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Granting of a firearm licence to private individuals requires a ‘genuine’ reason. This includes use for sport or target shooting, recreational hunting and vermin control. The need for personal, family or property protection is not considered a genuine reason.
Each state has its own gun laws, but all require that firearms are locked in steel cabinets or gun safes, the ammunition stored in a separate safe, or a separate locked section of the safe, and the safe bolted to the wall or floor.
Although the laws differ by state, all are designed to stop guns from falling into the wrong hands; gun owners are required to prevent their firearms from being stolen or coming into contact with inexperienced handlers.

Preventing injury through preparation

In order to prevent – or at least reduce – the risk of injury to the family, it’s important to restrict access to guns in the home and to store them properly.
The safest approach uses multiple layers of protection – if one measure fails, the next may succeed. This means keeping firearms in gun safes, unloaded, ammunition locked elsewhere and using trigger or chamber locks. Safety catches are not failsafe and can’t be relied upon.
Physical barriers are one angle of protection, while education is another. Teaching the whole family about gun safety is just as important as using gun safes.
Reduced to their most basic level, the rules for the safe handling of a gun are: treat every firearm as if it is loaded, keep it pointed in a safe direction, always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot and always keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Child safety

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a childproof gun, and children are at particular risk of death or injury simply because of their natural curiosity. One disturbing study found that children who find a gun are not only likely to handle it, but to pull on the trigger to see if it’s real. For this reason, it’s recommended that children should not be given realistic toy guns.
Even sin households where guns aren’t present, children still need to be taught elementary gun safety: don’t touch a gun if they find one, walk away and tell an adult. Parents also shouldn’t be afraid to query how guns are stored in homes that their children visit.

Selecting the appropriate gun safe

Like the firearms themselves, gun safes vary according to purpose. Considerations include size, locking mechanism and ease of installation.
For pistols, gun safes with key-locking mechanisms are a practical choice and can be wall or floor-mounted. Although there’s typically room for ammunition, it must be under separate lock and key, either in a safety box in the safe itself or elsewhere in the house. Children should never have access to the keys.
For rifles and shotguns, cabinet-style gun safes can feature either key-locking or digital-locking mechanisms. Some include a key-lockable interior safe suitable for ammunition.
Safe transport of firearms requires purpose-built carry cases and, if crossing state lines, local gun laws need to be checked.
There’s an adage in the gun owner community that says there’s no such thing as an accidental shooting, only criminal negligence. Gun safety starts and ends with the owner. They have a responsibility, both legal and moral, to protect themselves, their families, fellow users and the community at large.