When a Gun Owner Shows Early Signs of Dementia

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” He was 72, a retired health administrator who lived alone near Seattle. Laura Prater, a firearms researcher at Ohio State, was interviewing him via Zoom. She’d administered a questionnaire that indicated he had mild cognitive impairment, which is often, but not always, a precursor to dementia. His doctor had also diagnosed him with depression. As part of a study of firearm safety for older adults, Prater asked if he kept a gun in his home. He did. He still owned the shotgun he had used for bird hunting, though he hadn’t hunted in years, and he had recently acquired a .45-caliber pistol. “He kept it loaded in his nightstand drawer,” she learned from their discussion. “The shotgun, he propped up by his bed,” unloaded, but with the shells atop the nightstand. “He saw them as a practical tool for protecting himself, because he lived alone,” Prater said. She viewed the situation differently: An older person whose diagnoses put him at risk of confusion and suicide kept two unsecured guns within arm’s reach every night. “It was alarming,” she sa...