MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Members of a new steering committee charged with developing a plan to address the mental health needs of Alabama veterans discussed the idea of implementing a voluntary firearm storage program Thursday during the group’s first meeting in Montgomery.
Established after the passage of Senate Bill 135 earlier this year, the committee is made up of leaders from the Alabama departments of Mental Health and Veterans Affairs, as well as several military officials and lawmakers, many of them veterans themselves.
One member of the committee, Jason Smith, suicide prevention coordinator for the Alabama National Guard, championed and advocated for an initiative known as the Safer Together program.
Adopted into law in Louisiana, the Safer Together program sees firearm storage units placed in gun and ammo stores for the sole purpose of allowing a veteran to store their weapons. The program is designed to create a degree of separation between a veteran and their firearm during periods of mental health crises.
“We’ve got to have a conversation about the firearms, because at the end of the day, when you look at suicide rates, 85% of suicides are committed with firearms,” Smith said. “This is a voluntary, confidential and temporary firearm storage program.”
While firearm storage options already exist, the problem, Smith explained, was the extensive documentation required to store firearms, documentation that often deters veterans out of fear of losing their right to possess a firearm.
“I can speak on this personally, I would forgo my mental health care in fear of losing my Second Amendment rights,” he said. “There was no way I was about to tell somebody I had PTSD and run the risk of losing my gun rights, and that barrier has got to be removed.”
The program would supply gun shops with storage units, three to four per store, as well as provide training for staff. The storage units would only have one key which would be given to the veteran, which Smith said did not require shops to take extensive documentation of the firearm owner.
Smith said he was looking for an Alabama lawmaker to carry the bill, and that so far, the response had been positive.
“We’ve talked to Democrats and Republicans alike, (and) so far we’ve had great responses and a lot of enthusiasm,” he said.
Alabama has among the highest veteran suicide rates in the nation, with 152 Alabama veterans representing 18% of all suicides in the state in 2020. On average, veterans are far more prone to suicide that non-veterans.
Paulette Rischer, vice chair of the committee and retired U.S. Army major general, noted that veteran suicide rates differed among Alabama’s veteran population, 38% of which are over 65.
Kim Boswell, ADMH commissioner and chair of the committee, said that while significant gaps in mental health care for veterans exist today, recent funding from Alabama lawmakers had put the state in a much better position than it was a decade ago.
In 2010, state lawmakers cut approximately $40 million in ADMH funding, a reduction that saw the department axe a significant amount of its mental health services.
“If you were in a crisis at that point, your options really were you could get an outpatient appointment (and) probably wait six to eight weeks, or your crisis had to be serious enough that you were a danger to yourself or others, then your family would have to contact that probate judge’s office and go through the process of filing a petition,” Boswell said.
“That was the system of care that we were working with.”
Now with increased funding, however, the ADMH has already made significant progress towards expanding resources for those undergoing a mental health crisis, a large share of them veterans.
Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, member of the committee and chair of the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, later told Alabama Daily News that as a “pro-Second Amendment guy,” he was open to the proposal of implementing a firearm storage program.
“I don’t know why you would be against that; it’s voluntary, and the government doesn’t know about it,” Oliver said. “We’re from Alabama, we don’t trust the government.”
Another member of the committee, Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, spoke enthusiastically about the proposed program. He also said that whatever the committee’s recommendations end up being, he hopes they will consider veteran mentorships.
“I think the one thing that was very important here is talking about peer-to-peer support, veterans really rely on sharing that very unique experience that they had,” Rafferty told ADN. “I can’t speak enough about how effective and necessary looking at that peer-to-peer model is.”
The committee already has $3 million at its disposal for pilot programs courtesy of the state’s share of opioid settlement money. Its next meeting Oct. 23 will focus on mental health and substance use, Boswell said.
The committee will have until April 1 to present a comprehensive plan to better address veteran health care needs to the House and Senate committees on Veterans and Military Affairs, and until June 30 to submit a plan to the governor. The governor will then have until Aug. 31, 2025, to act on the plan.