$245k federal funding used to distribute free gun locks in Baltimore
Baltimore City will be giving away free gun locks to people in Baltimore in an effort to make the city safer.
"There are so many nameless and faceless individuals in this city and elsewhere who won't see another year because of violence," U.S. Congressman Kweisi Mfume, of Maryland, said.
Congressman Mfume helped to secure $245,000 in federal funding to purchase the locks. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott says it is another tool in the toolbox toward keeping Baltimore safe.
"We are gathered here today to talk about responsibility. To prevent firearms from being stolen or falling into the wrong hands, specifically the hands of young people," Mayor Scott said.
Recent shootings involving unsecured guns
In 2023, 15-year-old Nykayla Strawder was shot and killed by a 9-year-old playing with an unsecured gun.
In 2015, 10-year-old E'vaa Mikel Sewell died after accidentally shooting herself with her grandmother's unsecured gun.
According to the 2021 annual child fatality review report in Baltimore, 29% of suicides and 5% of accidental deaths were the result of a young person having access to an unsecured firearm in the home.
Mayor Scott said it's a story that is too common.
"We should never see that happen again," Scott said. "And it's up to us, not as Baltimore City government, it's up to us as a community, as a people, to understand if we're going to own weapons, we have to store them safely and appropriately."
Where can you find a gun lock?
The locks will be available at five different Enoch Pratt libraries across the city.
It's part of a collaboration with the library and Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Hopkins, says the best treatment for gun violence in Baltimore is prevention.
"There will be a child who never finds a gun, someone who makes it through the worst night of their life because the hardest thing in that moment was a combination lock, we won't meet them. And that's the point," said Dr. Sakran.
Anyone over the age of 18 can just walk into the library and get a gun lock, no questions asked.
