This story is published in partnership with The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence. Subscribe to its newsletters.
In August 2016, exciting news about an unprecedented partnership between the gun industry’s trade group and the country’s leading suicide prevention organization popped up on social media. The collaboration, the posts said, aimed to “reduce the annual suicide rate 20 percent by 2025.”
The “bold goal,” as it was called by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, was the centerpiece of the organization’s initiative titled “Project 2025,” which AFSP had launched less than a year earlier, well before a different program with the same name became associated with Donald Trump.
Because guns are involved in more than half of suicide deaths that occur in the United States each year, AFSP, a nonprofit, had sought the help of another nonprofit, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents firearm manufacturers, ranges, and sellers.
The new partnership suggested that both the NSSF and AFSP were putting public health above partisan politics. They collaborated on brochures and other materials that contained valuable information on suicide warning signs and prevention strategies, including directly asking a person if they’re thinking about taking their life. The NSSF made the materials available to thousands of its retailer and range members, who had the option of setting them out for customers. The organization also devoted a section of its website to suicide awareness.
Project 2025 had immense public relations value. For AFSP, it was a potent rallying cry for potential donors and volunteers — a clear, galvanizing mission that could be achieved with enough support. For the NSSF, the partnership cast the trade group and the industry it represents as proactive, even perhaps at the expense of profit, and worthy of goodwill from lawmakers, regulators, and adversaries. Since 1995, gun suicide had accounted for the majority of all gun deaths in America, according to a report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. By 2010, the number was consistently surpassing 60 percent, and the victims were mostly white men, the gun industry’s top customers.
But from the start, the joint initiative was on a troubled course, according to an investigation by The Trace and Rolling Stone, the fourth part of an ongoing series about the gun industry. Internal emails, documents, and a recording of a Zoom meeting reveal a partnership that in critical ways gave first priority to messaging and the interests of the gun industry.
In fact, records show that AFSP avoided actions that could’ve jeopardized its relationship with the NSSF. In one instance, the director of writing and entertainment outreach cut from a document language that he worried would offend the NSSF, according to revisions and comments in the Word file. The organization expressly barred a gun violence prevention group from distributing materials at AFSP events. Soon after the collaboration was announced, an internal AFSP memo from September 2016 instructed chapters to “be cautious when partnerships, conferences and events include language like ‘gun safety’ and/or ‘gun violence’ — since these terms are also being used by gun control organizations.” The guidance added, “If AFSP is approached to speak at a conference or event where the agenda is not clear and the firearms community is not involved, please decline participation.”
Then, well short of the program’s end date, AFSP quietly shut down Project 2025 — a decision that hasn’t previously been made public.
AFSP’s chief medical officer and public face, Christine Moutier, sent an internal email on May 11, 2023 announcing that Project 2025’s vice president, director of strategic healthcare initiatives, and senior project manager had been fired. “Effective today,” the email said, “the Project 2025 department is being eliminated.”
Moutier framed the change as a natural evolution. “It is the right time to re-envision Project 2025’s [sic] and to fold the most impactful areas of this project into the organization’s work.” She did not mention the “bold goal.”
But since Project 2025’s inception, suicides — especially gun suicides — had remained stubbornly high, and were trending in the wrong direction. In 2016, when the NSSF and AFSP announced their partnership, there were 22,938 suicide deaths involving a firearm in the United States, according to data drawn from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and analyzed by Cassandra Crifasi, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University. That comprised 51 percent of all suicides for that year. In 2023, the most recent year for which finalized data is available, there were 27,300 suicides involving a firearm, making up 55 percent of all suicides that year.
The NSSF declined to provide a comment in response to an email detailing the reporting for this story.
María de los Ángeles Corral, AFSP’s vice president of public relations, replied to the same email. “We established the goal to reduce the annual suicide rate by 20% by 2025 to drive urgency and action that saves lives,” she wrote. “Just as organizations fighting cancer and heart disease set bold targets, setting this goal helped us catalyze action across communities and environments with a high potential for impact to implement evidence-informed actions in the fight against suicide.” She added that the two organizations “never exchanged money” and that “all of the strategies developed as part of Project 2025 have been woven into AFSP’s ongoing suicide prevention work.”
