Safe Storage Saves Lives
Gun Safety Starts with Safe Storage. Spread the Word!
June is Gun Violence Awareness Month
Share life-saving information about the importance of safe gun storage. Safe Storage Saves Lives.
Educating and advocating for safe firearm storage practices saves lives. Let your audience know, whether they own guns or not, gun safety starts with practicing secure storage. Spread the Word!
Store firearms unloaded & locked
Store & lock ammunition separately from firearms
Ensure key and/or combination is inaccessible to unauthorized people
Temporarily remove firearms from your home
For Organizations & Groups
Share life-saving information with your networks and teams about the importance of safe gun storage.
For Everyone: A Guide to Taking Action
Share life-saving information with your friends, families, and neighbors about the importance of safe gun storage.
Safe Storage Laws: A Step-By-Step Guide to a Life-Saving Policy
Research shows that safe gun storage policies save lives. To support lawmakers in crafting effective legislation, the Center has developed a comprehensive model policy guide. In this webinar, panelists will present key recommendations and explain how this tool can help save lives. Speakers include a Minnesota state representative championing for safe storage laws, a researcher with background on the efficacy of policies, and a clinician advancing safe storage conversations in trauma centers and doctor’s offices.
Gun Safety Starts with Safe Storage
Gun safety belongs at home and in the doctor’s office
Katherine Hoops, MD, JD, MPH, Director of Clinical Programs & Practice, mother, attending pediatric ICU physician, and gun owner tells us: As doctors, we should discuss safe storage with our patients. Everyone should talk to their friends, family members, and neighbors about storing guns safely.
Talk to Other Parents About Safe Storage
Let's normalize conversations that can keep our loved ones—and little ones—safe. Keeping guns unloaded and locked up prevents unauthorized users, including children, from accessing and then being injured by firearms.
How to Talk to Other Parents SPREAD THE WORD SAFE & SECURE GUN STORAGE
Talk to Your Patients About Safe Storage
Healthcare professionals should engage collaboratively with patients & their families to help prevent gun injuries and deaths. Lethal means safety counseling is a patient-centered, evidence-informed healthcare intervention that can be used to help prevent suicides, homicides, unintentional gun deaths, and nonfatal gun injuries.
Lethal Means SAFETY CounselingHandout for patientsClinical Programs & PRactice
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Gun Deaths Over Time, 2014-2023
From 2014 to 2023, gun deaths surged, particularly in 2020 due to gun homicides. Since 2021, gun death rates have generally decreased or stabilized, except for gun suicides, which have steadily risen to record highs for three consecutive years.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. Age-adjusted Gun Rates per 100,000. WONDER Online Database, 2018-2023.
Safe Storage Saves Lives
Leading Cause of Suicide Death by Age
Guns are the leading method of suicide across all age groups in the U.S. Guns were the most common method used in suicides across most age groups in 2023, underscoring the impact of guns on most ages when considering suicide.
*Note: Ages 1-9 were excluded because the data was “suppressed,” or the death count was less than 10. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. Age-adjusted Gun Rates per 100,000. WONDER Online Database, 2018-2023.
State Policy Highlights
Lawmakers have the opportunity to protect children and teenagers from gun-related injuries and deaths by enacting and/or strengthening safe firearm storage laws and Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws in their state. Over half of all states have some form of Safe Storage law, though they vary in scope and effectiveness.
ADVOCACY Safe Storage Model Policy Guide Share safe storage information
Minnesota
Requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms before any incident occurs would help prevent firearm-related injuries and fatalities. By mandating that firearms be locked and stored safely, rather than only holding owners liable when they fail to do so, Minnesota can lower the risk of suicide, prevent gun theft, and reduce unintentional shootings involving children.
Virginia
Help prevent tragic gun-related injuries and deaths, especially among teens, who are the most vulnerable group to gun suicides, and create a safer environment for all young people. Strengthening Virginia’s Child Access Prevention (CAP) law by extending protections to all minors under the age of 18, ensures that no child, whether under 14 or a teenager, has access to unsecured firearms.
Child Access Prevention (CAP) Gun Storage Policies Reduce Youth Gun Suicide Rates
90%
Firearms are the deadliest method of suicide, with a fatality rate close to 90%
14%
Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws lowered suicide rates by up to 14% in youth ages 1-17 years old
16
CAP laws are most effective in reducing gun suicide when they required parents or guardians of children ages 16 and younger to store firearms securely
1-17
CAP gun storage policies reduce gun suicide deaths, as well as gun-related unintentional injuries & homicide in youth ages 1-17
"As a gun owner, I take pride in storing my firearms safely locked up and separate from ammunition. As a researcher, I know safe storage saves lives. It’s our responsibility as gun owners to keep these weapons locked up so kids and dangerous people can’t get ahold of them. Safe gun storage saves lives."
Cass Crifasi, PhD '14, MPH, Co-Executive Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions