Goal: Increase safety around lethal means among those at risk for suicide.

Objective: Disseminate best practices, education, and strategies to increase safety around lethal means, including firearms and medications.

Action Steps:

1. Increase availability of secure storage devices, like lock boxes for firearms and medications, and cable locks for firearms.

2. Increase availability of medication drop-off locations and destroy kits.

3. Implement or enhance safety barriers to bridges, high rises, large bodies of water, and roof tops to reduce access for potential suicide.

4. Encourage firearm retailers or police departments to offer free, temporary firearm storage for individuals and families struggling with mental health.

• Live Today, Put it Away is a program that partners with firearm retailers, veterans, health care systems, schools, law enforcement, and public safety across the state to educate on the importance of suicide prevention and secure storage.  

5. Train healthcare providers to screen for lethal means and ask questions that assess storage practices. Prepare providers to discuss ways to increase lethal means safety in their patients’ homes.

• Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) training is one example to train providers in this topic. There is a counterpart training to build similar skills in the general, non-clinical population, called Conversations on Access to Lethal Means.
• Another example is Lock, Stock, and Barrel, a training developed in Wisconsin to build confidence and competency in healthcare providers to have conversations about firearms.

6. Partner with firearm retailers, shooting ranges, hunter safety courses, and other firearm-related spaces to provide resources about suicide prevention and responsible firearm ownership, like those produced by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

7. Partner with credible messengers to develop, disseminate, and evaluate communications around lethal means safety for suicide prevention.

8. Support public and private funding opportunities to expand access to secure storage for Wisconsin residents.  

Lethal means are the substances, weapons, or implements capable of causing death by suicide. Temporarily removing access to lethal means when someone is thinking about suicide may interrupt an attempt, providing additional, valuable time for intervention.