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“6 keys to safe storage of firearms, from the experts” —The Conversation, 6 keys to safe storage of firearms, from the experts, oregonlive, (last visited Mar. 10, 2024) came across my feeds. I didn’t expect much, but I went to read, just to have some fodder for the blog.

The first step is to identify the “experts”. The link to “experts” takes us to a single associate professor with a Ph.D. in Public Administration. Her dissertation was Assessing the Role and Impact of Public Policy on Child and Family Violence..

Her undergraduate degree was in Sociology.

So soft science. She may or may not have any real statistical background. She is a pure academic, never having worked outside the education industry.

Jennifer Dineen is also referenced, but her links at University of Connecticut have gone 404. She was a co-author on a paper about how ShotSpotter technology impacts homicides and arrests in cities.

The take-a-way from that paper: Results suggest that implementing ShotSpotter technology has no significant impact on firearm-related homicides or arrest outcomes. Policy solutions may represent a more cost-effective measure to reduce urban firearm violence.

Gee, ShotSpotter doesn’t work. Who’d have guessed?

And when they talk about “policy solutions”, of course they mean disarming The People, in some way or another.

Both worked for UConn in the “Advancing Research, Methods, and Scholarship in Gun Injury Prevention”, or ARMS.

First, once you are past the opening paragraph, everything is about “gun violence”. From this, we can tell it is a biased site.

Their call to action lists three items. All designed to scare. “In 2022, approximately 56% of all gun-related deaths were suicides.”, “Firearm related injury is now the leading cause of death among children and teens.”, and “In 2022, the CDC reported that nearly 41,000 people were killed by guns.”

Ok, that means that only 22,960 people were victims of homicide. We don’t know how many of those were justifiable.

At least they made the “#1” truthful by including “teens” in the statement. Still, it is very misleading. We consider teens to be those under 18 years of age. The uncited study they reference includes all the gang bangers shooting each other up in Democrat controlled cities.

It bugs me that so many of these articles are hidden behind pay walls. I can’t read the article.

So what we have is a single article published by a couple of sociology profs in an anti-gun group within an anti-gun university within an anti-gun state.

I wonder if anybody talked to people that actually use, store, and work with firearms.

The 6 keys

1, safely store all your firearms.

I’m sorry, do you redundant much? This is supposed to be 6 keys to safely store your firearms. Your first key is “safely store your firearms”.

2, don’t assume you can hide your guns.

I agree, 100%. Hiding your guns from your children is an exercise in futility. Maybe even fatal. Never depend on hiding, obscuring, or placing “out of reach”. It is not a good gamble.

3, Store ammunition separately.

Not just store, but keep it locked up. While I don’t have that many rounds of ammunition, each caliber takes up at least one 30cal ammo can. That increases the bulk of the ammo significantly. I can’t afford safe storage for all the ammo and reloading supplies.

When I was in Maryland, they demanded that guns and ammunition be stored in separate rooms, both locked. For my safety, and the safety of my children.

If you were to pour lead into the barrels of all of your firearms, it would reduce the risk of accidentally shooting yourself or somebody else with your firearms. Unfortunately, it would take a fair bit of time to ready your firearm for use in a defensive situation.

We treat every firearm as if it is loaded. Every so often, it is the case that the arm in question is ready to do the boom boom dance.

4, learn to talk about firearm safety.

They list three different sites that tell you how to talk about firearms safety. Not a single one of those sites mentions the four rules of gun safety. NOT ONE.

What they are interested in, is ostracizing people that own guns.

For their sources of “experts” on talking about firearm safety? BeSMART, which is another Everytown front.

Then there is End Family Fire, which has this paragraph, front and center:

They recommend storing your firearm unloaded, locked, with the ammunition secured in a separate location.

They list as options for “safe storage” as “cable and trigger locks” without bothering to mention that most FFLs will give you a cable lock for free and that all new firearm purchases are required to come some sort of lock. Then the talk about “lock boxes and carrying cases”, “gun saves and cabinets”.

But the big one is “off-site storage”.

It doesn’t look like they have any actual information. Their “learn more” links are not links.

Of course, it comes from “Brady” so you know just how good it is.

The final group with information about safe storage is Sandy Hook Promise, which says we need the government to mandate storage laws.

What Orwellian garbage. You don’t “empower” people by removing their choices. You don’t “empower” people by forcing them to store their firearms the way you want them to be stored.

This is just garbage.

5, know the law.

Here is a good way to store your firearms. Know that 27 states have standards for securing your firearms.

How does knowing that I might live as a subject and not a citizen tell me how to store my firearms safely?

6, invest in a quality safe and/or locking device.

Hey, did you know that you can by a quality safe for just $65? And gun locks are $55-$75?

I have storage devices. If I was needed a safe today, it would be huge.

Conclusions

These people are not serious about gun safety. As we have pointed out many times, these people do not teach gun safety, they do not provide classes, they don’t teach the four rules of gun safety.

If they did, they might be able to claim some type of gun safety record. As it is, this article, this media outlet, and these authors are just shills attempting to drive traffic to the usual suspects.