Citation

Ramchand R. RAND. Santa Monica, CA USA: RAND Corporation, 2022.

Copyright

(Copyright 2022, RAND)

The full document is available online.

Abstract

Multiple stakeholder groups recommend that firearms be stored locked and unloaded and that ammunition be stored separately. To date, most empirical evidence indicates that approximately half of American gun owners store their firearms locked, and one-third store all of their firearms locked and unloaded. The greatest influence of storage practices among those who do not store their firearms as recommended are their perceptions of risk and protection. There is some evidence that clinical interventions, such as lethal means counseling, communication campaigns, or trainings, are effective at changing gun owners' storage practices, but distributing storage devices might be most effective. Although there is evidence that child-access prevention laws that impose penalties on adults who enable children to have unsupervised access to firearms might reduce suicide, unintentional injuries, and violent crime, these laws' influence on gun owners' storage practices specifically might depend on the other firearm-related policies within individual states. Given the importance of preventing unauthorized individuals' access to firearms and the importance of current gun owners' storage practices, new approaches are needed and evaluations must be conducted to improve firearm storage practices in the United States.