For two years, a North Carolina campaign has worked to reduce accidental injuries and deaths, as well as self-harm, by promoting safe gun storage.
"Our message is very simple. Safely storing firearms saves lives.”
NCDPS Secretary Eddie Buffaloe said every year unsecured guns contribute to tragedies in communities across the state.
“Gun thefts, suicide attempts and youth violence. They're not just statistics. They are lives. They're real lives,” he said, “Families are forever changed in these tragic events and their lives change in an instant.”
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Deputy Secretary for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention William Lassiter said too many people – especially young people – are dying because many aren’t storing firearms properly.
“In the state of North Carolina, we are now double the national average in the number of young people that are losing their lives due to firearms,” he said. “Those mainly are suicides, but there are also many homicides associated with that. Just two weeks ago, we had a 5-year-old lose their life because of an unsecured firearm in the house up in Vance County.
“Changing that dynamic of 50% of households not safely storing their farms can reduce the number of young people that lose their lives,” he added.
Those are deaths Lassiter said did not have to happen.
“It is completely preventable if people take the easy steps. The few seconds that it takes to lock up that farm, either in a safe or using a gun lock,” he said.
This week, N.C. S.A.F.E provided 10,000 gun locks to the North Carolina National Guard in an effort to reduce self-harm and offer safe firearm storage options for soldiers, airmen, employees, and their families.
In total, NCDPS staff have distributed more than 100,000 gun locks and hundreds of gun safes to people, along with materials highlighting best practices for firearm storage.
