New gun safety program 'NC Safe for Schools' kicks off
That he can share um it's got all the educational
materials that go along with the campaign
We appreciate you hosting us today and being part of
the campaign
Well good morning everybody
We appreciate you being here
Um I appreciate all the um our speakers that are
here today and I I know we have quite a
few of our Wake County principals
Thank you for what you do each and every day
to educate our kids
My wife serves in Wake County also as an educator
and so I appreciate the work that you guys do
each and every day to make sure our kids are
ready to perform and be good citizens when they leave
um your schools and so I appreciate that
Um this campaign NC Safe stands for secure all
Firearms effectively um the campaign actually started about 2 years
ago but we're expanding it now to NC safe for
schools um and the campaign is going to really focus
on making sure that we can reach the school population
um our parents our students um our educators that work
in schools each and every day um to help us
spread this message about how important it is to safely
store firearms in the home so those guns don't end
up on y'all's campuses
Um we want to make sure that those guns don't
End up on campuses because what we know is when
they do it causes a huge disruption to the educational
environment and we want to make sure that we can
not have that happen
It terrorizes our teachers it terrorizes our kids um that
are on those campuses and as a parent um where
I've had a child that has had to go through
code red lockdowns um I can tell you it terrorizes
us also um because we wanna know what's happening with
our kids and make sure that they're safe each and
every day
So the the campaign itself um as I said started
two years ago and we're expanding the schools
This will be a um approach where we're actually trying
to attach this to all 115 LEAs across the state
of North Carolina but Wake County was um gracious enough
to be the first ones to partner with us and
so we wanted to make sure to kick off the
event here and Doctor
Taylor's backyard since he's uh been a a gracious um
host for us today and we also want to thank
the Wake County School Board who passed a resolution last
year um on safe storage in their school district and
so um they've been great partners and now we wanna
make sure that we can expand this to all school
districts across the state of North Carolina
Why is this important Gun deaths are the number one
killer of kids in the state of North Carolina due
to accidental death
We are that rate has increased since 2020 by almost
double the number of kids that are dying due to
firearm deaths in the state of North Carolina
That's both suicide and homicides that we're seeing
Um and most of those guns that are used in
those incidents are coming from people's homes or are stolen
guns that are coming off the street um and and
getting into the hands of kids um and so these
incidents are preventable
We are also double the national average in the number
of young people that have died due to firearms in
the last year
um and so we need to figure out in North
Carolina how do we change that momentum into a positive
one where we're seeing fewer kids that are dying from
firearms that are preventable deaths
So last year in the state of North Carolina we
had 87 guns that came on the school campuses
Um there were 267 charges that were filed against juveniles
for uh gun-related incidents on school campuses
Um those are preventable events because what we found um
by looking back at the data was that 75% of
those guns came from the kids's own home
Came from their parents and it was a gun that
was not locked up
It was accessible to the child and they brought it
onto the school campus on the youth risk behavior survey
that was done last year of middle school and high
school students across the state of North Carolina we found
that 30% of high school students said within one hour
they could have a fully loaded gun without their parents'
permission
30% of high school students
We've got to change those dynamics and we can do
it by um engaging in this campaign um and see
safe and so what we're trying to do is distribute
uh across the state of North Carolina a message of
education um and we wanna rely on our educators to
help us uh in in this process
We wanna rely on our PTA members our law enforcement
partners across the state of North Carolina to help us
spread this message about safe storage
It only takes a few seconds to lock up your
firearm
The same amount of time it takes you to put
on a seat belt to put a helmet on your
child when they're riding down the street on a bicycle
to put a kid in the child's seat
These are the same types of uh of of good
practices that we want people to start practicing with firearms
because we know in the United States you have a
right to possess a firearm but you also have an
awesome responsibility to make sure that that firearm does not
end up in the hands of a child or a
felon in your local community because you didn't secure that
firearm in your home or in your vehicle
So this campaign is also going to focus on making
sure that parents understand that it's part of the code
of conduct that kids should not bring a gun to
school
There are major repercussions for a child that does bring
a gun to school and so we want to make
sure that those kids stay engaged in our classrooms engaged
in the educational process and the best way to make
sure that happens is that they don't get suspended for
bringing a gun to school
The other reason that we know kids bring guns to
school is because they say they want they want protection
So we've got to find better ways to make sure
that kids get protected um and so the governor has
put together a task force on school safety student safety
and on um uh student well-being and this task force
is going to be focused on coming up with solutions
of the of of of these problems looking at physical
security looking at um student mental health making sure that
we're looking at each of those issues to address them
moving forward so that we can make sure that we
can maintain a safe environment for our kids
So the uh the NCA campaign itself um what we're
gonna do with schools is that uh the package that
