A handful of mental health advocates met Wednesday at a seemingly unlikely setting to solve the problems facing the Lethal Means Subcommittee: the Oak Tree Gun Club.
But the group, a part of the Santa Clarita Valley Suicide Prevention, Postvention and Wellness Committee, has been welcomed with open arms by Betsy James, who runs the day-to-day operations for the family-owned Newhall business.
The group advocates access to mental health resources and harm reduction, especially in vulnerable populations, with community outreach and often conversations like the ones at the gun club.
James said she’s not only happy to embrace the mission, but also she’s glad to see mental health support is becoming more widely accepted and openly discussed.
“I think that other (gun) dealerships fear presenting things about suicide because they might think that if you put a poster up or literature that says something about suicide, that it might increase the incidents,” she said during Wednesday’s meeting. “But we have not seen that since I’ve been involved in this organization. We have not seen that, that has not been the case.”
Suicides are trending down over the past several years, although there was a slight increase in last year’s figure. In 2022, Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies responded to 33 incidents. There were 20 reported in 2023, and 24 last year, according to data made available by the city of Santa Clarita.
James said she appreciates how there’s much less of a stigma around reaching out for help and wants to support that as much as possible. She acknowledged during the meeting there have been incidents at Oak Tree in the past, which deeply impacted herself and the gun club’s staff.
“I mean, this is so sensitive to all of us. Everyone has been affected, whether you’re just a customer or in the retail sector or in the military,” she said. She added that if she had information to help Oak Tree be more proactive about preventing people experiencing mental health problems from accessing firearms, it would be used.
“I mean, it’s just something that I think if the communication were there, if the information were to be available to us or to any other service provider in this industry, we could do so much more to help, but it’s not there. It’s not available.”
One of the big goals James had in getting involved was to increase the lines of communication with the mental health community and join the conversation about suicide reduction and destigmatizing mental health support.
Despite sensitivity around the topic, the room brought together several different perspectives all focused on the same goal. And politics are intentionally left out.
James said she enjoys the dialogue with members like Bonnie Hoegl, a licensed marriage and family therapist who moved to the SCV from Princeton, New Jersey, in 2020.
Both alluded to their different backgrounds during the meeting, but James said it was great how everyone can come together for mental health support.
Hoegl was working on another effort on behalf of the group, a letter they intend to send to major health and medical organizations to advocate for firearms safety and risk assessments to be a part of the standard intake for senior adults.
“According to research, older adults are at heightened risk for unintentional shootings, self-harm and other firearms-related accidents due to age-related factors,” according to a draft shared with the group. “Sensitivity in structuring gun safety into intake assessments for older adults can potentially save lives, reduce accidents and provide peace of mind for families and caregivers.”
Larry Schallert started the subcommittee’s main group, the Suicide Prevention, Postvention and Wellness Committee, more than 10 years ago while he was the assistant health director at College of the Canyons.
Schallert has retired from COC, but was appointed last year to the L.A. County Mental Health Commission, where he represents the 5th District and stays active with the group.
The prevention committee is now co-chaired by Stephanie Cotcher, the clinical coordinator for the William S. Hart Union High School District. Schallert also meets with the group’s human trafficking task force, which works in local outreach to inform businesses about laws intended to do things like help victims, spot predators and share resources.
He praised James’ willingness to open her doors for the group and willingness to help with outreach to veterans and seniors.
One of the latest byproducts of the group is Oak Tree’s Firearm Life Plan, a service created based on her research and information from the subcommittee, James said. The plans support the idea behind the letter: James said gun owners should have a plan for their weapons, like a will, if something should happen to them, which is what the plans represent.
The club can take custody of a gun if there’s a concern and then relinquish it once the concern has been cleared.
At one point during the meeting, James became emotional when sharing how much the support from the subcommittee meant to her.
“No one wants anyone to get hurt, especially on their watch. Every range that I know of has been affected by suicide, incidents of suicide or self-inflicted harm, and we as range operators don’t have access to the mental health community,” James said. “And this gives us the opportunity to have some in-service training for our staff, in addition to post-incident support, because it’s horrible for our team to have to respond to something like this. It’s emotional, it’s sad, it’s life-changing.”
The access has meant everything, she said, thanking committee members like Jeff Lumaya, the licensed clinical social worker from Santa Clarita Mental Health Center sitting across from her. Lumaya is a clinical suprervisor and one of his specialties is trauma.
“And so I can say, just from my own experience here, having had access to people,” James said, “it’s made a huge difference.”
For more information about local mental health resources, visit BethedifferenceSCV.org.
