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MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Houston Tumlin and Hunter Whitley didn’t know each other, but they
had a lot in common. Both served in the military, both were Alabama natives, and both lost their
lives to suicide.
It’s been three years since Tumlin’s passing and two years since Whitley’s. But a newly formed
committee of veterans, lawmakers and military officials have joined their efforts to ensure that
their deaths are not in vain.
Recently, a bill was proposed that would add an extra layer of lethal means safety for veteran,
military, and first responder gun owners struggling with suicidal ideations. The name?
The Houston Hunter Bill.
Michelle Tumlin said that her son Houston always showed promise and talent from a young age,
earning him several different opportunities in modeling and acting. But at 13, he left the lights
and cameras behind to go to school and play sports like other kids his age. Michelle says he was
small, but that didn’t stop her son from playing his heart on the football field.
In 2014, Houston left his home in north Alabama and joined the Army, serving for nearly six
years before transitioning out of the service in 2019 as an E-5 with multiple honors, awards, and
qualifications. On his way out of the Army, Michelle realized that her son may have been dealing
with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) due to his multiple concussions from football and
various military exercises.
“There was a plan for Houston, but we just didn’t know what all was going on,” Michelle Tumlin
said. “But all the little pieces of the puzzle started coming together for us.”
Houston Tumlin struggled with CTE and PTSD, and getting reacclimated to civilian life was
hard. On March 23, 2021, only 30 minutes after getting off the phone with his mother, Tumlin
took his life with a firearm.
Less than an hour west of the Tumlin family in Pellham, a Tuscaloosa mother is also grieving the
loss of her son.
Shannon McDaniel says that growing up, her son, Hunter Whitley, loved his friends and family,
playing video games and hunting. But more than anything, Hunter wanted to be a Marine.
Joining wasn’t an easy process, and McDaniel started to have doubts about her son joining when
Whitley suddenly called her from work and told his mom his waiver was approved. In 2018,
Whitley shipped out to bootcamp only weeks after taking his oath of enlistment,
McDaniel says her son served in the Marines for four years. Shortly after his deployment to the
Middle East, the Kabul Evacuation mission, Whitley returned back to Tuscaloosa safe from
harm. But the real trauma, McDaniel said, couldn’t be seen. Whitley was battling a silent war
against PTSD.
“I really didn’t know that he wasn’t OK,” McDaniel said. “He never said that he wasn’t OK. He
always walked around with a smile on his face. He was happy.”
Whitley attended the University of Alabama while he was reacclimating to civilian life, and all
appeared to be well.
Everything changed on Nov. 13, 2022, when a friend found Whitley in his room, having taken
his life with a firearm.
McDaniel and Tumlin both became outspoken advocates for suicide prevention, looking for
ways to honor the legacies of service their children left.
“God made me not shy,” Tumlin said. “He made me able to talk in front of crowds and talk to
anyone. All I ever wanted to be was a momma. When I was growing up in school, they asked
everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up… I just wanted to be a momma. Well, this
momma was gonna take what God gave me and I was going to be my son’s voice.”
On Aug. 29, 2024, the Alabama Veterans Mental Health Steering Committee convened for their
meeting to discuss a voluntary, confidential and temporary firearm storage program.
Jason Smith began working with Alabama National Guard (ALNG) in January of 2023 as the
Resiliency, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention manager, and one of the biggest advocates for
the bill.
Over the year of his employment, he has been working alongside other Guard states to develop
and implement an initiative to reduce and prevent suicide.
Storing Ammunition & Firearms to Enhance Resilience (SAFER) Together is a grassroots
suicide prevention initiative dedicated to offering an additional layer of support for Military,
Veterans, and First Responders (MVFR). This statewide effort aims to assemble and maintain a
network of Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) that provide a secure firearms and ammunition
storage option for men and women with the MVFR community – especially during transitional,
high-risk life events.
Recent Department of Homeland Security statistics show that suicide rates are significantly
higher among veteran, law enforcement, and first responder communities compared to the
general population and 69 percent of those deaths involve a firearm, in contrast to 44 percent of
civilian suicides.
Further studies showed that approximately 48 percent of those suicide attempts took place within
less than 10 minutes of first considering it.
According to Smith, during his first week of work with the ALNG, he received word that a
Guardsman had committed suicide in one of many stories that fell in line with these statistics.
That incident sparked the SAFER Together initiative to provide innovative solutions to veteran
and first responder suicide.
When Smith called Tumlin and McDaniel for their support, both immediately agreed and lent
their sons’ names to the cause, giving birth to the Houston Hunter Bill.
Smith said this bill would offer a unique solution to address the biggest factors in lethality: time
and availability.
Under this program, an individual can bring a firearm to a Federal Firearm Licensee’s (FFL)
business location, personally place their gun in a storage locker and lock it. In this situation, an
FFL does not “receive” or “acquire” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume
control of that person’s firearm. The individual gun owner is the only person who can open that
storage locker.
The firearm, Smith said, remains entirely under the ownership of the individual, but that one
extra step of having to go to the FFL and retrieve the weapon is often all it takes to deter fatality
when a crisis suddenly arises.
Smith explained that it is unreasonable to expect MVFR gun owners to participate in this
initiative without a clear legal framework that ensures they will not be adversely affected or
impacted in the event of an adverse incident. It is also important to note that this program and the
legislation is not associated with any “red flag” laws. The bill is solely designed to protect the
FFL’s.
According to the SAFER Together team, the Houston Hunter Bill would codify firearms hold
agreements between individual firearms owners and FFLs and provide the FFLs and
participating law enforcement officers with civil immunity while lawfully participating in such
agreements.
The Hunter Houston Bill is expected to be introduced with comments from Tumlin, McDaniel,
state legislators, and ALNG leaders during the 2025 legislative session.
“It’s like I’m reliving it every day,” McDaniel said. “I’m just glad that Hunter’s story can help
someone. Because that’s what I think he would want.”
Smith said the bill has been warmly received by a focus group of FFLs during initial discussions
who will immediately implement the program if the law is passed. He said the current goal is to
have at least one FFL from every Alabama county participate, though there is no limit to how
many could ultimately be involved.
“We need people to call their legislators and push for this,” Smith said. “That’s it. It’s a simple
bill, it’s an easy read, and it’s a no-brainer win-win that can protect people who have protected
us.”
| Date Taken: | 11.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.19.2024 18:11 |
| Story ID: | 485704 |
| Location: | MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 148 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, New ALNG bill addresses mental health safety through firearms storage proposal, by SGT Jordan Arnold, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