After the Project 2025 department was shut down, records show, AFSP told staff to be discreet about sharing information, and took measures to cover tracks. The willingness to tackle the bold goal had enhanced the reputations of both the NSSF and AFSP, leading to financial rewards for the latter. Now the goal is gone, but the partnership remains in place, unbound from any deadline that could be used to measure its progress.
THE AUGUST 2016 PRESS RELEASE that announced the collaboration between AFSP and the NSSF quoted both Robert Gebbia, AFSP’s CEO, and Stephen Sanetti, then the NSSF’s president. “Through Project 2025 analysis and the work of this partnership, we know that this public education has the potential to save thousands of lives,” Gebbia said. Sanetti added, “Since two-thirds of all fatalities involving firearms are suicides, we are now also in the forefront of helping to prevent these deaths through our new relationship with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.”
That month, a memorandum of understanding between AFSP and the NSSF went into effect. “The parties shall act in the best interests of the other at all times during the Term of this MOU,” it said, “and shall disclose any real or potential conflicts that are adverse to the interests of the other as they arise.” The MOU specified, “Such conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, positions advanced by one party [that] do not align with the positions advanced by the other and the issuance of any public statement by a party that harms or could harm the other.”
Around the same time, in a document stamped “for internal use only,” AFSP established new guidelines governing how its chapters across the country could engage with other groups that have an interest in suicide prevention. That meant imposing restrictions for working with gun violence prevention organizations.
The document began by stating that AFSP’s partnership with the NSSF was a “strategic decision,” and a part of the “bold goal of reducing the annual suicide rate 20 percent by 2025.”
“We did not come to this decision lightly,” the document read. “We have set aside the contentious politics surrounding the subject of firearms to focus our attention on public education of suicide prevention.”
The document directed chapters to “engage in partnerships, conferences and events which include at least one of the following: firearms retailers, shooting range owners, firearm safety instructors, and/or the firearms-owning community.” What then followed was a list of “do’s” and “don’ts”, including warnings about summits that use “gun safety” and “gun violence” language, and participation in any gathering that has an unclear agenda and does not involve the “firearms community.”
“If AFSP is invited to sponsor or speak at a conference or event, the program and speakers need to include some representation from the firearms community,” the first “do” said.
The second “don’t” instructed, “If AFSP is invited to engage in any partnerships, or speak at any conferences or events with a gun control group or gun violence group, please decline participation, unless the firearms community is also involved in the program.”
On occasions when it was necessary to decline, the document suggested language: “Thank you for thinking of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We commend your dedication to mental health and suicide prevention. At this time, AFSP is in a pilot phase with our firearms and suicide prevention initiative, and is limiting public engagements. We will keep future opportunities in mind to support your efforts.”
A year later, chapters of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action wanted to set up informational tables at AFSP’s signature “Out of the Darkness” walks. The events rely on the participation of volunteers around the country who have lost someone to suicide and want to be involved in an effort to raise awareness and funds for the organization. An AFSP vice president emailed field staff about the inquiries. “One issue has to do with this group’s legislative stance related to guns, which is inconsistent with AFSP’s policy that our efforts in the firearms space be educational with the goal of preventing suicide, not legislative or advocacy,” the vice president said. “For this reason, we are advising against having Moms Demand Action table at AFSP walks.”
The next month, a senior AFSP director followed up with an “Out of the Darkness” chair who was concerned about a Moms Demand Action group that wanted to walk as a team. The senior director said they could walk, but “cannot approach our walkers or hand out flyers to discuss their organization’s message or mission.”
