This rural California county’s problem is all too common: how to reduce suicides when everyone has a gun

Shasta county has one of the state’s highest rates of suicide and gun ownership. Here’s how locals are trying to combat it Like many men in the mountainous California county of Shasta, about 200 miles north of San Francisco, Bill Rocha loved to hunt and fish, spending the infernal summers out on the lake in his boat. For decades he made his living as a contractor, working hard with his hands every day. And like many men in rural parts of the state, Bill was a gun owner. He had several hunting rifles, some of which he kept locked in a safe, and another firearm that he kept unlocked in his car. Kelly Rocha, his daughter, described him as extremely sociable, but in private things were starting to fray. She didn’t know the extent of what her father was struggling with until she got a call one night in 2019. She had slept through two voicemails from her father’s wife, but finally picked up when her own mother called. “It was after midnight,” recalled Kelly, who was then 43. “She told me that my dad went out to his truck and killed himself.” At the time, Kelly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But she said that looking back, the signs were there. Anxiety, depressio