CSTS podcast series
Let’s Talk About Your Guns
Episode 2: Times of Crisis

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NOTES

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SCRIPTDAVID MCDANIEL: September 1st started as kind of anormal day.
I'm at my home office working, and my oldest daughter
called me saying, Dad, call me. It's about Conor.
She had said that she had just talked to Conor and he wastalking about how he's how he's unhappy. He doesn't see
the point of life. And he indicated he's going to commit
suicide.
His entire plan was to just go off in the woods and end his
life.

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DAVID MCDANIEL: My wife and I hopped in the car andstarted driving.

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DAVID MCDANIEL: On the way down to his city, which
was about an hour away, we talked to his girlfriend.
His girlfriend was in conversation with Connor andconvinced him to drop a pin on a map so that we could findhis body. Of course, she shared that with us and we shared
it with the police.

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I was very much hoping the police would be able to talk him
down, talk him out of doing this.
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DAVID MCDANIEL: When we arrived at the location, we
saw his car. We looked in it and nothing was in there.

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DAVID MCDANIEL: We saw there was a kind of an uphillfield leading to a plateau that was heavily wooded.
So I started walking up the hill and I was yelling his name.
And that's when the police showed up.

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transition to newbeat
DAVID MCDANIEL: The police did send a mental healthcrisis counselor and she tried to make contact and Connor
wouldn't even speak to her at all.

11.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Connor started shooting at deputies to
provoke them. He only had one gun. His pistol.
He had had quite a bit of ammo with him.
Throughout the day, he shot a lot of rounds.
At one point we did get contact and I was talking to him,
trying to just tell him to put the gun down and we'll get all
this worked out. And he was just saying, there's nothing you
can say or do. This is it. I'm. I'm dying today.

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DAVID MCDANIEL: Connor was an excellent marksman.

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He had put himself in a spot where it was very difficult to getaround him, get behind him, or get any kind of advantage.
So the police felt like they couldn't necessarily containConnor or the situation.
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DAVID MCDANIEL: When it got dark, the police sent usfurther away and they locked down the neighborhood.
And Conor started shooting at officers and they returned fireand killed him.

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15.

DR WEST: Conor McDaniel is one of the more than
114,000 veterans 1 that have died by suicide since 2001.
His father David believes that if Conor had not had accessto a firearm, he’d still be alive.

16.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Lots of people say that somebody thatis intent on ending their life will find a way to do it. And
maybe that's true. But without having a gun, I don't knowwhat he could have done that would have caused the
deputies to return fire.

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18.

DR WEST: I’m Curt West: Associate Professor of
Psychiatry and Scientist at the Center for the Study ofTraumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University.
Today, in Let’s Talk about Your Guns we’ll learn about the1

https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/vet-stats3

challenges that David McDaniel faced in talking to his son
Connor about his firearms.
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DR WEST: We’ll also talk to Dr Michael Anestis, a clinicalpsychologist who studies the relationship between firearms,
safety, and suicide.

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DR WEST: In this podcast, we want to emphasize that
firearm safety in the home is built around five principles.
Weapons should be stored unloaded. They should be taken
apart or stored with a disabling device engaged. They
should be stored in locked containers, and ammunition
should be stored in a separate locked container. Finally,
firearm safety in the home involves having a plan inadvance for storing guns in an alternate location during
times of crisis.
That alternate storage plan may save the life of someone
you love.

21.

DR WEST: Finally, we’ll discuss some strategies for how totalk with someone in your life who may be at risk of using
their gun for self-harm.

22.

DR WEST: Because this podcast isn’t about whether you
are for or against firearms. It’s about how to have open andhonest conversations about safe storage. Conversations
that may save a life.
So now… Let’s Talk about Your Guns.

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24.

DR WEST: David, what kind of person was Conor?

25.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Conor was a very fun-loving person.
More than anything, Conor loved to make people laugh. His
main thing was bringing joy to other people, helping otherpeople. He would do anything for anybody at the drop of a
hat.

