This story was published in partnership withThe Trace, a nonprofit newsroom coveringgun violence.
He did not have good news.
His voice was sober and frank, like a small-town sheriff describing an unsolved violent crime.
Police look at a .357 Magnum handgun at the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s gun buyback on Aug. 2, 2023.Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
Because I text her, I says, I will when I know what to say.
I just dont know what to say.
NOT THAT LONG AGO, red-flag laws were widely touted as a bipartisan solution to gun violence.
BothDonald Trumpand the National Rifle Association had endorsed them.
Since 2020, four Republican-controlled states, including Wyoming, have implemented a prohibition on such laws.
For red-flag opponents, banning or fighting the statutes has beenembracedas a righteous cause.
There are false claims of rampant misuse and supposed violations of due process and the Second Amendment.
Last year, Oklahoma had the sixth highest gun suicide rate in the country.
Everyone dies, Dahm said, as I pressed him about the relationship between firearms and suicide.
Deportations
The fight over red-flag laws is undergirded by political tribalism.
One delegate responded, I, too, share your concerns with red flag gun laws.
I will oppose any such attempts and preserve our 2ndamendment rights.
In response, the state attorney generals office in West Virginia spearheaded an effort to undermine the initiative.
Is it possible to replace the phrase gun violence with gun crime?
the solicitor general asked.
Guns do not commit crime, people do.
The term gun violence, he explained, is hostile.
In the end, the reference was simply removed and the letter was signed by 19 states.
Gaining access to a firearm during that window almost always leads to a fatal outcome.
It estimated that for every 13 orders that were issued, one death was prevented.
WHEN RYAN WAS LITTLE, he had taken his first steps to Laird, the Natrona County commissioner.
As Ryan grew older, he played hockey and rode bulls and four wheelers.
Laird imagined Ryans mind as a haunted house; new residents were always moving in.
Ryan tried to subdue them with alcohol and drugs.
His obituary said that life was unbearably painful to him at times.
Ryan used the same pistol on himself.
Sitting among the commissioners, Laird felt despair.
He stared out in front of him, resting his face against his fist.
He had worried about Ryan, and wondered if he might one day harm himself.
If you were talking to a young man… Laird said, before trailing off.
He began to cry, his fitful breathing amplified by his microphone.
He was still in his seat, but it seemed as if he were lurching forward.
And he was thinking about killing himself?
What would you say to him?
At this stage of his life, Laird finds that he cries often.
Ryan was loved, and yet he didnt seem to believe it.
How could that be?
What is happening in his community?
Guns are everywhere, woven into the fabric of rural American culture.
Hunting elk and moose is a tradition that connects one generation to the next.
Children are taught to shoot.
In Wyoming, more than 85 percent of gun deaths are suicide.
If you were me, and youd known this boy for his whole life…
He was crying again, his words trapped in his throat.
He forced them out, his voice straining.
What would you say to his mother?
What would you actually say to her?
Because I dont know what to say to her!
Laird then stood up and walked out of the room.
The sun was out, and the weather was still reasonably warm.
Laird spotted a state lawmaker and his wife sitting in a booth.
Suicide, and what could be done about it, was still on his mind.
You know, Dallas, he said, I dont think we can pass a law like that.
The total suicide count was now 27.
There were over two months left in the year, plenty of time to set a new record.
