We hear a lot about safe gun storage these days. Gun control advocates have seized on safe storage laws, along with so-called “universal background checks,” as a means toward eventual gun registration. They never present it that way, of course. However, safe firearms storage takes many forms and is a legitimate concern in the firearms community. One of those forms is safely storing firearms for law-abiding gun owners in transition or crisis. That need prompted the creation of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Hold My Guns.
What is Hold My Guns?
Hold My Guns is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides safe and legal firearm storage for lawful gun owners. Clients may include deployed service members, people who are transitioning between homes, experiencing life changes such as divorce, or are perhaps in crisis due to suicide risk or other stressors.
Hold My Guns partners with Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL), providing an alternative to selling or otherwise disposing of firearms in these or other situations. FFL partners contract through their state. In addition, they adhere to strict guidelines laid out by Hold My Guns and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives (ATF). Hold My Guns is currently contracted in eight states with plans to expand nationwide.
Sarah Joy Albrecht founded Hold My Guns, along with her friend Genevieve Jones, in 2018. Genevieve currently serves on the organization’s board, while Sarah is the Executive Director. Sarah is a longtime shooter and range safety officer. She homeschools her five children, who are also shooters, with one NRA Distinguished Expert, two Experts, and two Sharpshooters. I recently spoke with Sarah about Hold My Guns, its mission, and her personal motivation for creating and growing the organization.
Deep-Seated Motivations
I began our conversation by asking Sarah about her motivations for starting Hold My Guns. The answer was deeper than I expected and shows Sarah’s sincere desire to serve our community. Sarah’s father is a Vietnam veteran who instilled within her a love of liberty and its costs. She witnessed his and other veterans’ struggles with reacclimating to “the World” upon returning from overseas combat deployments. He passed his concern for his fellow veterans’ wellbeing on to his daughter.
Sarah’s father also taught her compassion, which was solidified by 11 years of working as a doula and childbirth educator. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of a doula before. Sarah had to explain to me too. Doulas are trained professionals who provide emotional, physical, and informational support to new and expectant parents before, during, and after birth. That’s how the well-regarded What to Expect organization defines it, so it’s solid.
But back to Sarah. Her work in that field focused on high-risk clients who had experienced sexual trauma. She also helped her clients with safety planning during that time of significant life change. Such work is not for the faint of heart, and compassion is key for those called to do it.
Catalysts for Hold My Guns
Sarah’s compassion and love for our rights gelled over two difficult incidents that led to Hold My Guns. The first was a call from a transitioning client whose newborn had a particular condition that caused constant discomfort and crying. The client was overwhelmed by a crying baby on top of caring for her other children. She called Sarah and said, “I can’t do this anymore,” and had her gun safe open.
Sarah got her to close the safe, then took her a meal, along with a mutual friend who was a counselor. Sarah offered to hold her friend’s guns for a while until things calmed down. “She’s still with us today,” Sarah told me proudly. She should be proud. Mental crises are no joke, as I wrote about recently.
“I realized in that moment,” Sarah related, “there are moments where everything’s a perfect storm, where a normally rational person that is thriving, who is a responsible gun owner, all of a sudden has this break. Lack of sleep, and their body hurts, and the baby’s crying, and they’re like, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’”
Tragedy struck when her children’s 18-year-old friend committed suicide with a firearm. Sarah’s children share her love for our liberty and rights. However, they wanted to help people, like their friend, without resorting to infringements like Red Flag Laws. While the earlier incident set the stage, Sarah says losing their friend was the immediate catalyst for Hold My Guns. “We care about rights, and we care about people,” she said.
Sarah acknowledges securing guns for clients in crisis doesn’t remove the risk of suicide. “People use other methods.” But she also recognized a need within the firearms community because, like it or not, guns are efficient suicide tools. Unfortunately, people who have them will likely choose that method.
How Hold My Guns Works
Hold My Guns partners with FFLs to safely store guns, but firearms laws can be intricate, so Sarah wanted to do it correctly. Her co-founder, Genevieve Jones, was enthusiastic from the start. “I really think this is gonna help people,” she said. Genevieve introduced Sarah to Pennsylvania-based Second Amendment attorney Joshua Prince. Prince initially suspected that Sarah was a “gun grabber” pushing mandatory storage. But she explained, telling him “We need a way to take leadership in our own community to help our own people. Because if we don’t, we’re just throwing them to the wolves and we’re just fueling the fire. I think this is something we can actually do. Sometimes people need an option, and if they have nowhere to turn, they’re on their own.”
Overcoming his skepticism, Prince contacted the ATF to establish the proper procedures for Hold My Guns to follow. ATF responded that storing a client’s firearms should be handled like a consignment. Basically, a client transfers the firearms to the FFL, who takes them into their inventory. When the client eventually retrieves their guns, they fill out a Form 4473 and undergo the NICS background check. Upon approval, their property is returned to them. That’s the ATF procedure. It also protects the FFL from potentially dealing with a prohibited person, which is against Hold My Guns policy, and could cost the FFL their license and livelihood.
Hold My Guns has a few other guidelines designed to further protect the client and the FFL. First, Hold My Guns does not engage directly with the client. They are a facilitator only. The client and FFL handle the transfers exclusively. The client signs a contract with the FFL acknowledging the transfer and the legal requirements.
The FFL doesn’t ask why items are stored and Hold My Guns keeps no records on what is stored by their FFL partners. FFLs are trained to deflect “oversharing” from clients by pointing out that they are not counselors. This protects the FFL from knowledge impacting a legal return of the items and it protects the client from statements harmful to themselves. Sarah told me that ‘It’s compassionate to make sure someone isn’t saying something that can get them in trouble just because they’re afraid. We care about rights, and we care about people. We know that people can run their mouth; we want to protect the liability of all parties involved.” The FFLs are trained to provide such folks with a list of appropriate resources.