26.

DR WEST: Tell me about Conor's experience in the Army.

27.

DAVID MCDANIEL: He joined within six months ofgraduating high school, went to basic in Georgia and thenwas assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside of
Seattle, Washington.
The thing that really drove him was 9/11. Even though he
was only six when it happened, just everything he learned
about it was the driving factor for him joining the service. He
really just wanted to go fight the bad guys.

28.

DR WEST: And did Conor do a combat deployment?

29.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Yeah. So he spent nine months in
Kunduz province in Afghanistan attached to a special forcesgroup. And they were assigned to protect villages in
Afghanistan along that Tajikistan border.

30.

DR WEST: How was Connor changed when he came backfrom deployment?

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31.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Connor really struggled with finding his
identity, his sense of purpose.
So obviously the military takes great care and is very goodat training their soldiers to be soldiers, take them from a
civilian to a soldier. And in Connor's situation in particular,
he was six months out of high school, had never lived on
his own, never had to pay bills. So when he got out of theservice, a lot of these things were foreign to him.
He struggled with career choices. He struggled withrelationships. He had a very few things that made him
happy, but life in general was very tough on him.

32.

DR WEST: Tell me about Conor’s experience with guns.

33.

DAVID MCDANIEL: Conor’s experience originated in theservice.
When he was growing up, nobody in the family owned
guns. It just wasn't a thing.
But the military being a very gun-oriented community, it justgrew in him, his love for shooting and he would go shooting,you know, target shooting every few weeks.
As soon as he got back from deployment, he definitely had
an affinity toward guns. Somehow he came across a
Russian made AK 47. He had his Glock nine-millimeter. So
over the next year or so, he built up four or five, six
weapons that he owned.
He was just a very, very strong proponent of owning guns.

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He just he liked, I guess, that ability, the thought ofdefending himself in a crisis situation.
34.

DR WEST: Were you aware of how he stored his guns or
was there ever discussion about that?

35.

DAVID MCDANIEL: He had a gun rack. It wasn't a safe. It
was more like a cage. But he did keep it locked. All his
ammo as guns would be there, except his pistol, which hekept in his bedroom for self-defense.

36.

DR WEST: Was there ever a thought of talking to him about
his guns?

37.

DAVID MCDANIEL: No, I don't think I would have had theability to talk to him about his guns because he was so
strident about being able to maintain possession of them.
We never really had a conversation about any plans for if
he was in a bad situation. That's just not something I
thought of.
There's a lot of regrets I have and that's one of them.

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39.

DR WEST: Dr. Michael Anestis studies the role of firearms
in both civilian and veteran suicide. He’s heard many stories
like David’s, especially his feelings of regret.

40.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: From a father's perspective, it's aheartbreaking thing to think if this one simple thing, it

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changed, maybe everything that came afterwards wouldchange as well. And I think there's truth to what his father
said, which is that when individuals are less able to accessa specific method they intend to use on a specific occasion
there's a good chance they won't use any method on any
occasion in the future.
41.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: What a lot of folks don't understandabout suicide, if they haven't experienced it themselves, isthat it's really difficult and it's really scary. And so when you
take a firearm in a moment of crisis and you make it thatmuch more difficult to access, you add that one more step
you have to do that offers an opportunity for intervention. So
safe storage does not eliminate the possibility of a suicide
attempt and death, but it makes it less likely.

42.

DR WEST: But if someone is suicidal, won’t they just switch
to another method?

43.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: Generally speaking, individuals don't
tend to just swap to another method when they're prevented
from using the method they intended to use.
70% of folks who survive a suicide attempt never attemptagain. So second chances matter a lot.
Firearms, 85, 95% of the time when they're used in a
suicide attempt, result in death. No other method reallycompares to that.
So when folks use a firearm, they almost never get that
second chance.

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44.

