Background: Based on the number of unintentional firearm-related injuries and fatalities among children and adolescents, the American Academy of Pediatricians has highlighted the importance of properly storing firearms in homes with young children. In line with these concerns, some states have specific statutes outlining firearm access and storage for families of child and adolescents. Considerable variability exists in these Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws, ranging from suggestive guidelines for storage behaviors to criminal penalties for noncompliance. Different state and neighborhood characteristics such as a culture of firearm acceptance or high crime rate, may condition families’ compliance with these laws. Employing a nationally-representative sample of families of four-year olds (n=8,100), we explored how state-level variation in CAP laws was associated with (1) firearm ownership and (2) storage behaviors among firearm owners. Importantly, we examined how the association between CAP laws and firearm safety behaviors was moderated by broader social contexts.

Methods: We used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort, a nationally-representative sample of children born in 2001. In addition to detailed information on the characteristics of parents and children, parents were asked about various safety behaviors, including whether there was a firearm in the household, and if so, whether the firearm was stored in locked cabinet. We used 2004 state law firearm information from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to construct a CAP law scale, ranging from 0 (no or very weak CAP laws) through 3 (strongest CAP laws). Finally, we included numerous measures of state- and neighborhood-level characteristics that may be associated with the efficacy of firearm laws, such as existing gun culture and safety. We conducted logistic regressions to predict whether parents owned a firearm and, among firearm owners, whether they did not store their firearms in a locked cabinet.

Results: Overall, 13.7% of families with pre-kindergarten age children who lived in states with CAP laws owned firearms, compared to 30.2% of those in states without CAP laws. There was no statistical difference in storage behaviors among firearm owners (approximately a third of firearm-owning families did not store them safely). Controlling for a variety of family characteristics, logistic regressions revealed that the association between CAP laws and firearm safety behaviors is moderated by several state and neighborhood-level factors. First, the negative association between CAP laws and firearm ownership is weakened by higher state firearm ownership and property crime rates and strengthened if the family lives in an urban area. The negative association between CAP laws and keeping an unlocked firearm in the home among firearm owners is weakened by higher state firearm ownership and property crime rates. Perceived neighborhood safety and state-level violent crime rates were not significant moderators.

Conclusion: The association between CAP laws and firearm ownership and safety practices among families with young children is moderated by several key contextual variables, namely, states’ firearm ownership rate, crime rates, and urbanicity. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of laws that target firearm safety behaviors is dependent on the broader social context in which they occur.