Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
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Federal Gun Laws Childproof Handguns
Overview
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POSITION: The Brady Campaign supports making all newly manufactured or imported handguns “childproof.” Childproof handguns can be designed so they can be fired only by their owner or someone authorized by the owner.

PROBLEM: Handguns can be fired by anyone who picks one up, including children and teenagers. Technology has been applied to other consumer products to restrict use to the authorized owner, like a password used to protect a laptop computer or the lock on a briefcase, but not to handguns.

There is no federal law to require childproof handguns. Only one state, New Jersey, has passed a law to require childproof handguns when the technology becomes available on the retail market.

THREAT: Every year, too many people are injured or killed by the unauthorized use of handguns. Curious tweens unintentionally shoot their best friend playing with a handgun. Teens going through a crisis act on impulse and kill themselves with their parent’s or a relative’s handgun. Criminals steal guns and shoot people with them.

URGENCY: We must act now to prevent gun deaths and injuries caused by the unauthorized use of handguns. Every year, it is estimated that 2,200 children and teens are injured or killed by a handgun in an unintentional shooting or a suicide attempt. In addition, approximately 170,000 handguns are stolen each year from private citizens and businesses.

SOLUTION: Congress must pass legislation requiring all newly manufactured or imported handguns to be made childproof. In the short-term, more states must pass legislation to put pressure on Congress to act.

GET ACTIVE: Contact your Representative and Senators to urge them to introduce legislation that would "childproof" handguns to keep our children safe. To review your state gun laws, click here.

Frequently Asked Questions
What are “childproof handguns”?

POSITION: The Brady Campaign supports making all newly manufactured or imported handguns “childproof.” Childproof handguns can be fired only by their owner or someone authorized by the owner.

Q. What are “childproof handguns”?

A. Childproof handguns can only be fired by their owner or someone authorized by the owner. If handguns are not made childproof, they can be fired by anyone who picks one up, including children and teenagers. (Please note: childproof guns are also referred to as smart guns, personalized guns, and owner-authorized guns.)

Technology has been applied to other consumer products to restrict use to the authorized owner, like a password used to protect a laptop computer or a lock on a briefcase. No such technology has been applied to handguns to prevent unauthorized use, even though handguns cause serious, often lethal, injuries.

Gun manufacturers can make handguns childproof by integrating a mechanical or biometric lock into the handgun’s design. An internal mechanical lock works like the lock on a briefcase. The owner punches in a code and the lock releases, allowing the owner to open the briefcase. Biometric locks release when the fingerprint or hand-grip of the owner/authorized individual is read by the lock’s scanner. Biometric locks are more secure than mechanical locks.

Childproof handguns could be designed so that only licensed dealers have the technology to make the handgun usable by the original buyer and by additional users. When an additional user is added or the gun is sold or transferred the original, the legal buyer would take the handgun to a dealer who would conduct a background check to insure that the new user is not on the list of prohibited persons. This use of the technology would give law enforcement a new tool to help keep guns away from people not eligible to own a gun, like felons (Cook, p. 39), while providing no impediment to someone legally allowed to own a gun.

Q. Why should childproof handgun technology be required on all new handguns?

A. Childproof handgun technology should be required on all new handguns because too many people are injured and die every year in unintentional injuries, suicide attempts, and assaults because of the unauthorized use of handguns.

Every year, it is estimated that 2,200 children and teens are injured or killed by a handgun in an unintentional shooting or a suicide attempt (Brady Center, 2009). Children and teens younger than 18 are not allowed to own or possess handguns under any circumstances and so are defacto unauthorized users. In addition, approximately 170,000 handguns are stolen each year from homes and businesses (Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, p. 6), and many of these stolen guns are used in violent crime. If the handguns stolen were equipped with childproof technology, criminals would not be able to use the stolen guns.

Q. Would childproof handguns prevent unintentional shootings and suicide attempts by young people?

A. Every year, it is estimated that 2,200 children and teens are injured or killed by a handgun in an unintentional shooting or a suicide attempt (Brady Center, 2009).

Many handguns in homes are stored unlocked and loaded. As a result, children, teenagers and other unauthorized users are put at risk. A study of firearm suicides among youths ages 17 and under occurring over a two-year period in four states and two counties found that 82% used a firearm belonging to a family member, usually a parent. When storage status was noted, about two-thirds of the firearms had been stored unlocked (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, p. 2).

Twenty-two million (34 percent) of U.S. children live in homes with firearms (Schuster, p. 589). Forty-three percent of these households have at least one unlocked firearm (Schuster, p. 590). Thirteen percent, or 1.1 million homes housing 2.6 million children, keep their guns both unlocked and loaded or unlocked and stored with ammunition (Schuster, p. 590). Similarly, 12 percent of handgun owners with children in their homes store a gun both loaded and unlocked (Senturia, p. 267).

Parents sometimes underestimate their children's experience handling guns at home. A 2006 study showed that with gun-owning parents who reported that their children had never handled their firearms at home, 22% of the children, questioned separately, said that they had (Baxley, p. 542). In unintentional shooting deaths in which the victim was shot by another person, almost half the time, the victim was shot by a family member, frequently the brother (Hemenway, 2010). Also, wives are about 12 percent less likely to report a gun in the home than their husbands, raising the possibility that wives may be unaware that there is a gun in their home (Ludwig, p. 1717).

Q. Would childproof handguns help prevent crimes, including school shootings?

A. A main source of crime guns is new handguns purchased over-the-counter and trafficked into the hands of youth and criminals. New handguns equipped with childproof technology cannot be turned “on” by an unauthorized user and therefore are useless to gun traffickers.

It is estimated that 170,000 guns are stolen on average every year from homes, cars, and businesses, based on reports to the FBI Stolen Gun File (Americans for Gun Safety, p.6). Handguns only able to be fired by their lawful owner would be useless if stolen.

Likewise, handguns in the home with childproof technology would not be available to suicidal teens bent on committing homicide before killing themselves.

Q. Is there popular support for legislation to make handguns childproof?

A. Yes, the vast majority of Americans (86%) favor legislation requiring childproofing of all new handguns, including 76% of gun owners (Johns Hopkins, p. 1).

Q. What can I do?

A. Contact your Representative and Senators to urge them to introduce legislation that would "childproof" handguns to keep our children safe. To review your state's gun laws, click here.

Sources

Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, Stolen Firearms: Arming the Enemy, December 2002.

Baxley F, Miller M. “Parental misperceptions about children and firearms,” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 160(5)(2006):542-7.

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, calculations based on data from the National Violent Death Reporting System and the National Center for Health statistics, 2005 and 2006, on file with the Brady Center.

Cook, Philip J. and James Leitzel, “Smart” Guns: A Technological Fix for Regulating the Secondary Market, Contemporary Economic Policy, 20(1) (2002):38-49

Hemenway, David, et al, “Unintentional Firearm Deaths: A Comparison of Other-Inflicted and Self-Inflicted Shootings,” Accident Analysis and Prevention 42(2010): 1184-1188

Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research (JHCGPR), Fall 1999 National Gun Policy Survey: Summary of the Findings, May 2000

Ludwig, J., Cook, PJ., and Smith, TW, “The Gender Gap in Reporting Household Gun Ownership,” American Journal of Public Health 88 (11) (November 1998): 1715-1718.

Schuster, M., et al, “Firearms Storage Patterns in US Homes With Children,” American Journal of Public Health, 90(4)(April 2000):588-594

Senturia, Y.D., K. K. Christoffel, and M. Donovan, “Gun storage patterns in US homes with children: A pediatric practice-based survey,” Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine150(1996):265-69

Suicide Prevention Resource Center, “Youth Suicide: Findings from a Pilot for the National Violent Death Reporting System,” NVISS Fact Sheet: Linking Data to Save Lives, accessed at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/youth-access/index.html.
Studies and Reports