The Biden administration on Thursday announced a set of executive actions to promote safe gun storage, with the hopes of reducing gun violence, asking both the Education Department and the Justice Department to share gun storage safety information with families and stakeholders.
Top White House officials, including First Lady Jill Biden, will also meet with school principals from across the country on Thursday to emphasize their roles in safety.
"My job as an educator, first and foremost, is to keep communities and children safe. So for me, it made sense that we can and should communicate with parents about safe storage of firearms," said Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Martin on a call previewing the announcement. "It’s not the whole picture of student safety, but it’s a crucial component that every education leader can use their trusted voices to elevate this issue to parents and to communities."
The Department of Education will send letters to school principals across the country explaining the importance of safe gun storage, and asking them to talk with their communities about safe storage. The Education Department will also create a communication template that school leaders can use to reach out to parents and families about safe gun storage.
The Department of Justice will also release an educational guide on safe gun storage, giving explanations on options that either prevent a person from easily getting to guns and ammunition, like safes, cases and lock boxes, or methods that disable firing mechanisms, like trigger locks, cable locks, or dismantling a gun entirely.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stephanie Feldman will also join the First Lady in Thursday’s town hall, which will be livestreamed on the White House's social media channels.
Gun violence has become the leading cause of death among American children — more than cars, more than cancer, more than suffocation, poisoning or drowning, officials said. And, according to federal data, guns belonging to family members or obtained from the home are used in the majority of child firearm deaths, including school shootings, deaths by suicide or unintentional shootings.
Thursday’s announcement follows both a series of gun safety initiatives by President Joe Biden’s administration and actions taken by states to promote safe gun storage.
Last year, the Department of Justice announced as part of its $3 million STOP School Violence grant program that schools could apply to promote safe storage awareness. A separate DOJ program made grant funding available for law enforcement agencies to distribute gun locks and storage devices.
In February, a pair of new safe storage laws in Michigan will go into effect requiring gun owners to choose from a variety of options to properly store and lock their firearms in some manner of container when they reasonably know a minor is likely to be present on the property — whether their own property, or someone else’s.
And this month, a new gun storage bill sponsored by California State Sen. Anthony Portantino is winding through the legislature’s upper chamber. This bill, his office said, builds on his previous storage legislation by requiring that firearms must both be stored in only a Department of Justice-approved lock box or safe. Portantino’s SB 53 has passed two California Senate committees and has been ordered to a third reading, followed by a floor vote.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., last year introduced a federal bill, S. 173 — otherwise known as Ethan’s Law — that would create federal requirements for safe gun storage. The bill is named for Ethan Song, a Connecticut teenager who was killed by a gun improperly stored in a neighbor’s home, in a Tupperware container alongside ammunition and keys to the gun’s lock, in 2018.
Senior administration officials told reporters on a call previewing the announcement that this executive order seeks to promote safe storage and provide models for safe storage legislation while the White House urges Congress to pass federal laws.
"We know that most gun owners are responsible and most gun owners don’t want their guns to be stolen, don’t want a toddler to accidentally pick up their gun don't want their children who might be experiencing depression or suicidal ideation to kill themselves using a gun," an official said. "So I actually have found in my conversations with gun owners across the country, that the vast majority of gun owners gun owners support safe storage of firearms."
The administration’s goal, officials said, is to impress awareness for safe gun storage and to encourage local officials to take advantage of grant programs. "But lastly, if someone doesn’t make that choice, then there is accountability," officials said, through legislation.
"I know that there are some parents who wake up every day, drop their kids off for school. And while they're watching their kids walk through that door, there's just a little part of them that worries about gun violence during the school day," Feldman told reporters.
The White House, she said, will fight for gun safety legislation and take executive action, before adding that parents can take action themselves today: "Make sure any firearms in their homes are safely stored, and make sure other parents are doing the same."