DR WEST: One of the principles that comes to mind in safe
storage is having an alternative storage plan in times ofcrisis. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how it
how it could have applied here?

45.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: Certainly. So when we talk about safe
storage in general, I often say, hey, let's move upstream.
Let's not plan just for safe storage in a moment of crisis thesame way you don't go buy a fire extinguisher when thehouse is on fire, right?
Let's talk to someone before they're suicidal.

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DR WEST: Ok but a lot of people are going to say “I’m notsuicidal. I’m not going to be suicidal”. So why is thisrelevant to me?

47.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: That's a tough sell because you know
what, most folks are right. They are never going to becomesuicidal. The issue is that pretty much nobody thinks they'regoing to be suicidal until they are. And so you plan again
ahead of time in case the world changes in a way you don't
anticipate. So how can you make a modest change that
protects against an unlikely sort of catastrophic outcome
which is someone in your home, whether that's you orsomeone you love, becoming suicidal, often unbeknownst
to you or unbeknownst to them.

48.

DR WEST: One thing that was interesting about Conor’s
story is that he did store most of his guns safely. But it was

9the one that he kept on hand for self protection that waspresent when he died.
49.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: Yeah, there are several potential
barriers that can complicate someone's decision to store
firearms securely in the first place, or their response to aconversation where someone's trying to motivate them todo so. One of them is the drive to own a firearm, particularly
for self-defense in the home. Right. And so if you think thatthe primary purpose of this tool, this firearm, is to protect
myself or my loved ones then the idea is, I need to have thison the ready.
That can be a difficult negotiation to just say, hey, evenwhen you're feeling great, let's make that hard to access.
And so let's assume for a second that's not what folks areare open to. Then an alternative plan for what to do whenthings get worse becomes pivotal.

50.

DR WEST: Any thoughts on how to start a conversation
about this?

51.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: What that sort of comes down to issaying, look, if you or someone else who might have accessto that firearm is having a difficult time? Not necessarily I've
gone to a psychologist and I've been diagnosed withdepression, but just I'm having a difficult time. I don't feelquite like myself. That's a moment to think about what can
we do to reduce ready access even to that one that I'm
keeping for home protection? And there are a lot of options
that allow that firearm to remain in the control of that10

household, to maintain autonomy, to not feel like someone
has come and taken a firearm.
You can also do things like remove the firing pin and haveyour partner hold it so it is not functional, but you still retain
possession of the firearm. I have heard stories about folks
who have biometric safe or any sort of lock box that are key
operated. And they either change the code so only theirpartner has it in those moments of stress or if it's key
operated, you drill a hole in the lock box that's key size togive your partner a copy the key, and you drop your key inthe box while it's locked. And so until your partner opens it
up and gives you your key back, you temporarily don't haveit, but it doesn't leave your home. So it's important to have aplan that meets your values and meets your life system, butalso meets the moment.
These conversations outside of an extreme imminent risk,
dire moment, need not to be someone coming in andprescribing. Do this and do it now. It needs to be, how can
we walk down this road together with you still driving the
ship?
52.

DR WEST: It sounds like that approach would be useful,whether it is conflict between partners, concerns aboutchildren in the home, the idea that one one member of thehousehold may view safety in a particular way and the othermay not. And so finding that common ground to walk
together, that's so valuable in having these conversations.

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53.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: Ideally, what you're trying to do in thissituation is say, hey, I'm here for you, I care for you. I'm nottrying to violate your rights. I'm not trying to judge you forhaving a firearm. I just want you to be alive. And so what
can we do just while we're in this moment that creates alittle bit more time and space between you and this firearm,or at least between you and this firearm being operationaland ready.

54.

DR WEST: You did with the Mississippi National Guard. I’dlike to hear more about that. What was the purpose of thatstudy?