I just showed that we provided to the principal today
we're sending to all the states uh send it to
school in each LEA across the state of North Carolina
to get them educated about the campaign
Inside there are materials that they can um scan a
QR code to get all the materials that they need
on educating students and parents about this issue
We have materials in the packet um
Will be sending to school districts that they can do
um news blasts to their parents and and the materials
are all put together already they can put their own
letterhead on it their own um logos on the top
of it um and they can send those materials out
to parents to educate them about this this serious problem
um and so we've made it as easy as possible
for school districts to make sure that they can help
us get this message out to um parents and to
our our student population about the importance of safe storage
I'm very pleased today to be joined by um uh
a panel of great speakers
Uh we've got um our vice chair of the Wake
County Public School Systems um school board um Mr
Tyler Swanson that's here
We got uh the uh deputy chief um of the
Garner Police Department um Chris Adams that's here today
The chief is retiring um tomorrow I believe is her
last day um so we've got the deputy chief here
We got the mayor that's here also
Um thank you Mayor Gupton for being here today
We appreciate you and your staff for being here today
um and being part of this press conference and of
course we've got uh Attorney General Jeff Jackson that is
here today
His staff is partnered with us already for his uh
consumer protection division
Um they've gone out and are doing presentations on internet
safety and they're adding this as a component of that
um as part of their campaigns that they're doing with
schools and with communities across the state so I appreciate
the partnership um Attorney General Jackson
And then my long time friend uh Doctor Taylor um
I've known Doctor Taylor since he was superintendent of schools
in Bladen County um and did a lot of excellent
work with trying to make sure that kids um that
got in trouble um we found alternative ways to serve
them in our in our communities and make sure that
they didn't end up on the street and I appreciate
that work that you did there but also at DPI
and he was over oversaw the um Center for safer
schools
And so we appreciate all the work that you did
there and I'm so proud that you're part of Wake
County schools and and and the boss for my my
wife um so thank you for what you do each
and every day um and so I'll call uh call
up um Vice Chair Tyler Swanson that will give you
a kind of overview from what the board has done
so far
OK
Good morning
I am Tyler Swanson the vice chair of the Wake
County School Board and I want to thank each of
each of our our speakers for being here today and
for your collaboration um and partnership in addressing this very
important topic of safe gun storage
We are proud to be a part of this initiative
and its role to keep our students safe
And thank you to the community for being here as
well
We know in order to make meaningful changes it's gonna
take the entire community to address this
So the impact of you all sharing this information will
be invaluable to your audiences
Last year in March we as a board took took
the appropriate step to pass a resolution uh to call
on and to promote safe gun storage
The simple fact is that whether it is targeted unintentional
or self-inflicted most school shootings involve children
And those children could have been prevented by and those
could have been prevented by restrictive unauthorized access to weapons
Safe gun storage is a crucial component of responsible gun
ownership
I'm gonna say that again
Safe gun storage is a crucial component of responsible gun
ownership
Proper storage is not only reduce the risk of accidents
but also unauthorized access and theft
So with NC Safe for schools toolkitt becoming available we
are calling on the entire Wake County community to review
its resources and use them
Parents have conversations with other parents about storage and spread
the word on how it can be prevented both accidental
and self-inflicted shootings as we get more of the community
to take this issue seriously our schools and students will
become safer from harm and as a district we can
continue to support initiatives and programs like NC Safe as
well as educating families about the importance of safe gun
storage
By working together as a community we can and we
will keep our students our children and our students our
teachers safe from all preventable tragedies
Thank you and I will now call on uh Garner
Police Deputy Chief Chris uh Chris Adams
Thank you
Good morning
Thank you for being here today
Proper firearms storage is essential for preventing accidents unauthorized access
and theft
Too often we see firearms falling into the wrong hands
We hear about accidental and intentional shootings taking place all
over the country
Locally we all remember Hedingham
And the national stories just last week there was a
shooting at Florida State University where two lives were lost
And 6 other people were injured
Yet another example of a firearm falling into the wrong
hands
Responsible gun owners secure their firearms
We suggest owning a safe if you have a weapon
But there are many other ways to secure guns like
these cable locks
NC Safe provides these free of charge
You can now get them at the schools
We provide them at the police department
Most law enforcement agencies have these free of charge
I'd also like to address the theft of firearms from
parked motor vehicles
We advise against leaving guns in vehicles even if they
are locked
These are more than willing to bust a car window
or otherwise defeat
A lock They know too well that people frequently leave
firearms and vehicles
It happens too much
Most of the firearm thefts that we take are from
motor vehicles
Lastly we must protect our youth
It is imperative to prevent firearms from falling into the
wrong hands of young people
General Statute 14-315.1 addresses the storage of firearms to protect
minors
You will be charged with a crime if you violate
this law
Too much tragedy has occurred for us to treat this
matter lightly
