challenges. Sometimes, one would just disappear and Sodini would later learn the man had ended his life with a gun.
Suicide was surprisingly common among gun owners, but no one was talking about it, he said, out of fear it would be used to advance gun restrictions. The issue hit home when someone who worked with Sodini ended his life.
The death shook Sodini, but he didn’t know what to do. That changed five years later.
He and his sales rep were in New Orleans for a gun show. They were having dinner with a woman they had met that night. The conversation turned to what they did.
“I’ve always wondered about something,” the woman asked Sodini. "What is the conversation like in a gun business when there is a mass shooting or something else really bad happens with a gun?”
Sodini snapped off an often-used line: “We say, ‘The gun didn’t do it and untreated mental health is a big problem in this country.’ And we go back to work.”
“So, if you know what the solution is,” she asked, “how do you work with the mental health community?”
The simple question stopped Sodini cold.
He wasn’t talking to anyone in the mental health profession – and no one he knew in the gun industry was either.
Trying to close a gap
Sodini sold his share in the family gun business and founded the nonprofit Walk the Talk America, with the goal of closing the gap between gun owners and the mental health world.
A natural talker, Sodini, 47, struck up conversations with anyone willing to listen, tapping his connections in the gun world. He also found he could speak with people who didn’t own a gun, because he used to be one of them.
Sodini started working on getting mental health resources included with guns and accessories – literally in the box.
He stayed on the gun show circuit with a different message and did interviews. In one, Sodini met Jake Wiskerchen, who hosted a podcast and also ran a counseling center in Reno, Nevada. Sodini lives in Las Vegas.
Calling himself a “closet gun owner,” Wiskerchen knew few mental health professionals who owned guns and said many were often not comfortable talking about firearms with patients.
Wiskerchen always thought that was odd because therapists are trained to understand people from diverse communities, but that generally did not apply to gun owners, even though they are a significant chunk of the population. There are an estimated 100 million gun owners in the U.S. and surveys indicate there are firearms in 45% of homes.
Wiskerchen interviewed Sodini for 90 minutes. Then they talked for another 90 minutes. A partnership was formed.
‘This is much needed’
Soon, the pair was sitting together at booths at gun shows.
At first, guys would walk up, assess what the booth was about and quickly duck out.
In time, though, they stayed.
“People were stopping and sharing their stories,” Wiskerchen said. “People were crying. People were giving us a hug. People were saying, ‘This is much needed.’”
Other groups had talked about suicide prevention before, such as the National Sports Shooting Foundation, but no group had made mental health the central part of their mission.
Gun companies initially were skeptical, worried this was a gun control effort. Sodini said his background helped.
“I mean, I imported a million guns into the country, so I had that credibility,” he said.
One by one, manufacturers eventually agreed to put the resource cards in their boxes. Now almost two dozen include the cards, which provide a link to anonymous mental health screenings online.
The pair offer training for mental health providers. They are sometimes joined in those sessions by Rob Pincus, a gun trainer and Second Amendment advocate from Colorado, who also wants to see more discussion about suicide among gun owners.
“The people affected by these gun suicides are gun owners. It’s our friends. It’s our families. It’s literally us,” Pincus said. “I want to help my community.”
The group’s work sometimes takes them to events with people who are skeptical – or flat-out hostile – toward guns.
“Our message to the non-gun owner is, ‘We're on it. We're doing something about it,’” Sodini said. “When they hear what we are doing, you see a change in their body language and the questions they ask.”
Heading off a crisis
The pair wants gun owners to get ahead of a crisis by becoming aware of their mental well-being and taking care of themselves.
“We're trying to get upstream,” Wiskerchen said, “At the same time, we need to talk to firearms owners about securing their firearms in a proper way.”
Sodini and Wiskerchen advocate “responsible storage,” defined as preventing unauthorized access. That may include, Wiskerchen said, gun owners themselves in a time of crisis.
“So how do we keep you from accessing your firearm when you're in that place of despondency?”
Maybe that is giving guns to a trusted friend or family member. If the person lives in a state that requires background checks on all gun transfers, that may call for partially disassembling a gun and removing a key part that makes it operational, he said. A growing number of gun shops across the country, including in Wisconsin, also accept and store guns from owners in crisis.
Some gun owners – Sodini included – have pictures of loved ones taped on their gun safe. The group created the #CauseAPause hashtag on social media.
“For me, my safes all have pictures of my daughters because if I were ever in crisis, those are the two faces that definitely could get me to stop,” he said.
'Talk to someone'
In September, Sodini and Wiskerchen brought their message to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association expo held in downtown Milwaukee. Standing behind a table lined with pamphlets, wristbands and pins, they chatted with passers-by.
“As the gun industry, for many years we knew about the problems, but we weren't coming up with the solutions,” Sodini said. “People that buy firearms, they trust us. So if we can give them the resources to go get help, they're gonna believe us.”
The booth also gives customers permission to talk honestly.
“Let's all stop being tough guys about this,” Wiskerchen said. “It doesn't have to be in the therapy office, but it has to be somewhere. I don't care if it’s your bartender or your barber, go talk to somebody.”
One man walked up to the booth. “Mental health?” he said. “Love it. I’m glad you are here.”
Another man, Rafael Del Valle, stood nearby. “A lot of us here are fully all in on this.”
Del Valle, director of sales for Bersa Firearms, an Argentinian-based gun maker, is the man who was with Sodini in New Orleans five years ago when they met the woman and had dinner.
Sodini said the idea for Walk the Talk America came to him there and he declared he was going to do it.
“I believe you will,” the woman told Sodini. “I can see it in your eyes.”
Project credits
Contributing reporter: Natalie Eilbert, Alex Rivera Grant, Ben Schultz
Data analysis, graphics: Andrew Hahn, Daphne Chen, Kevin Crowe, Eva Wen
Photos, video: Mike De Sisti, Bill Schulz
Story editing: Greg Borowski
Photo editing: Sherman Williams, Berford Gammon
Copy editing: Ray Hollnagel, Pete Sullivan
Design: Kyle Slagle
Social media: Ridah Syed
About this project
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Diedrich examined the full extent of gun deaths in Wisconsin during a nine-month O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at Marquette University.
The project reveals the full picture of gun deaths in the state and tells the stories of people affected by gun deaths and those trying to find solutions.
Diedrich was assisted in the project by Marquette student researchers Alex Rivera Grant and Ben Schultz.
Marquette University and administrators of the program played no role in the reporting, editing or presentation of this project.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gun industry insider talks to gun owners about mental health, suicide
