Talk to Your Patients About Secure Storage
Health care professionals should engage collaboratively with patients and their families to help prevent gun injuries and deaths. Lethal means safety counseling is a patient-centered health care intervention that can be used to help prevent suicides, homicides, unintentional gun deaths, and nonfatal gun injuries.
to request clinician training on secure storage for your office.
We offer FREE training, lock boxes, and resource materials about secure storage of firearms.
Provided for free by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and designed to support health professionals help families take steps towards safer storage.
Did you know?
A 2025 Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey (MIYHS) revealed that nearly 13% of Maine high school students considered suicide in the past 12 months, and 5.6% attempted suicide at least once in the past 12 months.
By The Numbers
Why use secure firearm storage to protect younger children?
Children may not know the difference between a toy gun and a real gun.
A 3-year-old is strong enough to pull the trigger of a handgun.
Playing with a firearm is the most common cause of accidental death among children.
Why use secure firearm storage to protect teens and adolescents?
Ten times as many teens are committing suicide with firearms as small children who die by firearm unintentionally.
Most teens who attempt suicide do not have a mental health diagnosis and attempt within an hour of a crisis.
Almost all cases of youth firearm suicide involve a family member’s unlocked firearm.
Most school shootings are done by teenagers, with unlocked firearms they acquired at home.
Responsible gun owners lock up their firearms.