All of these actions appeared consistent with the MOU, raising questions about whether self-defeating impediments were baked into the partnership. A review of the collaboration’s co-branded suicide prevention materials show that the two groups never jointly provided potentially life-saving information on Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which allow people to use civil courts to temporarily restrict a mentally unstable family member’s access to firearms. Suicide is typically an impulsive act, but ERPOs are frequently the subject of disinformation among gun owners, who have been wrongly told by gun rights groups that the tool deprives citizens of due process rights. Not using the partnership to share accurate guidance about ERPOs was akin to fighting a wildfire with buckets of water instead of a hose. This was the case even though an internal AFSP document from 2017 said the group was an “advocate” for the “temporary removal of firearms during periods of increased risk of suicide,” adding: “Research has shown that separating suicidal individuals from a variety of lethal means helps prevent suicide.”
AFSP’s public relations official says that the group has at times “worked with” Moms Demand Action and its parent organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, which provides annual grants to The Trace, to “educate people on safe storage and extreme risk protection orders.” She also says that AFSP has provided “support for extreme risk protection orders in 14 states,” adding that it is “a stance on which we are opposed to the NSSF.”
When asked to clarify and describe these efforts, the public relations official did not respond. Moreover, any AFSP support for ERPOs has occurred outside the parameters of its NSSF partnership, which was established to reach gun owners.
Records show that AFSP’s sensitivity to NSSF concerns persisted years into their collaboration. In 2022, when the organization was editing a document called “Project 2025: Firearms Roadmap for Chapters,” AFSP’s then director of writing and entertainment outreach cut the phrase: “AFSP does not support the mission of NSSF.” By way of explanation, the staffer typed in the margins, “I want to be careful of continuing our nice relationship with NSSF.”
OVER TIME, PROJECT 2025’S BOLD GOAL was woven into the fabric of AFSP’s fundraising infrastructure. It received top-billing in the organization’s public annual reports. “We can do this together: Reducing the Annual Suicide Rate 20% by 2025,” a typical one said, adding that AFSP had “assembled the top minds in the field and used dynamic data modeling to determine which prevention methods could have the greatest impact.”
The goal was used to recruit donors for “Out of the Darkness” walks, which, in prominence, are similar to cancer-awareness fundraising events like “Race for the Cure.” “I’m walking…to fight suicide and support AFSP’s bold goal to reduce the suicide rate 20% by 2025,” went a standard volunteer pitch. “Please help me reach my goal by clicking the ‘Donate’ button on this page.”
AFSP’s fundraising emails also featured the objective: “This bold goal will not only save lives but help us reach new milestones in mental health awareness and suicide prevention,” a 2020 email stated. “Help us make a big impact in suicide prevention and give today!”
There was even a “bold goal” web page, still up today. The “donate now” button appears at the top.
For its part, the NSSF and its members touted participation in Project 2025 in Congressional testimony, business documents, and in lobbying materials submitted to lawmakers. In 2018, when one of the group’s state lobbyists wrote to the chair of Vermont’s House Judiciary Committee opposing a bill that would ban large capacity magazines in the state, he included supplemental information on the organization’s partnership with AFSP, despite the bill having no connection to suicide. In a 2024 letter to top lawmakers in Maine about another gun-related bill, he wrote, “Our retailer members are connected to a nationwide effort developed by AFSP called Project 2025, which seeks to reduce the annual U.S. suicide rate by 20 percent by the year 2025.”
After the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a gun company, then called American Outdoor Brands Corporation, pointed to its NSSF membership and Project 2025 as an example of its concern for firearms safety. And two months after the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, when Congress held a hearing to probe gun manufacturers, the written testimony of Christopher Killoy, an NSSF board member and then president and CEO of firearms manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc., similarly described the NSSF’s work to help AFSP achieve the bold goal.
The initiative was a source of hope for people like Alex Smith, a 30-year-old Texan whose boyfriend had died by suicide in 2016. When she looked into getting involved with AFSP and learned about the goal, it gave her a “feeling of trust and relief” during a period of intense darkness. “The suicide destroyed me,” she recalls. “I had the impression they had a secret sauce, because otherwise they’d be exploiting our pain, and that can’t be true, so it had to be real.”
