Nearly 7 million kids live in a home where guns aren’t securely stored, study finds
The survey included nearly 900 Americans who own guns and have kids under age 18.
Guns are the leading cause of death for children in the United States, and a new Northeastern University study finds at least 6.7 million American kids live in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded firearm.
The study also finds that parents tend to store their firearms more securely when there are pre-teenaged children in their home than when children are older, despite teenagers being more at risk of death from firearms. The fatality rate from firearms among children ages 12 to 17 is 7.5 per 100,000 while it is 0.6 for children ages 11 and younger, according to KFF, an independent source for health policy research, polling and news.
“Guns are easier to access for kids who are moving into the age group where they’re much more at risk for using a gun to hurt themselves or others,” said Matthew Miller, university distinguished professor of health sciences and epidemiology and public health and health sciences and the lead author of the study. “It’s moving in a perverse direction.”
The Second Amendment of the US Constitution states that “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This has been interpreted by many as meaning that the individual has a right to possess guns with few limitations.
The Institute for Legislative Action, the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association that bills itself as “the gold standard for safe firearm training,” underscores its commitment to “preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes” as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The NRA, which claims to have millions of supporting members, did not respond to a request for comment on the Northeastern study’s findings.
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Firearms have been the leading cause of death for American children under 17 since 2020, according to KFF, when the pandemic also resulted in a surge of gun ownership, according to data provided by the Gun Violence Data Hub from the nonprofit news site The Trace. Miller said that the proportion of American homes with children and guns went from 35% in 2019 to 40% in 2021 and has stayed at that level through the most recent survey in December 2024.
This poses a problem because research has consistently shown that the presence of a gun in a home has been correlated with an increased risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance, an increased risk of child and adolescent suicide, accidental death of an adult, and accidental death of children.
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Storing a gun safely by keeping it locked and unloaded can mitigate but not eliminate the risk, studies have found. There is no federal law governing the proper storage of firearms, and state laws vary on their requirements.
James Alan Fox, a research professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern, said he supports the safe storage of firearms, and he cited the risk to household members who live in a home with a gun.
Fox, who presides over the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database, the longest-running and most extensive data source on the subject, said he understands that people will argue that a locked and unloaded gun could be less accessible in an emergency situation.
But Fox said that “there are some real benefits” to safe storage, as the gun in the wrong hands can lead to violence or death to someone in the household and – even in some cases – a mass shooting event.
“According to surveys of school shooters, nearly half got their gun by taking it from a relative, usually without permission,” Fox said. “Safe storage obviously can make a difference.”
The recent survey, which included fewer than 900 parents in the U.S. who own guns and have kids under the age of 18, was the latest in a series of such surveys over the past 20 years from Miller and colleagues.
“We’re giving a summary of the exposure of kids under the age of 18 to guns in their home and how those guns are stored,” Miller said.
Researchers found that almost 35% of respondents — just over a third — said they stored them locked away and unloaded. But 21% — or roughly 1 in 5 — had at least one firearm in the house that was unlocked and loaded, according to the survey.
The new number of children exposed to an unsecured firearm — 6.7 million children — is up from the number the researchers found in a 2015 survey. In that study, Miller and team found that approximately 4.5 million American children lived in a home with an unlocked and loaded firearm. That increase isn’t due to an increase in this segment of the population, Miller said, noting that the number of children in the United States has stayed around 73 million for the past decade.
He urged better education on the risks of gun ownership and on safe storage practices.
“If you want to protect your kids, the best thing you can do is get the gun out of the home,” Miller said. “The next best thing is to make sure that if you have a gun in your home, they can’t get to it.”
Sarah Peck, director of UnitedOnGuns – a nonpartisan initiative that promotes public health approaches to reduce gun violence, while respecting the rights of responsible gun owners – said that Americans should approach safe firearms storage “with sustained, creative public education.”
UnitedonGuns is an initiative of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law.
“Every gun owner should know the basics of secure storage,” Peck said. “And every family should understand why it matters.”
