Safe Storage Saves Lives... but Only if We Talk about It
A survivor's journey to creating a creative, comprehensive safe storage resource
By: Ashbey Beasley
On a Friday in early February, three-year-old Kayden Swinnely unintentionally shot himself with an unsecured weapon that had been left unattended by a teenager. Greenville Police Chief Ted Sauls was quoted in the press saying that the investigation is ongoing, but the shooting will likely be labeled as an accident and no charges will be filed.
This infuriates most people who do not know that we don’t have a federal safe gun storage law that requires people to keep their guns inaccessible to kids — because it’s inconceivable that leaving a gun accessible to a child that results in an injury or a death is not a crime.
It should be when you consider that right now, an estimated 4.6 million children live in a home with an unsecured and loaded weapon. 76% of school shooters get their guns from home. A staggering 80% of suicides by children involved a gun belonging to a family member. And 76% of unintentional shootings like Jayden’s are committed with unsecured guns from the home. And yet there is no accountability for the adults who do not secure their weapons responsibly.
In January, Vice President Harris, in a joint effort with the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and the U.S. Department of Education, hosted a town hall with parents, students, and principals from around the country where we discussed the urgency of sharing safe gun storage awareness.
Following the town hall, a letter about safe storage was sent to every principal in the country.
Two weeks later, a group of social media influencers began calling on parents to email their school principals asking them as community leaders to share safe gun storage awareness via tools and reports compiled by the Department of Education and Department of Justice.
I began to create content, and immediately knew I wanted the action to be seamless.
These conversations are hard, and it can be intimidating to craft a message as important as this one. I’ve sat before a blank screen vexed by a blinking cursor searching for the right words too many times.
So I built a site called www.safestoragesaveslives.com.
With three clicks, anyone can send their school principal an email asking them to lead a community discussion about safe gun storage. The email includes information from the Department of Education and Department of Justice, a link to watch the town hall, and a template principals can use to send safe gun storage messaging to their community.
The email is nearly identical to the one I sent my own principal and district superintendent. A week later, our superintendent sent an email about safe gun storage to every family in the district.Â
The site includes all of these materials as well as graphics and a video demonstrating the safe storage options from the DOJ report.
While we work towards passing federal safe storage legislation, called Ethan’s Law, we can and should be talking about safe gun storage with our family, friends, and our community leaders because safe storage saves lives, but only if we talk about it.
Ashbey Beasley (Photo courtesy of author)
Ashbey Beasley is a mass shooting survivor and gun violence prevention advocate from Highland Park, IL. She is the founder of Hometown Advocacy and Safe Storage Saves Lives, two online resources that help people take action to end gun violence.
Image via U.S. Department of Justice.