Posted on Mar 1, 2023
DOD should improve gun safety and take other “high-priority” steps to reduce service member suicides, independent panel says
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The Pentagon should improve gun safety on military property and take other “high-priority” steps to curb rising rates of service member suicides, according to a report issued late last month by an external review panel set up by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
The report, released Feb. 24 by the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee (SPRIRC), recommended nearly 130 policy changes to improve safety across the service branches.
Recent DOD data showed that the rate of death by suicide among service members has ticked up since 2011. Even though the 2021 rate was lower than that recorded in the prior year, DOD said 519 active-duty, National Guard and reserve service members died by suicide, with younger enlisted men being most at risk.
DOD can reverse these trends by implementing the SPRIRC’s recommendations, many of which overlap with and add to reforms put forth previously by DOD, public health and clinical experts, according to the committee, led by Dr. Gayle Y. Iwamasa, national director of inpatient mental health services at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“One conclusion of the SPRIRC,” the authors of the report wrote, “is that persistently elevated suicide rates in the DOD result in no small part to the DOD’s limited responsiveness to multiple recommendations that have been repeatedly raised by independent reviewers and its own experts.”
Gun safety measures merit DOD’s high-priority attention, panel argues
Although bound to be politically controversial, gun safety measures comprised about one-third of the 23 so-called high-priority recommendations — those “most likely to result in the largest reductions in suicide and have an overall benefit to service members and the DoD.”
Gun-related recommendations “are not strategies for gun control, but they are strategies focused on enhancing safety,” said committee member Dr. Craig Bryan, clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University, during a media roundtable discussion transcribed by DOD. They included:
• Repealing and replacing a law that prohibits the defense secretary from collecting or recording any information related to firearms or ammunition privately owned by a service member or DOD civilian employee.
• Standardizing DOD-approved firearm safety training so it covers topics such as suicide prevention, safe gun use and storage, and other best practices.
• Implementing a seven-day waiting period for any firearm purchased on DOD property.
• Implementing a four-day waiting period for ammunition purchases on DOD property after the purchase and receipt of a firearm bought on DOD property.
• Raising the minimum age to 25 years for purchasing firearms and ammunition on DOD property.
• Requiring anyone living on DOD property in military housing to register all privately owned firearms with the installation’s arming authority and to securely store all privately owned firearms in a locked safe or with another locking device.
• Establishing DOD policy restricting the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dormitories.
Given “that a significant percentage of on-base suicides involve firearms purchased on base at military exchanges,” Bryan added, “taking steps to slow down convenient access to highly lethal methods, like firearms, is the single most effective strategy for saving lives.”
Joining Iwamasa and Bryan in undertaking the comprehensive review of DOD suicide prevention programs were other experts in public and mental health, epidemiology, sexual assault, lethal means safety, service member and family support services, and civilian employment. Thousands of service members and their families and civilian and support service providers also offered insight.
Other recommendations
Grouped according to high, moderate and low priority, the recommendations were connected to the following four pillars of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention:
• Healthy and empowered individuals, families and communities.
• Clinical and community preventive services.
• Treatment and support services.
• Surveillance, research and evaluation.
They focused on restructuring suicide prevention training, providing additional resources to help service members access existing support services, promoting lethal means safety and emphasizing leader stewardship in addressing service member needs.
Other high-priority recommendations included addressing in training the risks of excessive alcohol use; centralizing responsibility for core suicide prevention activities common to all services; modernizing suicide prevention programs across the military career cycle; reducing delays in pay; and expediting the hiring of behavioral health professionals.
In a Feb. 24 news release, however, the Pentagon didn’t commit to implementing any specific policy change.
“The Department of Defense,” the statement said, “recognizes that suicide is a complex issue with no single cause or solution but is committed to promoting the well-being, health, and morale of their Total Force and preventing suicide within their ranks.”
Learn more
Read the full list of SPRIRC recommendations: https://rly.pt/3y37hpa
Read the DOD news release: https://rly.pt/3EN70L4
Read the media roundtable transcript: https://rly.pt/3KMOuWI
Read the latest DOD report on rates of death by suicide in the military: https://rly.pt/3J0Vhd9
The report, released Feb. 24 by the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee (SPRIRC), recommended nearly 130 policy changes to improve safety across the service branches.
Recent DOD data showed that the rate of death by suicide among service members has ticked up since 2011. Even though the 2021 rate was lower than that recorded in the prior year, DOD said 519 active-duty, National Guard and reserve service members died by suicide, with younger enlisted men being most at risk.
