CSTS podcast series
Let’s Talk About Your Guns
episode 201: Your Guns? Why Should I Care?
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NOTES

SCRIPTDR CURT WEST: Welcome to Let's Talk AboutYour Guns, a podcast where we explore how tohave conversations – sometimes toughconversations - about storing firearms safely.
These conversations are important, and they
could save a life.
I'm Curt West, Associate Professor of
Psychiatry and scientist at the Center for the
Study of Traumatic Stress.
Today we're going to try something a little bit
different.
I have in the studio with me, Kristina
Medvescek and Doctor John Bradley.
As part of getting ready for this season, ourproduction staff, some of our new members
listened to some of the older episodes and it
generated a very interesting reaction.
First, tell us a little bit about yourself, Kristina,
and tell us about your initial reaction to the
podcast.

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3.

KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Hi all. My name is
Kristina. I'm a member of the podcast
production team. I work at the Center for the
Study of Traumatic Stress with Dr Curt West. I
and the other new members of the production
team were asked to listen to a few episodes ofseason one to get familiar with the podcast andto provide some fresh eyes… or fresh ears. We
all liked it, but some of us said that we probably
wouldn't listen to it independently.

4.

DR CURT WEST: Well, of course, it was
personally devastating that someone would
listen to our podcast and say, oh I don't think
this is relevant to me. So that then cued theinterest in this topic of, well, why is this topic offirearm conversations relevant to anybody,whether you own firearms or not, whether you
know people who own firearms or not and sothat's what we're going to talk about today. Whyis this relevant? So can you expand on why you
thought this podcast was not necessarily for
you?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: I was raised without
firearms in my house, and it's just not
something that I engage with day to day. I don't
really come across guns and I don't really talkabout them. Well, not until I started working on
this podcast. It didn't really feel like it was part2

of my life and something that I would really beengaging with.
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DR CURT WEST: But you changed your mind.
Can you tell us about that?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Actually, I was totallywrong. I think my response of this not being
relevant was partially for practical reasons, butalso kind of an identity issue that I think ofmyself not as somebody who engages with
firearms.

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DR CURT WEST: John, could you go ahead
and introduce yourself?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Hello, everybody. John
Bradley, I am the director of mental health at the
VA Boston Healthcare System and a veteran
myself.

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DR CURT WEST: John, can you share with us
your perspective on firearms and your own
experience with firearms just to set the stage?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Yes. Happy to. I think
Kristina hit on an important point about how
firearms can be an identity issue for many
people. Certainly as a military veteran, I
became, you know, familiarized with firearms
and proficient in the use of firearms over thecourse of my career. And it became of interest
for me to maintain that proficiency. Two thirds of3

veterans own firearms in their homes anduntold numbers of Americans - we don't reallyhave a good number about that - own firearms
in their homes. So firearms are ubiquitous.
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DR CURT WEST: So you gained experience infirearms through the military and felt the need tokeep that proficiency after your time in the
military, as many people do. Was protection
ever part of the equation in your life?

13.

DR JOHN BRADLEY: I won't say that it wasnever part of the equation, but it's certainly not
the major part of the equation for me. Nor isnecessarily firearm ownership part of how I see
my identity. Firearm ownership, for me, is moreof a hobby. And I gained an interest again
through the military, became very interested inmilitary history and the firearms usedthroughout our military history and begancollecting. The only times when I have felt aneed for a firearm for protection is when I'm
traveling alone, say, across the country or on a
motorcycle trip or camping, that I'll bring afirearm for protection, you know, against wildlife
or whatever else might be out there when I'm
traveling. But on a day-to-day basis, I keep myfirearms secured, in a safe, disassembled theones that can be disassembled and store theammunition separate from those firearms
because, like many firearm owners who think4

about firearm ownership as a safety precaution,
I want to make sure that my possession of them
maintains the safety within my household.
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DR CURT WEST: So Kristina, if we know thatas many as 43 percent of Americans keep
firearms in their homes, somewhere in yourcircle of friends is someone who keeps a gun.
How did firearms show up in yourconversations?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Yeah, absolutely. I
SOCIAL CLIP

think after our initial conversation where I
said I don't have friends who own firearms,
or this doesn't come up for me. I thought
about it more and I realized not true. I'm amilitary spouse. I have friends in the militarycommunity who own firearms. I have friends
from other walks of life who also own
firearms or have firearms in their homes.
Just as we've been producing this episode,
I've been having conversations with people
about this podcast and have learned thatfriends who I thought didn't own firearms
have firearms at home. It's really a myth, I
think probably for everyone or for mostpeople, that firearms are really separate
from your community.

