1. What is Project ChildSafe?
Project ChildSafe is a nationwide program whose purpose is to promote
safe firearms handling and storage practices among all firearms
owners through the distribution of key safety education messages
and free gun locking devices (firearms safety kits). The program
is supported by a U.S. Department of Justice grant (DOJ), the National
Shooting Sports Foundation, and is a component of Project Safe Neighborhoods.
2. What is the National Shooting Sports Foundation?
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, with over 2,500 members,
is the shooting sports industry’s largest and most diverse
trade association. Formed in 1961, the NSSF manages a variety of
outreach programs with a special emphasis on efforts to promote
firearm safety education to all gun owners.
3. What is the goal of Project ChildSafe?
Firearms accidents in the home can result from an unauthorized
individual, often a child, finding a loaded and unsecured firearm
in the home. The risk of firearms-related unintentional injuries
or deaths can be reduced when firearms owners are aware of and fully
understand their responsibility to handle firearms safely and store
them in a secure manner. The goal of Project ChildSafe is to inform
and educate all firearms owners on key safety issues and to provide
firearms safety kits that include a gun locking device.
4. What is the difference between Project ChildSafe and Project
HomeSafe?
Project HomeSafe was developed by the National Shooting Sports
Foundation to provide key firearms safety education messages to
non-traditional firearms owners. Project ChildSafe, with an increased
emphasis on preventing children from accessing a loaded firearm
in the home, is an expansion of the Project HomeSafe program.
5. What is Project Safe Neighborhoods and why is Project ChildSafe
a component of that program?
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a comprehensive, strategic approach
to reducing gun violence in America. The present Administration,
through the U.S. Department of Justice, is providing the resources
necessary for Project Safe Neighborhoods to be successful in reducing
gun violence in local communities and is funding a number of programs
that target gun crime. Project ChildSafe is a nationwide firearms
safety education outreach program that complements these efforts
to reduce gun violence by providing a prevention component that
encourages safe handling and proper storage of firearms in the home.
6. What is NSSF’s role in Project ChildSafe?
NSSF was appointed by DOJ to administer Project ChildSafe because
of NSSF’s experience and expertise in providing gun locks
and safety education messages to firearms owners nationwide through
the Project HomeSafe program. NSSF supplies safety kits, which include
a gun lock and accompanying educational material on firearm safety,
to its program partners and provides additional support and media
outreach materials.
7. Who are Project ChildSafe partners?
Project ChildSafe establishes partnerships with governors, lieutenant
governors, U.S. Attorneys, community leaders and law enforcement
agencies to allow for efficient statewide distribution of firearm
safety kits through Safety Tours in all states.
8. What is the Project ChildSafe Safety Tour?
Project ChildSafe’s outreach effort is supported by Project
ChildSafe educational trucks that make scheduled stops in communities
throughout a state to distribute that state’s allotment of
locks. Safety Tour coordinators, often with the help of local law
enforcement partners, distribute firearms safety kits and answer
questions about firearms safety.
9. What kind of locks are being distributed by Project ChildSafe?
The gun locking device distributed in the Project ChildSafe program
is a cable-style gun lock that meets the California AB106 standard.
Cable locks require that many types of firearms be unloaded before
the cable lock is installed, providing an extra level of safety.
10. Is the Safety Tour the only way to get a safety kit?
Safety kits are left with law enforcement partners following Safety
Tour visits. Safety kits are also distributed to law enforcement
agencies in communities that are not visited by the Safety Tour.
If a local law enforcement agency does not have safety kits available
for residents who request them, that agency may contact their Governor's
office to receive a supply.
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