Child advocates again asking N.C. legislators to support safe gun storage efforts
By Jennifer Fernandez
CONTENT WARNING: This article references suicide. Please take caution when reading. If you need mental health support, please consult this page for resources.
North Carolina state data shows firearm-related deaths of children have more than doubled since 2013.
Now, North Carolina has the 12th highest rate of child gun deaths among U.S. states, a recent report shows. In 2022, seven out of 10 child homicides in the state involved a firearm.
Firearms remain “a significant factor” in reviews conducted by local and state child fatality prevention teams, Murphy Jones, a social/clinical research associate with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, recently told a committee of the state’s Child Fatality Task Force.
“The state team has continued to identify, again, the need for ongoing prioritization of firearm safety and storage across the state in order to prevent gun-related deaths and injuries among our children and our youth,” Jones told the task force’s Unintentional Death Prevention Committee on Oct. 15.
To combat these deaths, child advocates want state legislators to strengthen North Carolina’s child access prevention law and to provide continuing funding for NC S.A.F.E., a safe firearm storage education program that has distributed more than 50,000 gun locks since 2023.
Safe storage shown effective
Firearms are the primary means used in the majority of youth suicides and homicides, according to the Child Fatality Task Force, a long-running legislative study committee of volunteer experts in child health and safety, state agency leaders, community leaders and state legislators.
Research shows keeping firearms out of reach of children can save lives. One study published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2019 estimated that a “modest increase” in the number of homes that store firearms safely could prevent up to 32 percent of youth suicides.
Contrary to what people often believe, many suicides can be averted if there’s a delay between the decision and the act, research has shown. A growing body of studies done worldwide has found that many suicide attempts are not planned, but instead are decisions hastily made in the midst of a crisis that became more deadly depending on the means at hand.
Seven in 10 Americans (72 percent) support laws that require a person to lock up the guns in their home when not in use, according to a national survey released last year by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
“The most quintessential safe and secure storage is a gun being unloaded, locked in a gun safe or lockbox, and the ammunition is stored separately,” Cassandra Crifasi, the center’s co-director, said in a statement released with the survey results.
The N.C. Child Fatality Task Force has been recommending a firearm storage initiative to lawmakers for five years; they finally had partial success last year.
Lawmakers approved a two-year firearm safe storage education initiative as part of a new law that also ended the pistol permitting requirement and expanded the ability to carry a concealed weapon in some situations. However, no funding for the education initiative was included in Senate Bill 41, which became law after legislators overrode the governor’s veto.
Initially, funding left over in the state budget helped launch NC S.A.F.E., a program that encourages gun owners to “secure all firearms effectively.”
Spreading the message
Community outreach, including public service announcements and social media campaigns, has been an important part of NC S.A.F.E.’s efforts, according to William Lassiter, deputy secretary for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention at the state Department of Public Safety.
In the past six months, the program has touched more than 1.6 million people with some type of media engagement, he told the task force committee last month.
Some of that outreach includes partnering with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission for events, such as the annual Youth Hunter Education Skills Tournament in Ellerbe in April, according to a September report to the General Assembly on the program’s first year. The wildlife commission also puts up NC S.A.F.E. educational flyers at its shooting ranges across the state and gives out gun locks at events.
“People are getting the messaging across the state of North Carolina,” Lassiter said. “Ongoing support for the campaign and sustaining it is a big part of what we’re trying to do in this second phase of the campaign — and making sure that we have the resources going forward.”
One of the key messages this year has been to encourage people to lock up firearms in vehicles and to make sure vehicles are also locked, Lassiter said. In Durham County, studies have shown that 60 percent of the guns stolen from vehicles were taken from unlocked vehicles, he said.
Guns are being taken from vehicles at large events, such as sporting events, where people use parking garages, he said. Part of the campaign this year has been to put up messaging in parking decks to remind people to safely store their firearms, Lassiter said.
Progress needed against veteran suicide
Another area of focus in 2024 has been suicide prevention, especially with military veterans. Lassiter said that most veterans who die by suicide use a gun.
North Carolina’s rate of veteran suicides is lower than the rates for other southeastern states and the nation overall, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
However, veteran suicides in the state outpace the rate of suicides in the general population. VA data from 2021 shows the suicide rate for North Carolina veterans is 29.2 per 100,000; the rate for the general population is 16.2 per 100,000.
Guns are also used in more veteran suicides in the state compared with overall suicides nationally. They were used in 54.9 percent of all suicides nationwide in 2021. By comparison, guns were used in 73.9 percent of North Carolina’s veteran suicides that year.
Wake County recently launched a new program called Lock. Call. Live. that encourages veterans to secure their firearms, call someone for help when they are struggling, and “Live to see another day and move forward, one step at a time.”
More than half of veteran gun owners do not store all their guns securely, according to the program, which is part of the county’s veteran services division.
According to the Wake County program, veterans are at 72 percent higher risk of suicide than those who haven’t served.
Help for veterans
Call or text: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Call the Veterans Crisis Line: 800-273-8255 (Press 1)
Spotlight on schools
More than 85 guns were taken from children in North Carolina’s schools last year, Lassiter said.
“When that happens, typically those guns come from their own home,” he said. “They’re not buying them off the street. They’re not getting them (from) somebody else. They’re actually just taking them from their own house.”
A 2021 survey showed that 42 percent of North Carolina adults have a gun in or around their home, nearly half of firearms are stored loaded, and a quarter are stored unlocked and loaded.
About 32 percent of middle school students and 29.5 percent of high school students have said they can get their hands on a loaded gun in less than an hour without a parent or other adult’s permission, according to the last two North Carolina Youth Risk Behavior Surveys.
Lassiter said a new program called NC S.A.F.E. for Schools launching this month focuses on encouraging parents who are gun owners to safely store their firearms away from their school-aged children. The new program also aims to normalize the “safe firearm storage” conversation among parents.
It includes information that can be sent home with students, put in newsletters and shared on social media. They also have testimonial videos of people sharing stories where storing a firearm prevented a tragedy or not storing a firearm led to a tragedy.
Nationally, about 82 percent of youth firearm suicides involved a weapon that belonged to a family member, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And 80 percent of school shooters younger than 18 get a gun from their own home or the home of a relative or friend.
“We want to make sure that parents understand they have a very important responsibility to make sure that their child does not bring that gun to school,” Lassiter said.
Trying again
After state funding ran out, federal support kept NC S.A.F.E. going. Now that money is almost gone.
Lassiter said NC S.A.F.E. needs $2.16 million in recurring funding. Some of that would cover the salary of someone to run the program.
“But most of those dollars would be spent on actual resources to go out into the local community and to continue the public awareness campaign that we’ve been doing across the state,” he said.
The full task force voted Nov. 13 to address two issues related to firearm safety and children.
Members agreed to support legislation that would amend an existing law to expand the scope of liability when a minor accesses an improperly stored weapon. As it stands, the law only holds someone accountable if the gun owner “resides in the same premises as a minor.” Task force members have discussed in previous meetings how that limitation has stymied investigations, for example, if a child was injured or killed after getting a gun that was left unattended in a vehicle.
The task force also agreed to support what Lassiter said is needed in recurring funds for the NC S.A.F.E. campaign.
Similar recommendations were included in the Child Fatality Task Force’s 2024 action agenda, but they have not been addressed by the General Assembly this session.
Both issues will be included in the group’s 2025 action agenda, which will be presented to the General Assembly ahead of its session next year.
“We cannot let this be a stalemate,” task force member Martha Sue Hall said about NC S.A.F.E. funding at last month’s committee meeting. “We’ve done the homework. It needs to be funded.”
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