Oct. 25, 2025
Bridging Guns And Mental Health with Walk The Talk America
Send us a text What if the most effective mental health leadership in America came from the firearms community itself? We sit down with Michael Sodini, a third‑generation industry insider and founder of Walk The Talk America (WTTA), to unpack how gun owners, trainers, and manufacturers are driving practical suicide prevention—no new laws required. Michael shares the candid origin story behind WTTA, the loss that made silence impossible, and the simple question that sparked a movement: if we c...
What if the most effective mental health leadership in America came from the firearms community itself? We sit down with Michael Sodini, a third‑generation industry insider and founder of Walk The Talk America (WTTA), to unpack how gun owners, trainers, and manufacturers are driving practical suicide prevention—no new laws required. Michael shares the candid origin story behind WTTA, the loss that made silence impossible, and the simple question that sparked a movement: if we can’t collaborate on legislation, what can we build together that actually helps people?
We walk through the game‑changing idea of putting free, anonymous mental health screenings directly into gun boxes and onto product packaging with partners like Ruger and Armscor. By meeting owners where they are, these tools normalize regular check‑ins, set a personal baseline, and make it easy to act early—without surveillance or stigma. Michael explains why focusing on suicide prevention is the most impactful path, how the industry’s trusted voice increases adoption, and what “the mental game” of responsible ownership looks like inside the home and around family.
The conversation dives into WTTA’s cultural competence course for clinicians and the growing national directory of pro‑2A, firearms‑informed therapists. We talk about real barriers to care—judgment, fear of confiscation, confusion about laws—and how better language, safer off‑ramps, and telehealth access change outcomes. Michael also tackles the unintended consequences of red flag and transfer laws, offering a nuanced view that resonates across political lines because it centers on one goal: making it safe to ask for help.
If you care about practical safety, civil rights, veteran and first responder wellness, or smarter mental health access, this story matters. Explore resources at wtta.org, share this episode with a friend who might need it, and subscribe to the show. Your review helps more people find tools that save lives.
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00:00 - Meet Michael Sodini And WTTA
03:30 - From Firearms Industry To Mission
08:30 - Suicide In The Community Is Ignored
14:38 - The Question That Sparked WTTA
20:08 - Focus On Suicide Prevention Over Myths
25:38 - Cards And Screenings In Gun Boxes
31:38 - Industry Culture And Trust
37:08 - Proactive Ownership And The Mental Game
42:38 - Winning Over Non‑2A Audiences
WEBVTT
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Hi, welcome to the Arctic Podcast, Season 1, Episode 2.
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Today we'll be joined by Mike Sedini off the Talk America.
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Mike will be talking to us today about mental health and firearms and how we can help bridge the gap between issues regarding care for people that might be going through issues.
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So stay tuned, listen, and hope you enjoy.
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Hi, and today's guest uh we have Michael Sedini from Walk to Talk America.
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How are you doing, Michael?
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I'm doing good, man.
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I'm I'm glad to be here.
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I know you're kicking off this show and uh I'm glad to be a part of it.
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Well, you're you'll be our first uh guest that we have going live on the podcast.
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And uh looking forward to the topic uh Walk to Talk America.
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Something real dear, I think, to my heart, and I think it will hit the chord with uh other people that listen that may not have heard about Walk to Talk America.
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Uh so who is Michael Sedini and where does he come from?
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Yeah, so I'm a I'm a third generation firearms industry professional.
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Uh I I got into the firearms industry through nepotism.
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Um my family owned one of the largest uh importers of firearms in the U.S.
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And so basically, what we were for anyone in the listening audience that is not familiar with how firearms importation works is if you had a firearms company and let's say you were in Colombia or somewhere in Europe, right?
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And you had an interest and you had a firearm and you had an interest in breaking in the US market, you would find somebody like us, which was at the time called it was Eagle Imports, and we used to import Bursa from Argentina, grand power from Slovakia, and uh uh Metro Arms, which is American Classic, Mac, and SPS from the Philippines.
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So you would you would find somebody like us to basically do your importing, handle your sales, handle your customer service, your warranty.
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It's like a turnkey operation, right?
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You just sell it to us and we build your brand in the US and take care of everything else.
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So I got into the firearms industry, not because I was interested in guns at all.
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Um, I was basically told by my family, like it was an assumption, like you're coming to work with us.
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You know, my grandfather and my uncle had started this business, which actually played into my advantage when it came to what we're about to talk about today.
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Um, because not growing up around firearms, because I didn't, I grew up with a single mom in San Francisco.
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And um my family's company was in New Jersey, right?
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Uh probably two of the worst places to grow up if you're if you're into firearms.
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Yeah.
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You know, so uh, anyways, got into the industry after college and literally learned on the fly.
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Learned about firearms and and rights and everything, like on the job.
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So that that's that's my background.
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Well, to Talk America is something that like we were talking just before we started recording, is uh something that I find uh is that missing link that kind of breaks that uh taboo subject that uh a lot of people are need assistance but are afraid to reach out because of that taboo and what could happen.
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So, what what is Walk Talk America?
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Okay, so Walk Talk America, it basically we are an organization that's homegrown from the firearms industry that looks for innovative ways to get people to help they need when they're in crisis without fear of consequence.
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Um, we figure out ways to work with people outside of the 2A community, the Second Amendment community, the firearms industry, um, and kind of cherry pick the things that we uh we think will make a difference, and then also has nothing to do with legislation, right?
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Because we believe that the answers are there.
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I feel like it's one and and let me rewind for a second.
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Let me go back to kind of what sparked this, but it wasn't the it wasn't the main reason why I started it.
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But in in 2009, um the president of my company, Eagle Imports, the one I was just talking about, uh took it.
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The the president's name is Bill Strominger, he took his life with one of our firearms.
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Um, and at that time in 2009, suicide was not talked about in the firearms industry.
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And and one of the main reasons was um I think we were all scared that things like that would be weaponized against us.
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Or we knew it, right?
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Um, anybody that's in the firearms community, whether you're a trainer, whether you own a gun shop, we all know that any negative outcome is going to get used in that giant number that they throw out every year, right?
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Um, so and there was kind of this rhetoric from the NRA that was kind of like if you, you know, you can't trust mental health or just gun grabbers, you know, and it it kind of made sense for everything that was going on back then.
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But I always wanted to do something that helped people because one of the things that the president of the company at the time and I used to talk about, uh, and it's this is this, you know, we could we can touch on this later, right?
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Because usually people that talk about suicide or they they notice something about suicide or or you know, mental health, um, they're in tune to it.
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So Bill and I used to talk about how crazy it was that the gun industry didn't really do anything to address mental health when we were losing the people that our industry holds near and dear to our hearts the most.
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And I'll give you an example of that.
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So we used to have a booth at SHOT Show and we used to have couches, right?
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Like that was our, you know, so if anyone's been to SHAT Show, you know, like everyone's just bouncing around booths and talking.
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It's it's kind of like a gun store.
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If anyone goes in the gun store, we used to call it like the barber shop, the white man's barbershop.
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Now it's everybody's barbershop because now you have all different walks of life, right?
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You have the fastest growing shooters of minorities and women, right?
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So now it's everybody's barbershop.
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People will go into gun shops and just literally talk to the guy at the counter all day.
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And people will, you know, customers will talk.
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It's a fun experience.
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It's kind of interesting to watch.
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But we used to have all kinds of people that would come to our booth every year, and it was almost like we expected to see those faces again and again and again.
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And so many of them were, you know, former military, you know, active duty military, first responders.
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Um, like I said, the people that our our industry absolutely stops and salutes no matter what.
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And every year it seemed like we would lose one person, and it would be like, it's weird.
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So you know, John didn't show up this year.
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I wonder where I hope he's okay, right?
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And then you'd find out later, like, hey, I don't know if you heard about John, but John took his own life.
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And it was like all the it's one of those things where you're looking at this, like, hey, we're not supposed to talk about this.
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We don't address it, we don't know how to, but it's something that affects our industry because obviously, you know, 22 a day, all those things that you heard back then, it was kind of like, hmm, why didn't we do something?
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Now I didn't know what to do after Bill took his life.
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I didn't have the idea for Walk to Talk America.
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Walk to Talk America was born from a conversation in 2018, so cut to nine years later, when I I met a complete stranger that asked a question.
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She was asking about what happens during a mass shooting.
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And uh I basically told her the truth.
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I said, Everybody blames us.
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We we blame mental health, and nothing ever gets done because we can't work together, because the the solutions that they have all deal with stuff that we can't accept, right?
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Like infringing on rights and punishing people who actually do the right thing with a firearm, which is the vast majority of people that own firearms.
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Um, and after I said that, she asked one question, completely changed my life.
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She was like, if you can't work with the mental health community on those things because of legislation, like what are the policies or what are the things that you can work on with them?
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Because I'm sure there are things you can work together on.
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And I, you know, I thought about it and I was like, I don't think we do, we don't, right?
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And that's how Walk to Talk America was born.
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It was from a like chance conversation where someone asked a question, and at the time I didn't even know if it was possible, right?
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Um, but it's something I became obsessed with, and then one year later, I ended up selling Eagle imports to do this full time because there was a need for this, people wanted this.
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So that's how Walk the Talk America came about.
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And and we can kind of get into the details as this conversation starts to flow about what we do, but um, that's how it started.
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Yeah, uh I know gun grabbers and people you know blame guns for a lot of the the incidences and all actuality a lot of the I've heard you mention this before, but two-thirds of the actual guns or shooting something that's something that I think is just getting individuals getting proactive exemptions as far as uh where somebody can if they recognize that they're doing the the right thing or something good that you know they're not penalized for trying to help save somebody.
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And uh yeah, yeah, the unintended consequences is what you're talking about of these things, and that's so in the beginning, like when I started this, I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I knew after the first year, the first year of doing Walk Talk America, I was like, if it's if it ends today and nothing else comes of this, at least I got the the firearms industry thinking about mental health, right?
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Because I feel like for so long it was kind of like there's so many good people in the 2A community, just like I mean, take it from me, like a guy who what when I first got into the community, I was like, I am nothing like these people because most most of the time I was hanging around with people that were talking about hunting, fishing, all these things that I never did growing up, right?
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Like I never went shooting, I didn't have a dad who took me shooting.
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I I had there was a learning curve that I had to hit.
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But what I did love about the two-a community in the firearms industry was how welcoming like they were, and and how many like good, solid individuals there are in this industry, you know, just like everything, you have your clowns, but you know, uh overall it it's kind of like when I would go back to my friends who didn't understand firearms and they didn't understand the industry, they would they would talk about the industry in a certain way, like, oh, it's uh the NRA is doing this, or you know, it's racist or anything like that.
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And I was like, no, it's really not.
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Like if you if you actually hang out at an NRA show or you hang out at a at any kind of event, like a shot show, I'd like it the pe what they're saying, like, hey, people celebrate during a mass shooting.
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Like, I've never seen that.
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I've never seen that.
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We we hate that, right?
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And so for me, if walk the talk would have ended just on the just the fact that the people were talking about mental health, but here we are, cut two, right?
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Like now we're in this position where I think it's super important for our industry to lead the way on this, and similar to how um alcohol got ahead of drunk driving, right?
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Like, nobody's blaming Johnny Walker when somebody gets behind the car wheel and does something horrific, right?
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So, for me to have the industry like step up and and have firearms trainers like yourself and um gun shop saying, Look, you have you have to be prepared as a gun owner for everything.
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You have to be prepared for outside threats, you have to be prepared for this, you have to be, you have to have safety down, right?
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Like all this stuff is we also have to have this key element of firearms ownership, which is your mental game.
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It has to your mental game has to be up everywhere, right?
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Like you have to know it, and and it also extends to everybody else who is around you with that firearm um in the house.
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So there's nothing wrong with being prepared.
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What we talk, that's why we train, that's why we take courses, that's why we do it, is to be prepared.
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So to have the preparation of the mental game, too, to say, I may not be in crisis, like maybe I am, like, I don't know.
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Like, I'm not feeling too good because of the things that you said earlier, right?
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Maybe it's money issues, maybe you got family members fighting.
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You're just like, I need to be on top of it as a gun owner, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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And once we like accept that, once we take that all in and we're like, okay, we're doing the most, and and believe me, I know it sounds crazy, but like I think right now the firearms industry is with the the people that are actively involved in WTTA, the Rugers, the arms corps, the the Canon Safes, like the things that they're doing, it's so different than what the mental health community can do because they don't have the reach we do.
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They don't have they can't, you know, all they could do is say, like, hey, we'd love for you to say this.
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It's all language, right?
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And most of the time they don't know the language, so they have to rely on us to know the language.
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But us being proactive, now we're going to be taking serious on a national level with all the people that thought originally that we don't care or we don't do anything.
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You see what I mean?
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Like, that's why that's why it's important for us to kind of take this and run with it.
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Don't let the government tell us what to do with it.
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Like, show the government we're already on top of it.
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Like, you can't help us.
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You know what I mean?
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Like, we got this.
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So it's been kind of fun this last five years, you know, it's a wild ride.
