Supervision

• There are many situations in which firearms might be accessible to a child. If you have a firearm your home, at some point your children will be home without an adult present and have unsupervised access to your gun.
  
  Even if you don't have a firearm in your home, your children might be in someone else's home without direct adult supervision and have access to an unsecured gun. Parents must be aware of situations in which their children will have unsupervised access to loaded firearms.
  
  

Education

• Parents have the primary responsibility to teach their children how to be safe when they find an unsecured firearm. Parents make it a point teach their children not to cross a street without looking both ways, or not to get into cars with strangers.
  
  The same approach can be used for gun safety. Parents must teach their children not to touch a gun if they find one. They must be taught to immediately find a responsible adult to tell about the unsecured firearm.
  
  

False Safety

• Trigger locks are designed to fit around the trigger guard and prevent access to the trigger of a gun. When installed properly, trigger locks keep the weapon from being fired, but do not by themselves prevent access to the gun.
  
  Trigger locks are mechanical devices that can be defeated with some ingenuity and a little time. Parent who install trigger locks without securing access to their guns might have a false sense of safety. Most teenagers can defeat trigger locks if they try hard enough.
  
  

Safe Storage

• Securing your firearms in a solid gun safe or gun storage cabinet is an important step in firearms safety. Gun cabinets with glass doors might be decorative and appealing, but they do not provide secure storage of firearms. The glass can easily be broken providing access to your entire gun collection.
  
  Even if your guns are locked in a gun safe or storage cabinet, access to the key or lock combination must be restricted from children and teenagers.
  
  

Hidden

• Some gun owners believe they can put their weapons away in some secret place, and the children will not be able to find them. Children like to explore around the house when parents are not home, trying to find the intriguing things that mom and dad have hidden away.
  
  Attempts to keep firearms from children by hiding them somewhere in the house gives parents a false sense of safety. The chance always exists that a child will find the gun and the ammunition.