Prospective clients in non-partnered states can have an FFL ship their firearms to a participating FFL if they want to take advantage of Hold My Guns’ services. That FFL would return them the same way for retrieval, contingent upon the background check, as with an online gun purchase.
Client Concerns
Hold My Guns is clearly a great program, but there are challenges. Some prospective clients are scared to submit a NICS background check for their firearms. Not because they’re prohibited persons, but because many are afraid a diagnosis, or even seeking help, could take away their rights. It’s a legitimate fear.
Hold My Guns addresses those fears by also offering to store non-firearm items like gun safe or gun lock keys. Even non-serialized parts like trigger groups or bolt carriers. Those items don’t need a background check. Sarah acknowledges a determined person can overcome those obstacles, but doing so can create a pause in their thinking, which has proven effective in deterring suicide.
Lack of Funding
Far and away, the biggest challenge is funding. Doing things properly costs money. Currently, Hold My Guns has contracted with eight states. You’d think more FFLs would be willing to take part — and you’d be right. However, the FFL must contract with the state and currently bears the legal costs of doing so. Lawyers aren’t exactly cheap, so most FFLs don’t want to incur that expense.
Sarah has been contacted by research groups with “safe storage lists” in several states. These lists purport to offer services akin to Hold My Guns, but lack the same legal protections. Many offer no protection at all. Those research groups are also tied to gun control organizations that ask clients to complete surveys in return for their services.
Hold My Guns stood to obtain research grant money by participating, but Sarah refused. “First of all,” she told them, “Hold My Guns doesn’t interact with the customers. That’s for the FFLs to do. Second, that information is private. It’s none of your business. I don’t care if it’s for research.” Sarah said, because of the nature of a firearms transfer, information taken out of context on a form or survey could cost someone their rights, and “I would not be able to sleep at night.”
So, Hold My Guns eschews the funding grants, slowing the organization’s growth. Sarah says the money is in research, but that means partnering with gun control groups, which she will not do. The organization pursues private funding, but that takes time and lots of effort. Hold My Guns is currently exploring potential partnerships with prominent Second Amendment groups like the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC).
Proper funding would allow Hold My Guns to set participating FFLs up with a pre-paid attorney. Those fees would also include contract maintenance to account for changing laws, as they recently had to do in Washington. Paying those fees would allow Hold My Guns to be proactive in recruiting FFL participants, thus expanding client options.
Of course, expansion means more staff, which is already a need, and administrative and marketing resources. Hold My Guns makes a special effort to attend industry functions like SHOT Show and has received donations to help defray those expenses. That outreach opportunity is vital to further the organization’s mission. If you’re wondering whether Sarah has some skin in the game herself, she cashed in all her personal Bitcoin to start Hold My Guns. I didn’t ask how much, but she’s bought in.
Hold My Guns’ Philosophy
When speaking with Sarah, I noticed she repeatedly used the word “compassion.” I’ve tried to convey that here. Simply put, Hold My Guns’ mission is “saving lives, protecting property, and preserving rights.” That’s a direct quote, but the theme resonated throughout our conversation.
Hold My Guns does things the right way. They take special care to only work with reputable FFLs who operate according to the law. Sarah told me that she is very cognizant not doing so could hurt all gun owners, not just Hold My Guns clients.
As noted, Hold My Guns refuses to work with gun control groups, even when they push safe storage laws. The organization sees itself as the alternative to such laws, believing a liberty-based solution is far superior to a government-mandated program. Sarah said she believes Hold My Guns encourages self-governance over relying on the actual government. She likens it to being one’s own first responder to a personal crisis. That’s something the firearms community should be able to get behind.
In a similar vein, Sarah asks gun owners make informed choices about who they store firearms with and consider the implications of participating in surveys. She isn’t saying it’s Hold My Guns or nothing. She understands the importance of choosing a reputable storage agent. Furthermore, surveys are almost certainly used for gun control research. Conduct yourself accordingly.
Check Out Hold My Guns
Having safe, reliable, and legal, storage options is vital. People face personal crises every day, and it’s not all about suicide prevention. Sarah recounted a story about a gentleman helped whose landlord sold his rental house from under him. He needed a quick solution because he had to rely on a shelter that didn’t allow firearms. Hold My Guns helped him. Things like that happen.
The ATF is always a concern these days. The agency recently sent a letter essentially codifying Hold My Guns’ procedures for FFLs offering storage options. That’s a good thing since it sets clear standards. They also make it difficult at times. For instance, if someone wants to store a National Firearms Act (NFA) regulated item at a licensed FFL, they have to pay a second $200 tax stamp AND go through the entire NFA background check procedure again. Sarah has penned an op-ed challenging that policy and is currently looking for an outlet to publish it. Perhaps SAF, FPC, or some other organization will get on board with that challenge.
If you or someone you know needs Hold My Guns’ services, you can find them at holdmyguns.org. Even if you don’t, consider checking them out. In keeping with Sarah’s background and the organization’s mission, you can look at available resources and download a Personal Safety Plan to prepare for any future challenges. You can also donate if you choose.
This is an important front for protecting our gun rights. It’s also a humane approach to helping our fellow gun owners facing personal challenges. Hold My Guns deserves more attention and support. If you’re going to SHOT Show and want to meet Sarah and get involved, Hold My Guns will be at Booth 41167. I plan to stop by myself.
Gun owners are sometimes our own worst enemies, especially when it comes to safeguarding all our rights. Hold My Guns is an idea we can all get behind. It’s an opportunity to help our fellow firearms enthusiasts that doesn’t involve infringing on their rights. Help get the word out.
