Montana Moms Demand Action co-leads Shani Henry (left) and Beckie Squires (right) at The Friendship Center's 2024 Hope Benefit Luncheon.
Montana Moms Demand Action co-leader Shani Henry discusses the state chapter’s efforts to eliminate gun violence through advocacy, education, and partnerships with organizations like The Friendship Center.
Back in November, Everytown for Gun Safety announced its fifth cohort of Support Fund grant recipients, and The Friendship Center is honored to be part of it! We’re one of seven organizations across the country to receive a grant as part of the current cycle of their domestic violence grant program, which has allocated funding since 2020 to violence prevention programs like ours that work in direct support of victims and engage our community to address the intersection of partner/family violence and gun violence.
The convergence of these two forms of violence can be lethal: Over half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with guns, and a female victim is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun. It’s a bleak fact, but federal and state policy can play a meaningful role in disrupting abusers’ access to firearms, and saving lives as a result. Our grant funding will support two timely efforts in this vein. Half of our $10,000 grant will be used to help develop our first-ever policy strategy for educating local and state officials about reforms that would enhance victim safety and reduce the likelihood of gun violence. The other half will be used to provide safety planning and shelter services to victims referred to us by local law enforcement as they use a new risk assessment tool.
While the risk assessment tool was introduced last year and is gradually being implemented across local systems, advocating on behalf of victims in a public policy context will be new for our agency. Thanks to some phenomenal and experienced partners who share our dedication to eliminating violence, we’ll be far from alone in community and lawmaker education. One of those partners, the Montana chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense (Montana Moms Demand Action for short), was instrumental in encouraging us to apply for this grant opportunity through Everytown, and they are the focus of our first partner spotlight of 2025.
To talk about Montana Moms Demand Action’s work, one of the chapter’s co-leaders, Shani Henry, was kind enough to answer some of our questions. As a gun owner herself, Shani will be the first to emphasize that taking a stand against gun violence is not in conflict with owning firearms. In fact, from Moms Demand Action’s perspective, responsible gun owners are often the most receptive to safety and security measures that promote safety in their homes and communities. While it’s true that Montana has among the highest rates of firearm ownership in the nation, the bigger challenge to addressing gun violence is the simultaneous reality that we have some of the most relaxed restrictions to who may carry or own a gun. Even so, Montana Moms Demand Action has plenty of motivation to keep fighting for policies to make our communities safer and reduce gun-related deaths. We hope you enjoy learning from Shani about where they’ve had success, which policy reforms are most within reach, and what keeps her and her fellow volunteers across the state and the nation motivated in this emotional, sometimes personal work, where progress and results can take a long time to see. In Shani’s own words, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Folks might already be aware that The Friendship Center has received a grant through Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund that’s geared toward helping organizations like ours address the lethal intersection of family/intimate partner violence and gun violence. What they probably don’t know is that we have our state chapter of Moms Demand Action to thank for encouraging us to apply for this opportunity. For those who might not know much about that parent organization, can you talk about what Moms Demand Action does, your role in the state chapter, and how you first got involved?
SH: Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is a volunteer, grassroots organization advocating to decrease gun violence in all forms across our country. It was founded about 12 years ago following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary by a mother, Shannon Watts, who was horrified and frustrated by the loss of those 26 precious young lives. It has grown to nearly 11 million volunteers in all 50 states, and now is part of the Everytown organization.
Beckie Squires and I are volunteer co-leads for the Montana Moms Demand Action volunteers. We have volunteers all over the state with our largest groups in Helena, Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, and Kalispell. I personally got involved after the shooting [at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School] in Parkland, Florida, and Beckie got involved following the death of her young nephew, who was shot by a classmate on a playdate with a gun his caretaker left unattended.
Montana has some of the highest rates of household firearm ownership in the country, very limited restrictions on who may carry, and a high rate of gun deaths per capita relative to the national average. Does that make for a daunting context for trying to have productive conversations and make meaningful progress around gun safety? How does the state chapter of Moms Demand Action approach that, and where have you found success?
SH: Montana is a very challenging state to work in as an advocate for gun violence prevention. We are consistently in the five worst states for rates of suicide (currently second worst and have been in the top five worst for over 40 years), and we also are currently sixth in the nation for highest per capita gun death rates overall. We have large veteran and Native populations, both of which are sadly very highly affected by suicide.
While we do not see gun violence as a partisan issue, but rather a public health issue, our conservative legislature has been extremely reluctant to pass gun violence prevention legislation. So, while we definitely continue to advocate for sensible legislation, we work in a variety of other ways. We host outreach events to give out gun locks, firearm storage option information, and suicide awareness and prevention information. We give presentations about these efforts, and we partner with groups like The Friendship Center to promote joint programs to help prevent firearm deaths.
