About Dorothy Paugh

Dorothy Paugh, a retired Navy officer, lost her father, a WWII US Army Master Sergeant, age 51, to suicide by gun in 1965.  In 2012, Dorothy’s 25-year-old middle child, Peter, fatally shot himself with a handgun he had purchased ten months earlier for protection.  She writes and speaks publicly to raise awareness of the triple risk that access to a firearm carries into the home.  Her hope is that when someone is known to be suicidal, those around them will know to keep firearms out of their reach until the crisis winds down. Dorothy was instrumental in getting an extreme risk protective order law passed in Maryland in 2018.