GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With four incidents of guns found in Grand Rapids Public Schools this school year, gun storage safety advocates are pushing for adults to keep their firearms securely locked away.
Whether it's a gun lock box or full storage safe, they say safety is an investment that everyone needs to make when owning a weapon.
"It's the responsibility of every gun owner to make sure that their firearms don't fall into unauthorized hands," Bill Brassard, senior director of communications with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, says. "Hiding a gun on top of a refrigerator or in a nightstand or in a closet is not secure storage of firearms. And there are many locking devices out there that gun owners can choose from to make sure their guns don't fall into the wrong hands."
The organization has a program called Project ChildSafe, providing local police departments nationwide like Grand Rapids with free gun cable locks and safety information.
"Gun owners can choose from lock boxes all the way up to full-size gun safes to make sure their firearms are secure," Brassard says.
He advises that parents also need to talk to their children about firearms.
"To impress upon them that they should come across an unsecured gun that the message is to stop, get away, tell an adult about that firearm and just simply to not play with it, not touch it," Brassard says.
"There are many times when children have access to a weapon that shouldn't have," Christina VanEyl, local group leader and communications director of Moms Demand Action, says.
She says safe storage is everyone's issue, whether they have kids or not.
"As a nation, we tend to think about mass shootings and that being our main focus," VanEyl says. "But the truth is that unintentional shootings, children who get a hold of a weapon that they shouldn't have, or suicides by gun are also very common."
Safe storage was just signed into law in Michigan last month by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The law will go into effect next year, and gun owners will be required to keep their weapons locked away.
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