2025 Firearm Locks and Safes Distribution Pilot Program

 

The purpose of this pilot program is to assess the effectiveness of safe storage policies by supporting our pilot SAFE medical school chapters as they are responsible for distributing firearm safes and locks to our local communities. In doing so, we can analyze and learn more about how safe storage policies can be improved upon based on evidence-based research.

Our SAFE chapters are responsible for the following:

  • Each chapter must raise $7,500 (based on their own established timeline) to purchase the safes/locks and host community events.

  • Each chapter must provide at least 200 firearm safes/locks by the end of the academic year.

We will measure the success of our program based on the following objectives:

  • The extent to which the SAFE chapter can foster community relationships between medical students and:

    • Faculty, Local Physicians, Hospital Violence Intervention Programs, Government, Public Servants, People

  • The extent to which the SAFE chapter can distribute secure storage devices and promote culture of safe storage and responsibility

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FAQ:

    • For contributions, consider asking:

      • Chapter members

      • Medical school faculty

      • STEM undergraduate departments and other graduate departments, and

      • Your university’s Development Office

    • Host fundraiser events on and off-campus:

      • Collaborate with local chains or small businesses on organized fundraising programs, where a small percentage of sales is donated to SAFE (e.g., Chipotle)

      • Utilize fundraising platforms such as GoFundMe

      • Collaborate with other student organizations within the medical school to target different populations that have a common interest in safe storage.

    • Visit this resource guide to learn more about organizing the distribution events. We ask that all participating chapters to take careful inventory of the locks as well as distribute our survey to locks recipients.

    • Reach out to faculty, local physicians, hospital-based violence intervention program (HVIP) administrators, local government offices, local ally organizations. Introduce them to your SAFE chapter and update them on the chapter’s progress of the project. If possible, set up a time to connect with them.

    • Partner with local communities and ally organizations to organize the locks distribution events.

    • Collaborate with community organizations to host educational campaigns on firearm injury prevention and culture of safe storage. Provide educational presentations at local schools, community centers, town hall meetings, etc.

    • Host community-based events such as letter-writing campaigns that focus on empowering people to take action on the importance of safe storage and Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws.