We've written extensively about the organizations and individuals who are leading the charge on providing gun owners with an option to voluntary store their firearms at a local gun shop when they need to temporarily remove their collection from their home. The idea, pioneered by groups like Hold My Guns and the Wisconsin Gun Shop Project, has started to catch on across the country, though it's still meeting with resistance from some anti-gun politicians and activists who would rather see state-level interventions using the criminal justice system: "red flag" or Extreme Risk Protection Order laws.
As Hold My Guns notes on its website, "secure offsite firearms storage promotes responsible gun ownership and protects your Second Amendment rights. By preventing unauthorized access, accidental discharges, and theft, we help ensure that firearms remain in the hands of lawful owners." Firearms can be temporarily stored at participating gun stores for any reason; from concerns over a family member's mental health to an extended trip away from home.
This harm reduction strategy is certainly less intrusive and more responsive to our constitutional rights than Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which allow for guns to be seized by police without the gun owner participating in an initial hearing. And according to new research from the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center (hardly a bastion of pro-Second Amendment sentiment), many gun owners support the idea... especially if law enforcement isn't involved.
Researchers surveyed 3,018 U.S. adults living in households with firearms through an online survey. The respondents were asked who lived in a home with a firearm and their willingness to temporarily store their firearms with either firearm retailers or law enforcement.
The findings, appearing inJAMA Network Open, illustrate that firearm owners and their family members were willing to store with retailers. Thirty-four percent of the respondents said they were willing to store their firearms with law enforcement agencies.
"Our findings show that firearm owners are more willing to temporarily store their firearms with retailers and law enforcement when they're concerned about protecting others in their household rather than themselves, but are also concerned about leaving the home unprotected," said Jennifer Paruk, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.
While 34 percent of survey respondents felt comfortable leaving their guns with law enforcement for a short period of time, 41 percent of gun owners were willing to store their firearms with retailers.
That's a good start, but the fact that most gun owners aren't comfortable with off-site storage shows there's a still a lot of work to be done.
The most common objection to temporary off-site storage was the concern that guns would be lost or damaged. More than a third of those who say they were unwilling to consider off-site storage cited that as their biggest sticking point. Cost was another big concern, though many gun shops don't charge a penny for the service, and those that do tend to ask for a nominal fee. Proximity to the retailer also mattered, but more gun owners expressed concern that their home would be "unprotected during an emergency" if they temporarily removed their guns from their home.
That's a valid concern. I'd just say that temporary off-site storage isn't something that's done for no good reason, and some gun owners may be presented with a situation where they're more concerned about a firearm's availability to someone in the home than the absence of one... at least while an individual is in crisis.
Removing firearms alone won't solve the problem, of course. Someone willing to hurt themselves or others can always find another object to use, even if the firearms have been relocated temporarily to a gun store. On a short term, emergency basis, though, I believe that voluntary off-site storage can save lives.
I've thought about temporarily removing my own collection from my home twice in the past couple of years; first when my oldest son died in 2022 and again when my wife passed away in January of this year. I wasn't concerned about my own mental health, but I was worried about how my kids (and in the case of my son's death) and spouse were processing their own grief.
After a lot of open conversation between myself and my family, I felt comfortable leaving my guns where they were. Had I determined that one of my loved ones was at risk of hurting themselves, though, I wouldn't have hesitated to ask a friend to keep my collection while I was getting my family member the help they needed.
Unfortunately, there aren't any gun shops offering off-site storage where I live, so I would have had to rely on one of my buddies if I felt the need. While I'm grateful that I have friends I can count on to hold my guns if necessary, that option is not available to everyone, which is why its important to increase the number of FFLs who are willing to serve as a short-term storage facility for those in need. Voluntary off-site storage is a much better alternative to "red flag" laws, in my opinion, but it's up to us as gun owners and Second Amendment supporters to make it a viable option in as many places as possible.
