In eighth grade, I was voted most likely to be the next Annie Oakley in a Wild West show.
I grew up shooting with my dad. I won a lot of junior shooting competitions.
Then, I joined the Marine Corps.
During that time, I was a Cobra pilot. I had several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was a lot of up-tempo time away from family. It was hard, but you’re in it with people doing the same thing, and the rest of the world was sort of isolated, but you feel okay about it.
When I came back from all this, I was very different. I felt other-ized and that I couldn’t relate to my family and friends. Particularly in times of transition, there isn’t really a safety net that understands you.
Then, depression hit.
I had just moved. I was in a completely new command. I was all alone with no one to share experiences with. I was struggling to sell my house. I was running into wall after wall. I couldn’t get the help from the places that were supposed to help me. I thought: How do I actually go about doing this?
I’m sitting there, and I’m, like, well, you tried to talk yourself out of this. And, oh yeah, your dead friends would totally wish that they were having these same sort of problems. But, then I was, like, I would just rather trade places with them.
Like most people at the time, I never thought about the connections between guns and suicide.
It was always a mental health issue. It was very much, like, that’s something that happens to somebody else, right?
But I got into this fatalistic loop that’s not easy to get out of, particularly if you’re alone. I had guns around, so I was, like, this will be quick and easy. Here’s my way out.
I ended up calling a buddy of mine who was a public affairs officer. Thankfully, he was a smart person as well. He was essentially, like, you just keep talking to me while I figure out what's going on. He helped get me through.
I didn't have my gun stored safely at the time.
Now, I do, because I understand that suicidal thoughts creep up all the time.
I’m not cured of the fatalistic thinking. But the benefit of being in this fatalistic loop is that it’s incredibly overbearing. I can't think about doing anything else, like going and unlocking a gun safe. That's just too much work, that’s a step that I don’t want to do because, if I do that, it’ll actually show that I’m successful at doing something. So, for me, unlocking a gun safe is a thing, and then it’s like, well, I guess I can actually accomplish something. So, I shouldn’t do it.
And that’s the importance of safe storage for me. It seems to be working. I still have guns. I really like hunting. Guns are still a thing that I enjoy.
But, the important thing is, I know they are stored safely to keep me safe.