A new study found 43% of American gun owners keep their firearms loaded and half of the people who keep their guns loaded do not keep the loaded weapons stored securely, an extreme danger particularly that leads to children’s deaths, ABC News reports. The leading cause of death in children under the age of 19 is weapons, with accidental shootings and suicides as two of the largest subsegments.
In the Center for Disease Control and Prevention study, households in eight states were questioned for the study: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma. Safe storage practices varied across the country, but households in North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Nevada had the highest rates of unsafe gun storage.