Fellow Advocate, 

My name is Joey Vallarian, and I am a firearm suicide survivor. Statistically, only 1 in 10 of us survive an attempt involving a gun.¹ So, to me, being here to share my story with you is nothing short of a miracle.  

It was March 1990 in a small southern town. I was struggling with many things at that time and I tried to dam up the crisis inside me. When the dam broke, an impulsive act with my pistol left me with a gunshot wound to the chest, a whirlwind of physical and emotional turmoil, and a long road to recovery.

Would an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) — allowing someone to step in and temporarily remove access to my guns until the mental crisis had passed — have made a difference? If it was available and used, the answer is likely yes.

Now that I live in Pittsburgh, I am urging our PA state lawmakers to pass an ERPO law to stop the next suicide attempt in my adopted home state. Will you take minute to watch my story and join my advocacy for this simple, bipartisan tool to help prevent firearm suicides?

Currently, 21 states and the District of Columbia have an ERPO law on the books – and they work. In Connecticut, it was determined that one suicide was stopped for every 22 ERPOs issued.² Clearly, we’ve made tremendous progress as a nation since my suicide attempt in 1990. Today, I’m sharing my story in order to push that progress into Pennsylvania.

I truly hope my story helps at least one person not choose suicide as an option, and moves you to join my personal fight for an ERPO law for our Commonwealth. Will you watch my story now, and urge your State Representative to support life-saving legislation to temporarily remove firearms from people in crisis?

Sincerely,

Joey

¹https://preventfirearmsuicide.efsgv.org/about-firearm-suicide/statistics/

²https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2819913