DOD can reverse these trends by implementing the SPRIRC’s recommendations, many of which overlap with and add to reforms put forth previously by DOD, public health and clinical experts, according to the committee, led by Dr. Gayle Y. Iwamasa, national director of inpatient mental health services at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“One conclusion of the SPRIRC,” the authors of the report wrote, “is that persistently elevated suicide rates in the DOD result in no small part to the DOD’s limited responsiveness to multiple recommendations that have been repeatedly raised by independent reviewers and its own experts.”
Gun safety measures merit DOD’s high-priority attention, panel argues
Although bound to be politically controversial, gun safety measures comprised about one-third of the 23 so-called high-priority recommendations — those “most likely to result in the largest reductions in suicide and have an overall benefit to service members and the DoD.”
Gun-related recommendations “are not strategies for gun control, but they are strategies focused on enhancing safety,” said committee member Dr. Craig Bryan, clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University, during a media roundtable discussion transcribed by DOD. They included:
• Repealing and replacing a law that prohibits the defense secretary from collecting or recording any information related to firearms or ammunition privately owned by a service member or DOD civilian employee.
• Standardizing DOD-approved firearm safety training so it covers topics such as suicide prevention, safe gun use and storage, and other best practices.
• Implementing a seven-day waiting period for any firearm purchased on DOD property.
• Implementing a four-day waiting period for ammunition purchases on DOD property after the purchase and receipt of a firearm bought on DOD property.
• Raising the minimum age to 25 years for purchasing firearms and ammunition on DOD property.
• Requiring anyone living on DOD property in military housing to register all privately owned firearms with the installation’s arming authority and to securely store all privately owned firearms in a locked safe or with another locking device.
• Establishing DOD policy restricting the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dormitories.
Given “that a significant percentage of on-base suicides involve firearms purchased on base at military exchanges,” Bryan added, “taking steps to slow down convenient access to highly lethal methods, like firearms, is the single most effective strategy for saving lives.”
Joining Iwamasa and Bryan in undertaking the comprehensive review of DOD suicide prevention programs were other experts in public and mental health, epidemiology, sexual assault, lethal means safety, service member and family support services, and civilian employment. Thousands of service members and their families and civilian and support service providers also offered insight.
Other recommendations
Grouped according to high, moderate and low priority, the recommendations were connected to the following four pillars of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention:
• Healthy and empowered individuals, families and communities.
• Clinical and community preventive services.
• Treatment and support services.
• Surveillance, research and evaluation.
They focused on restructuring suicide prevention training, providing additional resources to help service members access existing support services, promoting lethal means safety and emphasizing leader stewardship in addressing service member needs.
Other high-priority recommendations included addressing in training the risks of excessive alcohol use; centralizing responsibility for core suicide prevention activities common to all services; modernizing suicide prevention programs across the military career cycle; reducing delays in pay; and expediting the hiring of behavioral health professionals.
In a Feb. 24 news release, however, the Pentagon didn’t commit to implementing any specific policy change.
“The Department of Defense,” the statement said, “recognizes that suicide is a complex issue with no single cause or solution but is committed to promoting the well-being, health, and morale of their Total Force and preventing suicide within their ranks.”
Learn more
Read the full list of SPRIRC recommendations: https://rly.pt/3y37hpa
Read the DOD news release: https://rly.pt/3EN70L4
Read the media roundtable transcript: https://rly.pt/3KMOuWI
Read the latest DOD report on rates of death by suicide in the military: https://rly.pt/3J0Vhd9
Pentagon
Gun Control
Suicide
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DoD
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 63
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What they are saying is they want zero military personnel to have privately owned weapons in their homes. Either on post, base, or off-post housing.
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MAJ Byron Oyler
SFC Greg Witte - People are more afraid of fraternization charges today than taking care of soldiers. I did some off roading with one of my specialists and even met him for shooting in the desert. Both things my leadership would have severely frowned upon but I knew him and what was going on in his life. We were not friends and he never called me by my first name and vice versa but I knew him. Need to be more favorable with things like this and really learn your SM.
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MSgt Tim Ulery
PO3 Justin Bowen How can you not see that? 25 yoa to buy a gun? Waiting periods? Open your eyes
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Not IAW the second amendment. It is truly very sad when a Service member ( or anyone) takes their own life, that does not however mean that the rights of others should be impeded. If this would be the case then we would have no civil rights.
