Guns have been identified as the leading cause of death for children in the United States, making ongoing discussions about firearm safety especially important.

Kerri Raissian, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut, and Jennifer Necci Dineen, associate director of the ARMS Center for Gun Injury Prevention, recently co-authored an very important piece for The Conversation titled detailing what families need to know about safely storing firearms at home. 

There were 2,571 children age 1 to 17 who died in shootings in the U.S. in 2021, 68% more than the 1,531 that occurred in 2000.

To help reduce the number of firearm-related deaths and injuries among children, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in January 2024 called upon school and district administrators to talk with parents and guardians about safe firearm storage practices.

As experts on the safe storage of firearms – and as leaders of the University of Connecticut’s ARMS Center for Gun Injury Prevention – we often get questions about the best ways to keep guns out of the hands of children. We offer the following tips:

1: Safely store all of your firearms

2. Don’t assume you can hide your guns

3. Store ammunition separately

4. Learn to talk about firearm safety

5. Know the law

6. Invest in a quality safe and/or locking device

The full piece is available here from The Conversation.

Kerri Raissian is an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut, director of the University of Connecticut's UConn’s Center for Advancing Research, Methods, and Scholarship (ARMS) in Gun Violence Prevention, and co-director of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP) Gun Violence Prevention Research Interest Group. Her research focuses on child and family policy, with an emphasis on understanding how policies affect fertility, family formation, and family violence.

She is available to speak to media about this important topic - simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.