The Armory Project (TAP) helps prevent firearm suicides by facilitating safe, voluntary, out-of-home firearm storage with trusted firearms dealers and other vetted partners in local communities. 

Firearm owners, including military members and veterans, now have more options whenever they need to get firearms out of the home, for any reason.

Firearms are the most common and lethal means of suicide. Introducing time and distance between a person in crisis and their firearms has been shown to decrease suicide risk. The research also indicates that a person experiencing a suicidal crisis who cannot access their preferred means will not pursue an alternate method. 

Suicidal crises are often very brief (most lasting approximately 10 minutes), and 90% of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.

Veterans and service members tend to own firearms at higher rates than the general population and are comfortable with firearms because of their training and experience in the military. Firearms are the most commonly used means of suicide among Veterans — and the most lethal.

Many firearm owners share that that temporarily storing their firearms with someone else or holding onto a friend or family member’s firearms for them, is acceptable; in fact, many people have already done this in the past. This practice seems familiar to many Veterans and military families due to norms in the military around using an armory to secure firearms when not in use or when it is unsafe for a service member to handle their service weapon. In conversations with firearm owners, we learned that temporary, out-of-home firearm storage was an acceptable intervention if certain conditions are met.