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MAJ Byron Oyler
MSG Stan Hutchison Yes we gave up rights while serving however the powers that be keep missing is we take people sometimes with few skills, inner weakness, and build them up to achieve the mission no regardless the challenges. When that mission becomes suicide being focused on a means or a tools and not understanding the person in pain is where we fail. Until mental health experts learn we function different these suicides are not going down and thus the reasons suicides are greater than after WWII. We approached people different at that time when you could mail order a rifle from Sears.
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SGT John Schmelzkopf
First IMO, the Suicide rates have nothing or minimal to do with access to Firearms. We went through same after Nam and after Our Leaderships despicable sell out of Our Service. We never lost a Battle but lost the War! You come home to live with being Sold Out by your Country. Your Brothers Killed or Seriously Wounded, some died in your arms, for what, A Cowardly Leadership Command that would not take Responsible Action.
For example, from what I have heard and seen, Who the Hell put that Fiasco together, pick your Weakest Spot for the Few Remaining Troops to gather for withdrawal. Obvious it was either total stupidity by WH, Milli Vanilli, Austin and others, or Cowardice, run for the hills, it would not be PC to stop the Tali with a few Strafing Runs. We had that in Nam toward end, If VC had a few Saffron Robes amongst, it became a Nofire, even if you saw Weapons. Leave all that Gear behind, who came up with that one? I never thought of Suicide but I was very angry then and to this day, we needed to bomb North Vietnam after the Paris Peace Talks Failed to get a full accounting of POW's. Kissinger, "The Great Negotiator", gave a List of Likely Survived (about 380 if I remember right) at the beginning of the Talks, guess who we got back, brilliant MOVE ! We left at least a thousand unaccounted for, I always use the Airforce Weapons Officer's as example, they were valuable Intel and usually went straight to Russia.
The Suicide Programs are tricky, again in my opinion, the constant talk and Commercials can in themselves keep bringing the Thoughts back. Remember the Gunlock ones that claimed a Gun Lock could stop you, well imo it Brought Firearms and Suicide thoughts together.
For example, from what I have heard and seen, Who the Hell put that Fiasco together, pick your Weakest Spot for the Few Remaining Troops to gather for withdrawal. Obvious it was either total stupidity by WH, Milli Vanilli, Austin and others, or Cowardice, run for the hills, it would not be PC to stop the Tali with a few Strafing Runs. We had that in Nam toward end, If VC had a few Saffron Robes amongst, it became a Nofire, even if you saw Weapons. Leave all that Gear behind, who came up with that one? I never thought of Suicide but I was very angry then and to this day, we needed to bomb North Vietnam after the Paris Peace Talks Failed to get a full accounting of POW's. Kissinger, "The Great Negotiator", gave a List of Likely Survived (about 380 if I remember right) at the beginning of the Talks, guess who we got back, brilliant MOVE ! We left at least a thousand unaccounted for, I always use the Airforce Weapons Officer's as example, they were valuable Intel and usually went straight to Russia.
The Suicide Programs are tricky, again in my opinion, the constant talk and Commercials can in themselves keep bringing the Thoughts back. Remember the Gunlock ones that claimed a Gun Lock could stop you, well imo it Brought Firearms and Suicide thoughts together.
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You are likely surprized that I choose to file these recommendations in the bullsh*t! locker.
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Sgt Ed Allen
BS - Repealing and replacing a law that prohibits the defense secretary from collecting or recording any information related to firearms or ammunition privately owned by a service member or DOD civilian employee.
Hmmm. Wouldn't that violate the Federal law against a gun registry?
Agreed - Standardizing DOD-approved firearm safety training so it covers topics such as suicide prevention, safe gun use and storage, and other best practices.
This should have been the priority for the last 200 years. Commanding officers, officers in general, and all NCOs should be looking after their men and women already.
Implementing a seven-day waiting period for any firearm purchased on DOD property.
BS - The person would just go off base and make the purchase. Why would this prevent suicides? It is just another BS maneuver to control the firearms.
Lots of BS - Implementing a four-day waiting period for ammunition purchases on DOD property after the purchase and receipt of a firearm bought on DOD property.
Once again, if you wanted to engage in violence against yourself, or anybody else, you would just go off base and purchase the ammo.
Super BS - Raising the minimum age to 25 years for purchasing firearms and ammunition on DOD property.
This is a violation of your constitutional rights. Interesting that in many states, they are no passing laws to allow 18 - 20-year olds to purchase firearms if they are a non-resident because they have the training on how to handle a firearm. But the DOD is thinking that you don't have the ability to be safe doing so.
