- Minnesota currently only has child access prevention laws which are only applied after tragedies have occurred. Requiring secure storage of firearms would help prevent accidents and other fatalities.
- This legislation would help decrease Minnesota’s 341 gun suicides each year by putting time and space between a person in crisis and the trigger of a gun.
- Nationwide over 380,000 guns are stolen each year, and this legislation would help lower that number in Minnesota.
- Secure storage decreases suicide and gun theft.**
- Those who securely store their guns are 60% less likely to die by firearm suicide and three times less likely for their guns to be stolen.
- Requiring gun owners to lock store firearms, not just imposing liability when they fail to do so, can help prevent unintentional shootings by and of children, reduce suicide, and limit gun theft.
Sources
*Secure Gun Storage | Everytown. (2020). Everytown. https://www.everytown.org/solutions/responsible-gun-storage/
Everytown For Gun Safety. (2021). Gun Violence in Minnesota. https://everystat.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gun-Violence-in- Minnesota-2.9.2021.pdf
Hemenway, D., Azrael, D., & Miller, M. (2017). Whose guns are stolen? The epidemiology of Gun theft victims. Injury Epidemiology, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-017-0109-8
**Shenassa, E. D. (2004). Safer storage of firearms at home and risk of suicide: a study of protective factors in a nationally representative sample. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 58(10), 841–848. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2003.017343
Hemenway, D., Azrael, D., & Miller, M. (2017). Whose guns are stolen? The epidemiology of Gun theft victims. Injury Epidemiology, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-017-0109-8