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Great, great.
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I'm I'm glad to see you.
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And uh, I think it's like you're actually in uh some of the people in the firearms industry, uh manufacturer-wise and camera-wise, that are actually supporting you and backing your uh by putting aren't they putting like labels and cards and stuff in there?
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Yeah, so so that was the that was the first.
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So here's the fun part about what we talk America.
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When I first started the organization, and I'm grabbing a card to show you, to show the listeners, uh, but when I started first started the organization, I want to take the easy way out.
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Like in my head, I was like, we'll raise money in the firearms industry and we'll donate it to mental health.
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And when I first started, I didn't I didn't even know if there was a mental health organization that was gonna listen to me.
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Because you know, you know how people think about us, right?
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Like, you know, they have these like preconceived notions and just whatever, you know, we're stigmatized.
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We our industry is stigmatized just like mental health.
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Um, but anyway, so I I ended up connecting with mental health America, and you know, the idea in the beginning was hey, look, I'm gonna donate money, I'm gonna go to the Rugers, and I'm gonna go to the arms corps, and I'm gonna go to the Bursas, and I'm gonna get them to donate money, and we're gonna donate it to you, and you're gonna solve the problem.
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Like you're gonna fix the problem.
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And originally I was kind of aiming towards what can we do to stop mass shootings?
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Um, and this is actually a really important part of our conversation today for people to understand because sometimes people are like, well, why are you focusing on the gun?
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Well, number one, I focus on the gun because I'm from the gun industry.
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If I worked in the rope industry, I'd probably focus on ropes, right?
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But I'm I'm in the gun industry.
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But we all seem to think that there is a way to stop mass shooters, right?
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We and there are things there are things, obviously, this goes beyond just mass shooters.
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There are things you can identify in people, but it really is finding a needle in a haystack because for as much as these mass shooters have shown a particular behavior that you could point to, just like gun owners, you could point to a million examples of people that had that same behavior and never shot up a grocery store or school, right?
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So when I first started, the whole idea was hey, I'm gonna give you all this money, you're gonna run out there and figure out how we we end this and we're all gonna work together.
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Well, I learned real fast that they didn't have the answers.
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And everybody on the mental health side, uh, epidemiologists, like all these people were just like, hey, listen, you gotta slow down, focus on suicide prevention.
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And I was like, that's great.
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I want to do suicide prevention too, but I really want to do mass shooters, so we're gonna do it all.
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And they're just like, no, no, no, laser focus on suicide prevention because it is the one thing that you guys can actually make a dent in, right?
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And at first I couldn't understand it.
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I was like, make it make sense for me.
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And they're just like, fighting the next mass shooter is the needle in a haystack.
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And I said, Okay, well, explain that to me.
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And there I remember it was Dr.
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Jeffrey Swanson out of North Carolina.
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Yeah, he's a leader in epidemiology, and he basically was like, You could take a gun and hand it to 10 people that have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
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And he's like, they'll go their whole life without doing anything to anybody, even themselves.
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And he's like, You could come home one day after a really tough day at work, find your wife in bed with your best friend and snap.
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And he's like, needle in a haystack.
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And I was like, damn, he's right.
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Right.
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But like with suicide prevention, if we can be on the forefront of giving our customers or our our students, right, the information and the resources to where they could stay on top of it or get help when they want it.
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Um, like I said before, that's that's the cherry on the top.
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Just the fact that you're letting your students know or your customers know that you're making it okay to talk about mental health or think about your mental health.
00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:15.839
Like take, for example, Ruger or Arms Corps.
00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:21.599
Arms Corps is a perfect example of people who put it, put the the screening on the side of the box.
00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:23.839
And um, this is an example.
00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:24.880
This is a card.
00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:34.160
It's it's kind of tough to see, but this is a a card that that Ruger and Bursa and Arms Corps, they put in all the boxes of their guns.
00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:37.279
And it basically says, you know, mental health, it's okay to talk about it.
00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:38.960
You know, we're from the firearms industry.
00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:41.440
Take a free and anonymous mental health screening.
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:43.039
Stay on top of your mental health.
00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:47.599
I can't stress enough how important it is to stay on top of it.
00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:50.319
Screenings aren't just for people who are in crisis.
00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:52.160
You don't have to be like, well, I feel wonderful.
00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:53.519
I don't need a screening.
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:57.119
It's good to take the screening, even if you feel great, right?
00:19:57.279 --> 00:19:58.880
Because you need to see where you're at.
