Gun Safety Starts With Safe Storage
From parents and lawmakers to gun owners and non-, everyone can play a role in encouraging safe storage of guns.
Safe firearm storage is one of the most effective ways to prevent gun-related injuries and deaths, but in the U.S., less than half of all gun owners store all their guns safely.
In the June 4 episode of Public Health On Call, Cassandra Crifasi, PhD ’14, MPH, and Katherine Hoops, MD, MPH ’10, of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions explain why safe storage is so important and share evidence-based tools and tips for lawmakers, gun owners, parents, and physicians.
“While safe storage can be implemented as a policy, it's also a really important individual behavior,” explains Crifasi, an associate professor in Health Policy and Management. She says that starts with being able to talk about guns and the responsibilities that come with owning one. “So much of our mission is to normalize conversations around safe and secure storage, whatever the setting,” says Hoops, a pediatric intensive care unit physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine and assistant professor in Health Policy and Management. This Q&A is adapted from their conversation.
What evidence is there to support safe firearm storage practices?
Cass Crifasi: Among people in the U.S. who own guns, less than half of them store all of their guns safely. This translates to a lot of people who can’t legally buy or own a gun potentially having access to them—including an estimated 4.6 million kids—who may use them to harm themselves or others.
Katherine Hoops: We know from years of rigorous research, including by members of our team, that safe storage prevents firearm suicide, homicide, unintentional injuries, and theft—especially when it comes to youth injuries. Safe storage helps interrupt the pathway from access to use. It puts time and space between a person and a potentially deadly weapon.
Having a firearm in the home does not cause suicide, but having a firearm in the home increases the risk of youth suicide by several fold, even controlling for multiple other risk factors. When young people do die by firearm suicide, almost 80% of the time it’s with a family member's firearm they obtained in their home. Safe storage reduces that risk by preventing someone who’s in crisis from readily accessing lethal means.
CC: And 90% of suicide attempts with a firearm result in a fatality. But we can prevent this by safely storing our guns unloaded, locked up, separate from ammunition every time. Separation in time and space between a person and harm is really core to injury prevention, and even a handful of seconds separating a person who may be thinking of harming themselves and lethal means like a firearm can save lives.
How can parents who own guns prevent firearm injuries?
KH: You don’t have to have a safe storage law to store firearms safely in your home: unloaded in a locked safe or cabinet, separate from ammunition; every gun, every time. As parents and gun owners, this is something Cass and I practice in our own homes.
Is safe storage feasible if someone owns a gun for home defense purposes?
KH: Owning a gun for home defense or personal protection and storing it safely are not mutually exclusive: You can do both. Safe storage behaviors at home also protect people from unintentional firearm injuries, firearm suicide, and other other threats.
CC: Exactly. Quick-access safes and other safe storage strategies can allow you to get a gun quickly should you need it, while also restricting access from people who shouldn’t have it—and preventing potential theft.
Are there ways to ensure guns are stored safely in a home your child might visit?
KH: Even if you aren't a gun owner, chances are you know someone who is, and you can encourage them to practice safe storage. Maybe that means having a direct conversation with a family member who owns a gun. It can also include working the topic into your existing routine when sending your kid for a play date in another home.
In the same way that you make sure a parent knows about your kid’s allergies or other habits, you can ask about the presence of firearms in their home and inquire after how they’re stored. We want parents to know that this is an okay thing to ask—it's all about the safety of your kid.
CC: We also have a resource to help with this: A one-pager that models the conversation via text message and shows that it doesn't have to be as awkward as it might seem. And if you don’t feel comfortable with the other person’s answers, our guide provides alternatives so your kids can still play together.
What role can pediatricians play in educating about safe firearm storage?
KH: Pediatricians talk about a whole host of injury prevention measures that families can take in the home. We encourage pediatricians, and all physicians, to incorporate questions about the presence of firearms in the home and information on safe storage into routine conversations with their patients.
We’ve developed info sheets physicians can put in their waiting room or hand out to patients as they're having these conversations. That can really help to open up a conversation by sharing information and best practices, and linking people to other resources on our Center's website.
The same resources that are helpful for pediatricians are also helpful for anyone who works with kids, including teachers and childcare professionals. So much of our mission is to normalize conversations around safe and secure storage, whatever the setting.
Can laws be put in place to require safe storage?
CC: Yes. In the public health toolbox, policy is the population-level tool for advancing the kinds of behaviors that we want to see. Our Center provides a model policy guide for states that are considering implementing child access prevention (CAP) laws or strengthening the laws they currently have in the books.
Is safe storage only important for homes with children?
CC: An important aspect of the model policy guide is that it extends the concept of child access prevention to people who might be restricted from possessing a gun for reasons other than age—criminal or mental health prohibitions, for example.
The same safe storage standards that minimize firearm access to children and teens should extend to other prohibited groups, so we make recommendations on best practices to advance those kinds of policies.
What else should people know about safe storage and responsible gun ownership?
CC: While safe storage can be implemented as a policy, it's also a really important individual behavior. When we have a conversation about guns, it too quickly devolves into an argument about rights and we forget about the responsibility aspect. With every right comes responsibilities, and if you choose to exercise your right to own a firearm, it’s important that you engage in responsible behaviors.
Is it possible to store a firearm safely in a vehicle?
CC: Yes. As more people carry guns in public, there may be places they can’t carry. It is equally important to make sure that guns in cars are stored safely. There are safes that you can build into the glovebox, the spare tire well, or the center console.
What’s the most important thing everyone should know about safe storage?
KH: Whether you're a longtime gun owner, a new gun owner, a never gun owner, a parent, a teacher, a physician, or just a person in the world, everybody has a role to play in firearm injury prevention, especially when it comes to safe storage.
We can all be having these conversations, asking how firearms are stored, and encouraging people in our lives to practice safe storage. And we ourselves can practice safe storage—every gun, every time—to protect more people, especially kids, from firearm injuries.
This Q&A was edited for length and clarity by Aliza Rosen.