AT NO POINT DID THE NSSF or AFSP temper the public’s expectations about the achievability of reducing suicide 20 percent by 2025. Four days after AFSP chief medical officer Christine Moutier emailed staff about shutting down the Project 2025 department — some 18 months shy of 2025 — longtime AFSP CEO Robert Gebbia told the staff and volunteers who had gathered to hear their leaders discuss the surprise changes on a May 15, 2023 Zoom: “I just want to say it right out: The bold goal is not changing.”
But then Gebbia revealed “a little history.”
“We created the bold goal in 2015, and it was aspirational,” he said. “It came out of work with a consultant that was guiding us through a strategic plan at the time and said, ‘Have you ever thought about setting a bold goal? Be audacious, be bold.’ And it was supposed to be far more than a — it was to motivate us, and motivate the field and all of that. It wasn’t a hard and fast goal. But once we set it, we said, ‘Gee, what can we do differently that might help us accomplish it?’”
Gebbia explained that it took the next “two years” to “figure out” what could be done to “reach that audacious goal,” a course of action that included bringing in the NSSF in 2016.
Since Project 2025’s launch, Gebbia emphasized in the Zoom, the program’s department had all been an AFSP appendage. Now, he said, it is time to “integrate it and get it to scale.”
Moutier, Gebbia’s younger, telegenic colleague, glancingly acknowledged that the organization was embarking on a new course even though Project 2025’s results had not been achieved. “When I’m asked over and over again, out there in the wider world, ‘Well, with all of this science and these newfound effective strategies, why is the rate going up — overall?” she said, before providing an answer: “We are still just scratching the surface on scaled implementation.”
Moutier then addressed the messaging problem posed by shutting down Project 2025. “I know that for your work and in your role, the brand of Project 2025 has been kind of the framework, and you’ve been preaching Project 2025, and using that framework as a tool,” she said. “And so we’re very sensitive to the fact that we’re going to need to be very clear and shift and help you — and for ourselves, as well — speak about the work in a way that still has a very clear message to it. We know we will need to work on that.”
One person directly asked, “Are we eliminating Project 2025 from our vocabulary?”
“The answer is yes,” Gebbia responded. “But it’s not going to happen instantly. It’s on our website. We have materials. It’s a phase out of it.”
Another person inquired about the bold goal presentations used to promote AFSP’s work, and whether it would be necessary to cancel a forthcoming meeting.
“I don’t think we should stop,” Gebbia said. “I don’t think momentum should stop.” As an example, he said that a fundraising email had recently been sent out, and “all we did was take out P25. All the rest of the language stayed exactly the same.”
On June 8, AFSP circulated an internal memo about the transition. While there was never a public announcement about the premature end of Project 2025, AFSP made digital adjustments. “The Project 2025 website link now redirects to the main afsp.org page,” the memo said. “We are working to create a temporary landing page to communicate the focus areas effectively while removing language around Project 2025.”
The memo noted that the program’s firearms safety brochures did not specifically mention Project 2025, “so please continue to order and use these materials at tabling events,” it advised, adding that AFSP’s partnership with the NSSF would continue.
Finally, the memo instructed, “Do not feel compelled to explain the change in AFSP’s approach to the work of P25 to every group or audience. You can use judgment regarding when it is appropriate to present the slides as they are; when a simple mention of the change may be necessary and when a full explanation is warranted. To most audiences, the shift in how we do the work and the ending of the uniquely branded P25 may not be relevant to them.”
It’s not known how much money Project 2025 brought into AFSP, but according to its annual audits, there was in 2022 a peak of nearly $2 million in funds restricted for the program. According to the group’s most recent audit, from 2024, it had nearly a million dollars that was legally designated for Project 2025. AFSP did not answer a question about what will happen, or has happened, with the money. Meanwhile, preliminary suicide data for that year shows that gun suicide deaths once again went up — to 27,592.
The AFSP official did disclose, about cash, that the group “spent more than $1 million of unrestricted funds on Project 2025, which extended beyond firearms to the correctional and health sectors.” It is not clear what the NSSF knows about the end of the initiative. Until September, the NSSF’s website contained a page that described its collaboration with AFSP, Project 2025, and the bold goal. That page is now gone.