00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:04.480
The screenings are free and anonymous, which is gun owners we love, especially the anonymous part.
00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:08.960
You don't have to give them any information because we we partner with Mental Health America on this.
00:20:09.119 --> 00:20:10.880
They don't ask you about firearms at all.
00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:14.079
So there's nothing in there that asks you about your guns or anything like that.
00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:24.559
It's just what it's the different categories of what you want to do, whether that's I want to, I think I might be depressed, I think I might be suffering from anxiety, I think I might have ADHD, right?
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:27.119
So you you can go on there and take those.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:28.720
And that was the first step.
00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:35.279
That was the first step of getting industry and the the the fine, and I know I'm a little long-winded on this, but I like I love talking about it.
00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:40.720
But like the first I didn't know at first, I didn't know how the industry would react to this, right?
00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:48.079
Because one of the biggest fears I had as someone who owned a gun company was I didn't want like the NRA or NSSF being like, Mike, what are you doing?
00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:49.839
Like, what what are you doing here?
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.400
Like you're walking a very fine line.
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:57.759
And um I I kept putting them in my guns, which was the guns that Eagle imports.
00:20:57.839 --> 00:21:06.079
And I had thank God I had these foreign manufacturers who you know they I don't, you know, they're not in touch with what we do as much.
00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:07.279
So they were kind of like, what is it?
00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:12.640
And I'm like, free and anonymous mental health screenings for our customers so they can stay on top of their mental health and be good.
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:14.079
We want our customers to be good, right?
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:15.839
And they're just like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:16.880
So you could do it.
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:19.920
So we're putting a card in the box, and I'm waiting.
00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:25.039
Like, I waited like three months just to see what type of reaction because I didn't know if there was going to be a negative reaction.
00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:28.559
I didn't know if customers were gonna call and be like, What are you doing?
00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:30.400
And it was the complete opposite.
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:35.200
We were getting so many customers that were calling, and they're like, Hey, you put this in the box.
00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:38.240
You know, I just bought a bursa and it's inside the box.
00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:39.519
Thank you.
00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:42.000
Like, I really appreciated you doing that, right?
00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:43.519
And then I was like, Oh, this is cool.
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:44.880
It's like good PR for us.
00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:45.599
You know what I mean?
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:50.960
Like it, um, so then it graduated and I started to just, I was like, okay, nothing's nothing's happened.
00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:53.759
I'm not on the NRA's, like, what are you doing list?
00:21:54.079 --> 00:22:05.599
I started walking around a Chacho to my friends, like my peers that I grew up with in this industry, like uh Martin from Arms Corps or Charlie Brown from from High Point, you know, MKS.
00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:08.720
And I was just like, hey, can you put this in the in your your box?
00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:09.519
And they're like, what is it?
00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:11.440
Freedom and auto's mental health screenings.
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.359
And I'm like, pause, wait, see what they they're like, that's a really good idea.
00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:16.400
Yeah, we could do that.
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:18.640
I was like, damn, it's that easy.
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:20.400
Right?
00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:22.160
It's just it's it would.
00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:32.880
I feel like as an industry, and and that includes everything from firearms trainers to I feel like we always wanted to do something, but we just didn't know how to fit into it.
00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:34.880
Because it was it's not rocket.
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:39.200
But uniqueness to join together.
00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:41.200
Yeah, almost like we couldn't, right?
00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:42.960
Like we thought it was mutually exclusive.
00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:48.079
You can't have guns and you can't talk about mental health or suicide prevention, like they're mutually exclusive.
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:51.519
They're not like we totally can, and it can come from us.
00:22:51.599 --> 00:23:02.079
It's actually better coming from us because you know, and this is what I say when I speak in in front of you know, anyone that's from the outside, the mental health side or the healthcare provider side.
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:11.920
I'm like, the the industry, if you walk around our industry, everybody there was a time when I felt like I was the only one who didn't serve the country, like it at the SHOT show.
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:12.640
You know what I'm saying?
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:19.920
Like everybody, like everybody that works in the industry, like they all had served or they were all for a first responder at some point in their life.
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:22.720
And I was kind of like, damn, I'm like the only one in the right.
00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:31.119
So first responders and uh vets and active duty military, they gravitate towards our community, right?
00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:33.839
It's a natural fit, like you, right?
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.720
Yeah, right.
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:43.599
So, you know, for when that when I saw that, and and I was kind of like, who are they gonna listen to?
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