Many gun owners in the United States do not safely store their guns, even when the gun is loaded and there are children in the home, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report, which was based on 2021 and 2022 data from eight states, found that many gun owners kept their guns unlocked and loaded in their homes despite rising rates of gun suicides and gun deaths among children.
Gun storage practices varied across the eight states: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
Of those surveyed in Ohio who had both children and a loaded gun at home, about a quarter said the gun was kept unlocked. it was the smallest percentage among the seven states with available data for this metric. In Alaska, more than 40 percent of respondents fell into this category.
In all eight states, about half of respondents who reported having loaded firearms in their homes said at least one loaded gun was kept unlocked, a finding consistent with similar studies of firearm storage behavior.
The number of children dying by suicide has been rising for more than a decade. In 2022, gun suicides among children reached their highest rate in more than 20 years, which public health experts and advocacy groups have largely attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase in gun sales.
A smaller number of children are killed each year by accidental gunfire, which often happens when they are playing with a gun or showing it to a friend. A 2023 CDC report on unintentional firearm deaths among children found that the firearm involved was often loaded and unlocked on a night stand.
“Storing a firearm away or away is not safe firearm storage,” said Thomas Simon, who is an author of the study and a researcher in the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention.
“One father told me he didn’t even know his son knew he kept his gun in the closet until he found his 15-year-old son’s self-inflicted body.”
Dr. Frederick Rivara, who studies child injury and injury prevention at the University of Washington, said the risk of youth suicide with a firearm is much lower in homes where guns are unloaded and locked than in households where guns are less stored. certainly.
Children who live in families with no guns in the home have the lowest risk of suicide with a firearm, according to a study.
Jennifer Stuber, a public health researcher at the University of Washington who studies suicide prevention, said people often keep their guns unsecured for easy access in the event of a home invasion. Protection is the main reason most gun owners in the US keep a firearm, according to a 2023 Pew study.
That often makes efforts to encourage gun owners to store their firearms unloaded and locked — as recommended by various groups, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Department of Veterans Affairs — a tough sell, he said.
Dr. Stuber said she believes people often inflate the risk of someone attacking them with a gun and underestimate the chances of a loved one being killed with a gun.
“I don’t think they really, really understand the risks,” he said. “People don’t think their firearms will ever be used for suicide until they’re in this place.”
Instead of trying to convince gun owners to stop worrying about self-defense, a better solution, he said, might be to improve access to “quick-access locking devices,” which make it easier and faster for people to unlock guns if they need them. .
“You’re not trying to change the concept of home defense,” he said. “I think it can be done, but it’s more difficult than giving someone a technological solution.”