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DR MIKE ANESTIS: Sure. So we did a project called
Project Safeguard, andthe purpose was to take a population of firearm owners witha good amount of experience with firearms and see if a
simple 10-to-15 minute conversation could prompt
meaningful and sustained changes in firearm storage
behavior.
We chose firearm owning members of the Mississippi
National Guard and we chose that group for a couple ofreasons. One is that we anticipated that being a group offolks who were going to be pretty skeptical of what we were
doing because we wanted to not make this easy. We
wanted to work with communities that might need this andnot already be searching for it. But also they were recruitedregardless of their current suicide risk.

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56.

DR WEST: Why was that important?

57.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: The folks who are vulnerable to die bysuicide, also have this tendency not to tell people about
their suicidal thoughts ahead of time and not to use
behavioral health care. And so the story so often is a family
member left behind saying, I never saw this coming, and so
we need to go upstream and see if we can get behavior
changes amongst these folks before we know they're at
risk. Because if we wait until we know the risk is there,
we've often waited too late.

58.

DR WEST: What were the elements of that conversation?

59.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: The conversation was framed using
an approach called motivational interviewing and wasstructured such that we had a conversation with someone
sort of at an equal footing, not arguing with them and not
forcing them to go one way, but essentially asking them totell us about their firearms and their stories practices andwhy they choose those and not others, and under whatcircumstances they might consider making changes. And
then ultimately towards the end of the conversation ideally,
aspirationally, you write a written plan for what that
individual is going to do either in the moment. So when theyleave or under some specific hypothetical set of future
circumstances where the environment changes and they
feel like a storage change might be in order.

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We sort of let the service member drive the conversation
where their momentum was, where they were most
comfortable.
The goal wasn't to get every single person to do the samething, but rather to see where folks were willing to go and to
get them to lean into their own intrinsic motivation to go
there.
60.

DR WEST: So when you followed up with them threemonths and then six months later. What did you find?

61.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: What we found is people, got cable
locks pretty quickly, started using cable locks at a muchhigher rate and sustained that across the six months.
So that's all really good news. But what's maybe even more
important is that 100% of the people they'd recommend theintervention to a peer. So a lot of people are really hesitant
to have these conversations because they're worried they'regoing to alienate someone or it's going to turn to anargument. And we were concerned. We're going into theMississippi National Guard. We're talking about firearms.
They weren't coming in looking for help. They didn't evenknow they're going to talk about firearms. And here we arehaving this conversation. People might be like, no way,man. And certainly we had some contentious conversations
but overall, people said, yeah, I'd recommend this.

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62.

DR WEST: You mentioned contentious conversations.
Was there anyone who just completely rejected thatapproach?

63.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: We had a guy who came in very early
on in the trial and spoke to the clinician and said, Look, thisis all ridiculous. This does there's no point in this and I'm notgoing to do any of it. And the clinician very skillfully, youknow, thanked that individual for their honesty andforthrightness. And we didn't expect to hear from that guy
again in three months later you know, lo and behold, heshowed up for his follow up and said, you know, I told you
before I wouldn't do this. And guess what? I didn't because
it's it's, you know, stupid. It's it's just not worthwhile. Andagain, the clinician very skillfully said, look, I reallyappreciate you coming back. We don't want to just be told
what we want to hear. We want to know what's happening.
And then he came back at six months. And he said, youknow, since our our last meeting, I broke up with my fiancee
and I thought about that conversation we had and I gave myfirearms to my brother to hold, and I'm pretty sure I'd bedead otherwise.

64.

DR WEST: Why do you think it worked for the gentleman
that you just spoke about? Why do you think it worked?

