Proposed, for board reviewFirst 90 days to ask to join S.A.F.E. and help agencies enroll in Project ChildSafe; first table in Madras within 60 days; events proposed in every town by month 12
A free lockbox in every town, handed over by someone you trust
Extend S.A.F.E., the free lockbox program run by the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance, and the device program run by the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) into a tri-county network in which owners choose their own device, with at least one verified pickup point in all seven towns, tables where gun owners already gather, staffed by hunters, veterans and, where sheriffs agree, deputies, a medication lockbox beside the cable lock, and a two-question anonymous card with an optional three-month follow-up so the pillar reports behavior, not box counts.
The same locked box protects against two very different things: the rare school attack and the far more common suicide. Among school attackers who used a gun, three quarters took it from a parent’s or relative’s home. The most consistent evidence is for putting a free device in an owner’s hands: all three controlled studies that did so improved storage, while counseling alone mostly did not. Community events where owners chose their own device raised locked storage, with nearly nine in ten choosing a lockbox over a trigger lock.
Central Oregon already runs the program. S.A.F.E. distributed more than 1,700 lockboxes in two years, and three quarters of recipients chose a handgun lockbox. The gap is geography and venue: we found no documented pickup point outside Bend and no devices listed at the sheriff’s substations, and the tables are not yet where gun owners already gather. So the group would not start a parallel program. It would ask to join S.A.F.E. as a co-funder, help the smaller departments get free lock kits, and bring the tables to Oregon Hunters Association chapter meetings, the gun club, hunter education graduations, county fairs and, later, congregations and the college.
A giveaway program usually knows how many boxes it handed out, not whether they get used. A two-question anonymous card, with an optional follow-up kept separate and run by the researchers, would let this pillar report that guns are locked, not that boxes were handed out. A medication lockbox on the same table would make the work read as safety for the whole house.
Why we think it works
- Storage improved in all three studies that gave owners a free device, and only one of four counseling-only programs worked. (UW School of Public Health news on Rowhani-Rahbar, Simonetti and Rivara, Effectiveness..., strong evidence)
- Community storage events with participant-chosen devices raised the share with all firearms locked by 13.7 points; nearly nine in ten chose a lockbox over a trigger lock, and 206 of 415 participants completed both surveys. (Simonetti JA et al., Evaluation of a community-based safe firearm and ammunition storag..., strong evidence)
- S.A.F.E. distributed more than 1,700 lockboxes across the three counties in 2024 and 2025, and 77 percent of recipients chose a handgun lockbox. (Deschutes County news release, New report highlights early success of S.A.F.E. initiati..., strong evidence)
- 76 percent of school attackers who used a firearm took it from the home of a parent or close relative; 16 percent opened a locked safe or case they knew how to open. (Protecting America's Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violenc..., strong evidence)
- A brief community intervention at gun shows and events raised safe storage from 51.2 to 66.0 percent among those followed up, covering both firearm and medication storage. (SAFER brief community intervention: a primary suicide prevention strategy to improve fi..., moderate evidence)
What we would do
- In the first 30 days ask the alliance and the ESD to add the group as a member and co-funder of S.A.F.E. and the school device program; ask for remaining inventory and the grant renewal date from the Roundhouse Foundation (a Sisters-based family foundation) in writing; schedule only what confirmed stock covers; propose that outlying-town distribution and the follow-up card go inside S.A.F.E.'s next grant renewal as a named line item rather than applying separately for the same lockboxes.
- Offer to help Redmond, Prineville, Madras and Sisters police and the Crook and Jefferson sheriffs enroll in Project ChildSafe (the firearm industry's free cable lock program for law enforcement agencies) so free cable lock kits can arrive within weeks; ask the Deschutes County Sheriff to stock the Sisters, La Pine and Terrebonne substations; ask the fire districts in Sunriver and Sisters to serve as pickup points; budget lockboxes because a cable lock is easy to leave in a drawer.
- Ride existing calendars rather than the group's own draw: the Bend, Redmond and Ochoco chapter meetings of the Oregon Hunters Association, Redmond Rod and Gun Club and Central Oregon Shooting Sports Association events, packets handed out at hunter education graduations run by the state fish and wildlife department, ODFW (a cable lock, no pitch, nothing collected, adults only), and the Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson county fairs; Madras first.
