This free event will feature a panel discussion with gun owners who will share personal stories of mental resilience and how they have helped other gun owners. Free light food and refreshments will be available along with door prizes, including firearms safes and range time.
The event is part a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel project, "Behind The Gun," that found gun deaths have doubled in Wisconsin since 2004, driven by suicides which on average account for 71 of 100 fatal shootings each year in the state.
Journal Sentinel journalist John Diedrich led a team that conducted a first-of-its-kind effort to obtain gun death data from every county in Wisconsin. That data revealed the increase in gun deaths affected rural parts of the state the most. Diedrich talked to dozens of gun owners about their experiences with firearms and conducted the most in-depth survey of gun owners in Wisconsin to date.
The project featured efforts to counter this trend – and save lives – emerging among Wisconsin gun owners and in their communities, for instance, a grassroots program by stores to temporarily hold guns for people during a crisis.