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DR CURT WEST: And John, if you think about
your circle of relationships, how prevalent are
firearms in in in your group?
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DR JOHN BRADLEY: I would say they're fairly
prevalent, although I haven't taken the liberty to,um, survey my friend group to see who owns
firearms and who doesn't. Although a vast
number of my close friends and acquaintances
are also military hobbyists and do collect mostly
antique weapons. But I haven't surveyed thatgroup to see if they also own handguns or otherfirearms for protection.

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DR CURT WEST: I want to pause and remind
our listeners that the purpose of this podcast.
We’re here to motivate and empower people tohave conversations about safe storage offirearms with people in their lives. Safe storage
means guns are stored unloaded, stored in alocked container, disassembled or with alocking device engaged, and ammunition isstored and locked separately. Finally, safe
storage also means having a plan for alternate
storage during difficult times. John and Kristina,
I’m curious to know whether each of you haveever had a conversation about safe storage withyour friends?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: No, I haven't had
those conversations. Before we started working
on this podcast. I had never heard the term safe
storage. But I can think of at least one time
when perhaps I should have had a conversation
like that with a friend. I have a close friend who I

6know has firearms because he is a hunter. I
also knew that he had a history of depression.
He was having a particularly difficult time in his
life, and I think now, knowing what I do, that thatwould have been a really good opportunity forme to have had a friendly conversation with him
about how he was storing his firearms. And to
this day, I don't know how he stores his firearms
if something like that were to happen again.
And I don't even really feel like I have thelanguage to have those conversations.
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DR CURT WEST: John, can you talk about any
conversations that you have had aroundfirearms and safety, in particular safe or securestorage?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: You know, this is a daily
conversation for me in my professional life. But
let me shift gears and talk about my personal
life. Quite a number of years ago, I had a greatfriend who was going through a terrible time. He
was profoundly depressed and did own
firearms. And I knew of this because he would
talk about his hobby of going to the range andfiring and so on and so forth. And that was thefirst opportunity that I had to say, you know, it's
probably not a good idea for you to have accessto a firearm when you're feeling so depressed.
And fortunately, he was very receptive to that
discussion and was appreciative that I offered7

to take possession of the firearm while he wasin the throes of his crisis and seeking help forthat problem. He readily relinquished his
handgun over to my custody. We waited aperiod of about six months, and I observed thathe seemed to be doing much better. He
attested that he was doing much better and he
was ready to regain possession of the firearm.
So we had a discussion about, what the safe
storage best practices are for him, and I
expressed a willingness to serve as his
repository, should the crisis ever reoccur in hislife. So that was the first time. And thatconversation has happened two additionaltimes since then with close friends and I think
what it has shown me is that people are open to
having the discussion. If that discussion is froma place of empathy and concern and support.
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DR CURT WEST: So Let's Talk About Your
Guns is not about cocktail party conversations
about guns and safety, but these are about
people that are in your life that matter to you
and that you want to live in a safer
environment. With that in mind, I wanted tofollow up, Kristina, with your thoughts on bothJohn's scenario, but your own scenario withyour friend. Having had the had you had theopportunity to do it differently, how would you
approach it now?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Yeah, I guess I'll
answer your question with a question for John,
which is I still feel like - and I don't think I'm
alone in this - I am feeling a barrier with evenstarting that type of conversation. How did you
approach your friend, or did they approach you
to talk about you taking their firearm for alimited period of time?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: It's a great question
because context matters. Right. And in this, youknow, first case with my friend, he approachedme, um, expressing that he was in crisis. Um,
he didn't express a desire to relinquish his
firearm until I brought it up, knowing that heowned firearms. Inherent in that question iswhether you know that your friends own
firearms and we can never be certain, as you so
perfectly pointed out in the introduction. But wecan assume given the prevalence of firearm
SOCIAL CLIP

ownership, that there may be firearms inproximity to any person in crisis. It might beworth shifting the dialog from do you own
firearms to something along the lines of,you know people in crisis might haveaccess to firearms. And I don't know if that's
the case in your home. But if that is, haveyou thought about how you would safely
manage those firearms during the time ofcrisis? Again, a very contextual discussion
presuming that someone one is in crisis and9two, you have the opportunity to meet with
them.
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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: I'm definitely guilty ofmaking assumptions about who owns firearms
and who does not. John, that was incredibly
useful. I think just going in open and saying, youknow, do you have access to firearms? It's agreat way to start and then again, you have to
be flexible based on the scenario but, Curt,
we've also talked about how theseconversations shouldn't only happen in times ofcrisis. So I'm curious about how we could benormalizing these conversations day to day.

