The Public Health Case for the Safe Storage of Firearms: Adolescent Suicides Add One More Smoking Gun

In this article, Professor McClurg makes the case for mandatory safe gun storage laws as a means of reducing adolescent suicides. He has argued in other articles in favor of safe storage as a means of reducing accidental shootings and criminal misuse of stolen guns. The article begins by analyzing firearms suicides in the U.S., which McClurg calls "the forgotten statistic in the gun control debate." He reviews numerous studies establishing a nexus between guns and suicide, particularly between guns in the home and adolescent suicide. He then examines ten different studies showing that large percentages of American gun owners engage in unsafe firearm storage practices.

He concludes by calling for the passage of safe storage laws similar to those enacted in Australia and Canada as a way to reduce gun tragedies of all types-especially adolescent suicides--resulting from unauthorized users gaining access to unsecured guns.