- Offer a choice at every table: cable lock, trigger lock, quick-access handgun lockbox, a medication lockbox, and, as donor funds allow, a voucher toward a full-size cabinet with local dealers; the chapter, club or sheriff would own the table and the group would supply volunteers; hunters, veterans and deputies would staff it, never clinicians alone.
- Adopt a written safe-handling rule and carry event insurance: no firearms handled at tables, locks demonstrated on inert trainers, the host range or club's rules followed, and no firearm ever brought to a school.
- Hand every device over with the gun-owner-written script (lock it, change the combination, keep keys off the ring) and a two-question anonymous card; contact for a three-month follow-up would be optional, collected separately and destroyed after the call, and the follow-up would run under research oversight from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) or OSU-Cascades, with the researchers' names never on the card.
- Print the firewall (the group's rule keeping its policy work separate from its storage work) on the table card: nothing from the Advocate pillar at any lock event and no names collected; ask the deputy at the table to say it out loud; use City of Bend money for Bend events only and county, Roundhouse Foundation and sheriff channels elsewhere.
- Ask the Warm Springs Tribal Council and Warm Springs Police, with the Jefferson County School District (509J) informed, whether and how they want devices offered before scheduling anything on the reservation, and keep it off year-one measures; ask each county commission for a small annual device appropriation.
- Year two: tables at Central Oregon Community College (COCC), OSU-Cascades and workplaces for 18 to 24 year olds, and at congregations in Prineville, Madras, La Pine and Sisters that ask to host.
How we would know it is working
- Devices distributed per month by town, venue type and device type, with a coverage target outside Bend
- Pickup points verified by phone, per town (goal: at least one in each of the seven towns)
- Share of recipients reporting all household firearms locked at three-month follow-up versus baseline, with the response rate printed beside it
- Share of events co-hosted by a law enforcement, hunting or range partner (goal 100 percent)
- Student Health Survey item on ease of getting a loaded gun, by county, reported every cycle
What could get in the way
- The pillar is designed, funded and evaluated by public health people and a research center with Gun Violence Prevention in its name; if that name is on the card a deputy hands over, the whole thing reads as a health department program wearing a hunter's hat.
- Researchers would stay behind the table as evaluators only; every printed piece would name the sheriff, the chapter or the range as the author; the message built with rural Central Oregon gun owners would be the one used.
- The baseline and follow-up survey is, to a rural owner, a list of who owns guns and how they store them, with a phone number attached, held by a group that also runs an Advocate pillar.
- Anonymous card; contact optional, kept separate from the answers and destroyed after the follow-up; a hunter holds the clipboard; the Washington study got about half its participants to complete both surveys on those terms; the researchers would hold the data under their own oversight.
- Two applications for the same lockboxes from one new group split the regional funder pool and read, from the county's chair, as a second brand asking for inventory the county already distributes.
- Do not apply separately in year one; ask to join as a dues-paying co-funder with the arrangement in a one-page agreement; bring money the county cannot reach, individual gifts and free Project ChildSafe kits.
- Lockboxes are a permanent recurring cost, demand does not end, and free kits are cable locks only.
- Ask the three county commissions for a small annual device appropriation, treat foundation grants as top-up, budget three years of devices, and schedule tables only against confirmed stock.
Who we would work with: Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance and Deschutes County Suicide Prevention Program (S.A.F.E.), High Desert Education Service District and its Central Oregon School Safety program, Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson county sheriffs, Bend, Redmond, Prineville, Madras and Sisters police, Oregon Hunters Association Bend, Redmond and Ochoco chapters, Redmond Rod and Gun Club and the Central Oregon Shooting Sports Association, Hunter education instructors from the state fish and wildlife department (ODFW), and county fair boards, Roundhouse Foundation (a Sisters-based family foundation), Project ChildSafe (the National Shooting Sports Foundation's free cable lock program), OHSU Gun Violence Prevention Research Center and OSU-Cascades messaging team (evaluators only), Latino Community Association (Spanish materials), Warm Springs Tribal Council and Warm Springs Police