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DR CURT WEST: Well, and it's interesting tothink about. Yeah. When does the presence of a
firearm potentially come up in casualconversation with your friends? It's aninteresting question. The data is starting toindicate that a substantial number of firearmowners keep at least one gun stored in a lesssecure manner. And in particular those who are
owning firearms for protection. So, the idea is toplant that seed that perhaps the safer
alternative, is to keep that firearm locked insome way. I think one of the things that we've
also emphasized throughout this podcast has
been that if you do any one of the steps of
secure firearm storage, you are safer than you
are doing none of them. And so any step puts

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time and space and one more opportunity forthat person to change their mind on the worst
day of their life. And so, it comes out in the ideaof like, you matter to me. I care about you. thiswould be awful if this were to happen. And so
this is one way that you can keep yourself safer,by storing your guns securely.
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DR JOHN BRADLEY: I really like thatframework because, you know, what you'retalking about is harm reduction. Anything we
can do, towards safer storage helps improve allof our well-being. I like to have the discussion
about, you know, keeping a safe household that
if somebody is purchasing a firearm, whether
for protection or sport or some other reason,
you know, we can presume that their ultimate
goal is to make their households safer. And so
how can we capitalize on that positive impulse
with regard to the storage of that firearm.

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DR CURT WEST: I want to come back to thisquestion of how do we when is there a time toinitiate this conversation and with whom? I
think there are several opportunities that we've
identified over previous episodes. Things likewhen you have children when your kid goesover to somebody else's house, you have theconversation to say oh are there are there gunsin the house? Are the guns stored safely? You
could be specific and say, by that I mean locked

11and unloaded. There are I'm thinking aboutother times, such as, you know, other lifetransitions. So a friend gets into a relationshipand mentions, oh, yeah, well, he or she keeps
guns around the house. Oh, really? How are
they stored? So if you're prepared for this, when
the opportunities arise, you're ready to go. You
are making a point that maybe it is morechallenging to seek out these conversations,which I don't necessarily is what we're
advocating for, but that you're ready to say, oh,firearms, how are they stored? And there's
almost a reflex to say, are they stored safely?
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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Or I might reframe it andsay, you know, have you thought about how tostore them safely? Because that's much more
inquisitive than directive, I think.

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: My current hack isjust to talk about this podcast all the time, and it
naturally comes up, so that works well.

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DR CURT WEST: That's actually worked for mewith several of my relationships as well. Like,oh, you know, I'm making this podcast abouttalking about guns and safe storage. Oh, really?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Have you thought
about how you store your firearms?

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DR CURT WEST: Well, I actually have learnedso much, you know, through this podcast. Also12

in terms of some of the barriers making thosechoices. Gun safes are expensive. If you movearound, they're also very heavy and they're very
difficult to move but there are all sorts of options
that make safer storage more accessible
whether that be different disabling devices oreven just the simple act of storing your gun
unloaded. I've learned quite a lot about what
people see as barriers to safer storage as well.
34.

KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: I would say
someone who doesn't own firearms or hasn't
really used them. I wouldn't know before this
podcast… like storing a gun unloaded, versus ina safe. You know, that's a good step in the right
direction. So being able to talk about those
things is really helpful.
John, I have a question for you, which is back tohaving safe storage conversations with closefriends. If a close friend approached you from aplace of empathy about storing your firearm
safely, and they were not a firearm ownerthemselves, would that conversation feeldifferent to you?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Yeah. I don't think it'snecessarily a different conversation. Right.
Because we're coming at this question not fromthe point of view of proficiency with firearms, butrather of empathy and caring for another13

person. The person having the discussion might
not know all about the safe storage techniques,
but simply asking the question, have you
thought about how to store these firearms
safely can initiate the conversation. Boy, I don't
know either. Let's look it up. Hey, let's tune in tothis podcast and learn more.
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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: That's helpful. I think
the other part of it, it's a language issue andyeah, a knowledge issue, but it's also I think I
am afraid sometimes because of the identity
politics almost around firearm storage, that I will
come off as being on the other side of somedebate, and I don't want to put up a barrier
between myself and a friend when I come intothat conversation.

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Well, you can very easilyalign by saying I am all about firearm safety.

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: We can all agree on
that.

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: No matter where you arein the political spectrum I think you could say
you're all about firearm safety.

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DR CURT WEST: This is for John. Is there
anything that you would emphasize non firearmowners or people who are unfamiliar with
firearms… what should they know if they wantto have safe storage conversations?
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DR JOHN BRADLEY: I really think they should
know that resources exist - that there is aspectrum of safe storage practices that could be
employed and that this is not an all or none
conversation. I think many people approach thisas a potentially hot button topic, as an all ornone that on one end people should not own
firearms - particularly when in a crisis situation
or if there are vulnerable people in the home toacknowledging the prevalence of crises thatpeople experience and vulnerable people thatlive in all households and shift to more of aharm reduction approach.

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DR CURT WEST: I think it's very important toemphasize that even if you were perhaps themost anti-gun person there is, if you have afriend who owns guns you don't get that luxury
of just saying, well, you should you shouldn't
have that. And so being comfortable saying, oh,
you have a gun. Okay. Can we talk aboutstoring it safely? Or can you help me
understand how you store it safely? Again, froma perspective of understanding let's create asafer environment for all of us. John had veryrightly pointed out that sometimes theconversation is much more broad. It's about
how safe is the whole house environment andthe firearms are just one piece of it.

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Okay. Kristina. So now do you feel ready, or doyou feel more prepared to have safe storage
conversations with your friends?
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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: I think it will probably
be uncomfortable at first, but I'll also say that
discomfort isn't the worst thing in the world,
especially if the potential benefit is so great.
We’re talking about the safety of our friends
here.

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DR CURT WEST: Well, and I think you justhighlighted the key point. It's about theconnection that you have to this other person.
The gun is incidental to that connection. It is
one facet that you want to put in a safer placeso that you can focus on the relationship withyour friend and not be worried about them, notbe worried about their safety. Let's just make asafe environment. Now, there are someresources that are helpful for people who are
exploring the idea of having theseconversations. Um, where can our listeners get
those resources?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: Yeah, we were able
to track down some resources, and they'll belinked to this episode on the center for the
Study of Traumatic Stress website. Many ofthem are focused on times of crisis or aparticular risk, like children in the house, but

16they do provide some practical advice onnavigating the conversations.
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DR CURT WEST: Excellent. Are there are there
any key points that we haven't hit on already?

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: I think there are a couple
key points to walk away with. One is that
firearm ownership is more prevalent than wemight have imagined. It is cloaked in secrecy formany people, and it is an uncomfortable
conversation for many. So we ought to assume
that our friend group consists of people who do
own firearms. Maybe if only by tuning into this
podcast or being part of it, we can spread theword that we're all invested in firearm safety not only in times of crisis, but in terms ofgeneral practice, because we want like all
firearm owners do, want to keep everyone safe.

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DR CURT WEST: Kristina?

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KRISTINA MEDVESCEK: I think the biggest
takeaway for me is, I need to not get bogged
down with the concerns about terminology andknowledge. I was really worried that you
needed to go in being able to say, okay, this is
the practical advice, and I need to be prepared
fully to have this conversation. And that's justnot true. It's most important to be approachingthese conversations just out of care for yourfriends, which we all have. And then John,17

thank you for pointing this out: the fact finding,can be a process that you engage in together. I
hope in this episode that we've been able tobreak down some of the barriers that many of
us share in having these conversations.
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DR CURT WEST: Thank you, John and Kristina
for sharing your perspectives. This has beensuch a wonderful conversation. We don't haveto know exactly what to say. And you shouldn't
worry about saying the wrong thing so long as
you’re coming from a perspective of caring –that perspective of connection. We should
probably all realize that there are probably more
gun owners in our life than we realize. But again
that's not something you should feel nervous
about or intimidated, we just need to engage
those people where they are and hold onto thatperspective of connection. I think we want to geteverybody moving toward creating a safer
environment where there's time and there’s
space between an impulsive thought and a fatal
act.

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DR JOHN BRADLEY: Asking is proof that you
care enough to have the conversation.

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Transition to a new beat
PRESENTER: You’ve been listening to Let’s
Talk about Your Guns.

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This podcast is made possible by The Henry M.
Jackson Foundation for the Advancement ofMilitary Medicine and is produced by the Centerfor the Study of Traumatic Stress at the
Uniformed Services University in collaboration
with Podville Media.
54.

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

55.

PRESENTER: Be sure to subscribe to the showon your favorite podcast app and leave afive-star review.
Thank you for listening.

56.

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

57.

PRESENTER: Mention of trade names,
commercial products, or organizations does notnecessarily constitute or imply endorsement by
the Uniformed Services University, theDepartment of Defense, or the US Governmentor The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the
Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.

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