ULTRA BS - Requiring anyone living on DOD property in military housing to register all privately owned firearms with the installation’s arming authority and to securely store all privately owned firearms in a locked safe or with another locking device.
Once again, infringing on your 2nd Amendment rights to have a firearm, and in this case, making it so that you would not have it available to you should you need it for self-defense. I absolutely agree with having it locked in a safe of some type. It can be an RFID, biometric, PIN Code or key activated storage device. This would be common sense and would keep children and thieves from gaining easy access to it. However, I disagree with PMO holding it.
BS - Establishing DOD policy restricting the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dormitories.
This rule was already in place in the 1980s, when I was serving, and it did not prevent one of my fellow marines from getting a gun and shooting himself in the head at the end of the flightline at Cherry Point. It provided a false sense of security. What if he had decided to start shooting people in the barracks instead. None of my fellow marines would have been able to defend themselves from an attack.
You will notice that the vast majority of recommendations in the report have to do with restricting the rights of service members. Very few of the recommendations have anything to do with mental health and actual suicide prevention.
A person who is suicidal will use whatever means is available. Knife, pills, rope, broken glass, alcohol, and, yes, even guns. It is not the choice of the tool that needs to be looked at and regulated. It is the actual responsibility of those around to watch their friends, fellow soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors.
As service members, you are your brothers keeper. You should pay attention to what your barracks mates are doing and saying. There is almost always a sign that was seen but dismissed by saying it "isn't my responsibility". As a service member, it is your responsibility. If you were in combat, you would watch each other's back. You need to do it in garrison as well.
Hmmm. Wouldn't that violate the Federal law against a gun registry?
Agreed - Standardizing DOD-approved firearm safety training so it covers topics such as suicide prevention, safe gun use and storage, and other best practices.
This should have been the priority for the last 200 years. Commanding officers, officers in general, and all NCOs should be looking after their men and women already.
Implementing a seven-day waiting period for any firearm purchased on DOD property.
BS - The person would just go off base and make the purchase. Why would this prevent suicides? It is just another BS maneuver to control the firearms.
Lots of BS - Implementing a four-day waiting period for ammunition purchases on DOD property after the purchase and receipt of a firearm bought on DOD property.
Once again, if you wanted to engage in violence against yourself, or anybody else, you would just go off base and purchase the ammo.
Super BS - Raising the minimum age to 25 years for purchasing firearms and ammunition on DOD property.
This is a violation of your constitutional rights. Interesting that in many states, they are no passing laws to allow 18 - 20-year olds to purchase firearms if they are a non-resident because they have the training on how to handle a firearm. But the DOD is thinking that you don't have the ability to be safe doing so.
ULTRA BS - Requiring anyone living on DOD property in military housing to register all privately owned firearms with the installation’s arming authority and to securely store all privately owned firearms in a locked safe or with another locking device.
Once again, infringing on your 2nd Amendment rights to have a firearm, and in this case, making it so that you would not have it available to you should you need it for self-defense. I absolutely agree with having it locked in a safe of some type. It can be an RFID, biometric, PIN Code or key activated storage device. This would be common sense and would keep children and thieves from gaining easy access to it. However, I disagree with PMO holding it.
BS - Establishing DOD policy restricting the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dormitories.
This rule was already in place in the 1980s, when I was serving, and it did not prevent one of my fellow marines from getting a gun and shooting himself in the head at the end of the flightline at Cherry Point. It provided a false sense of security. What if he had decided to start shooting people in the barracks instead. None of my fellow marines would have been able to defend themselves from an attack.
You will notice that the vast majority of recommendations in the report have to do with restricting the rights of service members. Very few of the recommendations have anything to do with mental health and actual suicide prevention.
A person who is suicidal will use whatever means is available. Knife, pills, rope, broken glass, alcohol, and, yes, even guns. It is not the choice of the tool that needs to be looked at and regulated. It is the actual responsibility of those around to watch their friends, fellow soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors.
As service members, you are your brothers keeper. You should pay attention to what your barracks mates are doing and saying. There is almost always a sign that was seen but dismissed by saying it "isn't my responsibility". As a service member, it is your responsibility. If you were in combat, you would watch each other's back. You need to do it in garrison as well.
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CWO4 Terrence Clark
Sgt Ed Allen Exactly! There are ample examples of failure of laws and regulations. Nothing replaces personal accountability, and nothing replaces leadership and accountability from E-1 to JCS.
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