John Yule, 53, manages Wildlife Sport Outfitters, a hunting and fishing supplies store on the edge of Manchester, N.H., and is "deeply involved in the Second Amendment community."
He decided to get involved.
Now he's part of a team of people on the front lines -- gun dealers like himself who, in many cases, claim a rural customer base -- trying a simple but radical approach to curb rates of suicide, the nation's 10th-leading cause of death.
Their methods involve noticing certain "tells" that indicate a customer is shopping for a firearm with suicide in mind. Their goal is to keep guns, the most common method of suicide, out of the hands of those they deem at risk.
"We're not trying to step on anyone's toes or deny them any rights. [But] you can guide them, or suggest to them or talk them into a different approach," Yule said. He has these conversations only with people he believes are moving toward this tragic end.
Across the country, suicide rates are higher in rural areas than in urban centers. In 2015, rural communities saw 19 people per 100,000 kill themselves, compared with 11 per 100,000 in urban areas, according to the CDC's injury statistics database.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore used the state medical examiner's data tracking all suicide-related deaths to tease out the role firearms play in this disparity. They analyzed a sample of about 6,200 Maryland residents, ages 15 and older, and found that when gun-related suicides were excluded, there was no significant difference in rates between rural and urban areas.
"This does point to the important role that guns play in the rural suicide rate," said Paul Nestadt, a postdoctoral student at Hopkins and the study's lead author. "It also suggests where we might focus public health."
Researchers -- both involved with the study and unaffiliated -- said these findings have national significance, even though Maryland has a lower suicide rate than other states and access to mental health care is better in rural Maryland than in other states' rural areas.