65.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: I think it worked for that individual
because the conversation was handled in a way that was
about humility and acknowledging the perspective of
someone. So, again, when someone doesn't want to make15

a change, you can't force them to make a change. Or if you
do, you can't force them to make a change that lasts. And
so we didn't try to do that. We said, we see you and wehear you. And, you know, I'm glad you heard ourperspective, too. And we may part ways still viewing theworld very differently. But we heard each other. And that's
not how these conversations are expected to go. It's not
how these conversations often go about highly politicized
topics like firearms. But when you can do that, you can get
someone to maybe think about it differently. You can again
plant that seed. And I just think that's what that clinician did.
And the you know, the ironic thing is that clinician left
feeling very unskillful and took a lot of time to get that
person realized. No, you handled that just right. You didn't
have to get that person to agree with you. Conversations
aren't always about getting someone who sees the world
differently to see it the same way as you. It's just getting theperson to maybe look through your lens for a moment
before returning to their own, so that in a moment where
their lens doesn't feel quite right to them, they've got
another option.
66.

DR WEST: It does sound like that this aspect of humility
and perhaps letting the gun owner teach you some things isa very useful approach.

67.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: Absolutely. Again, having a
conversation with someone about something you don't
know much about but where you share a common goal ofsafety, again, doesn't require you to come in and move that16

person around and teach them. And in a conversation
where the concern on the part of the firearm owner might bea loss of autonomy or someone coming in and taking
something from them, providing an opportunity for them tobe doing some teaching and some leading, I think candisarm that concern as well to if like, I'm not here to tell you
what to do, in fact, you can teach me a lot about stuff as
well.
I think authenticity is vital to credibility. Don't pretend toknow more than you know. You don't have to tell the firearmowner what to do. You don't. Most of these conversations
aren't about saying, Hey, pick A, B or C and do it. It's
saying, Hey, what makes sense to you? And working withthem and say, Hey, why does that make sense? I don't
even know what that is. Tell me about it. I think just sort ofradical authenticity helps people take you seriously. And if
you come in trying to pretend that you know more than you
know. I think you're going to get dismissed out of hand
anyway. No one likes to talk to a fake expert.
68.

DR WEST: Sounds like shortcuts actually get in the way of
conversations like these, and that conversations like theseactually take time and trust.

69.

DR MIKE ANESTIS: I think it's really important for folks toconceptualize this as planting seeds and not picking
flowers. If you can vary sort of in a humble way, talk about
this with someone in a moment when they're okay down theroad, when they're less okay, it might yield the flower. Youmight not get it right away. And that's okay. This isn't about
17immediately changing someone's position. It's about getting
someone to create a menu of options so that when the
moment comes, they think about it differently than they
otherwise would have.
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71.

DR WEST: David McDaniel has advice for other parents
with a child who might be struggling.

72.

DR WEST: What would you say to that soldier who hascome on a rough patch in their life. And, you know, they
have a collection of guns at home. What would you say tothat soldier?

73.

DAVID MCDANIEL: First, what I would say is accept thehelp, because there are people that will help and obviously
do something to have your gun safely stored because
there's nothing good that's going to happen from using yourguns when you're in the situation. With Connor, if he didn't
have that gun, he wouldn't have been able to provoke thedeputies and maybe he would still be alive today.

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beat
75.

DR WEST: Thank you to David McDaniel and Dr. Michael
Anestis for participating in this discussion.

76.

DR WEST: You’ve been listening to Let’s Talk about Your
Guns. This podcast is made possible by The Henry M.
Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military18

Medicine Incorporated and is produced by the Center for
the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services
University in collaboration with Podville Media.
77.

DR WEST: To learn more about our mission and for
additional resources, please visit cstsonline.org.

78.

DR WEST: Be sure to subscribe to the show on yourfavorite podcast app and leave a five-star review.
Thank you for listening.

79.

PRESENTER: The views expressed are those of the
speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions,or policies of the Uniformed Services University, theDepartment of Defense, the US Government, or The Henry
M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military
Medicine, Inc.

80.

PRESENTER: Mention of trade names, commercial
products, or organizations does not necessarily constituteor imply endorsement by the Uniformed Services University,
the Department of Defense, or the US Government or The
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement ofMilitary Medicine, Inc.

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