We have achieved some success and bipartisan consensus on some efforts related to suicide awareness and prevention. Of gun violence deaths in Montana, about 85% are suicides, so suicide prevention remains one of our most important goals. We want to decrease the access to lethal means for those who are at risk of harming themselves.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, do you ever find that because gun ownership is the norm and not the exception here, there is a genuine interest in simple safety measures that can mitigate the risk of living with lethal weapons (i.e., the trigger locks you all provide us with, secure gun storage, etc.)? Or is it even difficult to start those conversations?
SH: Absolutely! We are not anti-gun; we are anti-gun violence. We recognize that about 65% of homes here contain firearms and most of them contain multiple guns of a variety of types. So, our main emphasis is on the importance of keeping all firearms securely stored, promoting awareness around those storage options, and providing access to different options.
Moms Demand Action and Everytown have pretty handy interactive features that summarize things like the prevalence of gun deaths and economic cost of them in each state, as well as a “gun law report card” for each state that can be pretty eye-opening when you see what criteria factors into it. For example, there are almost no state laws prohibiting violent offenders from owning firearms in Montana, which is pretty astonishing when you know how much the presence of a firearm escalates the risk of lethality in domestic abuse and/or stalking situations. Kind of a two-fold questions for you: Just based on the data and wisdom that’s out there, what types of laws would move the needle the most on reducing gun violence? And which laws, if any, are the lowest-hanging fruit that could gain traction with more policymakers and voters?
SH: For current data related to firearms I would suggest that everyone check out the EveryStat website and compare Montana to other states, and to the nation as a whole.
Low hanging fruit first: Suicide awareness and prevention efforts should be the most palatable for lawmakers here. Educational programming to promote secure storage of firearms and efforts to assist people in affording storage devices are also desirable. We also feel that a requirement for gun owners to store guns properly should be achievable, along with directives on not leaving firearms in vehicles with guidelines for securing them when leaving them there can’t be avoided. These are all types of measures we’re working toward.
We advocate for other things like “safe spaces bills” which would keep firearms out of places like courthouses, schools, polling places, etc. We strongly support requiring mandatory background checks for all gun purchases including private sales. We would also like to see Montana become NICS compliant to help prevent people who should not own firearms from obtaining them.
We also feel strongly that extreme risk prevention laws would keep guns out of the hands of those who pose a risk to others or to themselves, but that has proven extremely challenging in the current legislature.
Agencies like The Friendship Center that work to address and respond to interpersonal violence are probably a natural partner for you all. What are some other organizations across the state that Moms Demand Action members actively work with? In your mind, how important is it to coordinate with like-minded groups and organizations?
SH: We work with many suicide awareness and prevention groups across the state and are part of a large coalition working on those efforts. We also partner with veterans and Native-led/Native-focused organizations, especially for suicide awareness and prevention. We work with public health groups and the state pediatric association as well. We also present to groups like parent organizations and churches to spread awareness of our efforts.
These collaborative efforts are extremely important! We strive to develop strong relationships with other organizations that are working to keep people safe and to prevent violence in any form. We feel our efforts benefit from this involvement and we are more likely to achieve success if we can form a united effort and voice.
Something we ask our contributors in many of these spotlights is what keeps them motivated in the face of setbacks and disappointments. Whether you’ve been personally impacted by gun violence, or you’re feeling discouraged as our culture becomes more inured to the saturation of it, we imagine this work takes a toll. What inspires you to keep going?
SH: This work is very emotional, and frustrating. Many of our volunteers have been touched directly by gun violence. We gain inspiration from survivors. Many of us fight because we want to protect our children and others in our families. Many of us fight because we are afraid of being directly affected by gun violence.
Through our national organization, we have the opportunity to interact with volunteers, legislators, and survivors from across the country, which is very powerful and inspiring. Many other states have made remarkable progress in their efforts, so we are heartened by that as well. We look at this as a marathon, not a sprint.
I would also add that when we get push-back and ill treatment from some legislators, that can anger us and inspire us to just fight harder.
Last but not least, is there anything else you want people to know about Moms Demand Action or gun safety in general? For folks who might be interested in supporting gun safety efforts locally and/or getting involved with our state’s chapter of Moms Demand Action, where would you steer them to learn more or get in touch?
SH: We believe that everyone in Montana wants to keep their families safe and we all want fewer people to die by firearms. So, we must keep working to communicate and advocate with those common goals in mind. It is not against the Second Amendment to create policies that will keep our communities safe. We believe that every gun owner should see (and most do) that there are policies that will decrease gun-related deaths while continuing to maintain their rights.
We encourage anyone who is interested in getting involved to reach out to any member and join us for a local or online event. You can also text READY to 64433. That gets you onto the contact list to get notifications of our events. I would strongly recommend getting involved! We have amazing, diverse volunteers and it is often therapeutic to feel like you are actually doing something to fight gun violence!
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