Please help protect our youth including our Wake County Public
School system students
And other innocent victims who might fall prey to something
that is 100% avoidable
Thank you
Next I'd like to invite up our attorney general of
the great state of North Carolina Jeff Jackson
Mo
Many thanks to all of you for being here uh
for a very important occasion a very important program uh
just want to agree with everything we just heard and
to underscore something most of the guns that are stolen
in North Carolina are stolen out of cars
Most of the guns that are stolen are unsecured
Safely securing your firearm is an essential component of being
a responsible gun owner and it's a piece of being
a gun owner that just about all of us agree
on
No one's against safe storage of firearms
This is a really contentious debate overall about firearms and
the politics of firearms but safe storage isn't contentious
It's consensus
Everyone pretty much agrees that this is a common sense
thing we should all be doing to keep guns out
of the hands of kids and criminals
Tens of thousands of these gun woks have been distributed
for free here in North Carolina
Pursuant to a vote by the General Assembly that was
practically unanimous in support of this program
In 2 short years a tremendous amount of progress has
been made both in awareness about why this is important
and in distributing actual hardware to help save lives including
to 10,000 members of the North Carolina National Guard
I'm a member of the National Guard
We all got one
I think that's fantastic
Building on the proven success of this program now is
this next step reaching into our schools with awareness but
also with hardware
Only good things can come of this versus what happens
after a gun is stolen out of a car
At that point only bad things can happen
Those are the guns that end up being used in
crimes and how do we know that Because people committed
a crime to get the gun
I've served in the military for 23 years
Basic training the very first thing you learn when they
put a firearm in your hand is basic safety with
respect to that firearm
As citizens basic safety with respect to firearms includes safe
storage
Half of households in North Carolina have firearms
We are a state that values and exercises our 2nd
Amendment right and that's great
This is a piece of what being a responsible gun
owner means that virtually all gun owners themselves agree on
We just want to make sure we get the message
out and we get the hardware out free of charge
to make sure that folks are acting on the beliefs
that they hold which is we should be doing a
little bit more with respect to storage to keep guns
out of the hands of kids and criminals
Thank you all for being here and I'm going to
be followed by a diehard Rams fan
And a superintendent as well Doctor Camano
It's
Thank you Attorney General Jackson and uh good morning to
you all
Uh he did tease me about being a Rams fan
and uh that is true and but I do want
to thank you for your service to our military uh
as a military spouse
I always wanna make sure that we recognize the service
of our servicemen so we appreciate that
Uh I also wanna again uh thank our principals for
being here this morning
I hope everyone recognizes that uh their presence shows uh
their attention to this matter and and how very seriously
they take uh uh the safety of our students and
and the impact of uh unsafe gun storage and what
that means
So I do wanna thank you guys for being here
So again we're here today uh with this panel of
community leaders because uh the safety of our children is
not just a priority to our district
It is a responsibility that belongs to each and every
one of us that are in this room and the
people that are outside this room
I do really wanna emphasize that and as superintendent I
get to see firsthand uh the hopes and enthusiasm and
the potential our students bring to their classroom
Every single day that they show up uh but I
also carry the weight of knowing that our children are
growing up in a world where gun violence is no
longer a distant threat
Uh it is a reality that has touched too many
communities too many schools and too many lives
And while the causes of gun violence are complex there's
still one clear preventable fact that we must address head
on the unsafe storage of firearms in homes
Uh unsecured guns can lead to accidental shootings suicides and
weapons making their way into our schools
Uh many of those tragedies don't occur on campuses
Uh they happen at home in neighborhoods uh and in
places where uh a child really should feel safe
Uh so let me be clear this is not a
political issue and I think our attorney general has spoken
to that
Uh this is a safety issue affecting the lives of
children
I want to emphasize that again this is a safety
issue that is affecting the lives of all of our
children
And so we're asking parents guardians and all gun owners
in our community to take these issues seriously
Talk to your children about gun safety
Uh ask of the parents if firearms in their homes
are secured and if you own a gun take the
necessary steps to store it safely every single time
Mr
Lasser talked about the youth risk behavior survey and that
30% of students uh will tell you that they have
access
I can have easy access to a gun
Now I am a gun owner uh but I can
safely say to you that my children did not spend
a single day
In my home where my firearm was not secure
I have the gun lock and I also have a
safe where I store my weapon and so this is
what I want to express to everyone if you are
a gun owner please take the necessary steps to secure
your weapon so that children will not have access to
it
And as a district we are increasing our efforts to
educate families on this issue
We're partnering with local law enforcement and health organizations to
to distribute information about the safe storage of weapons
We're continuing to make resources available on our website and
through frequent communications with families and we are encouraging open
honest conversations between families about safety but be clear we
cannot do this work alone
It takes everybody to be a part of this effort
And so I'm calling on every school's district in our
state to join us in treating this issue with the
urgency it deserves
Again Mr
Lasser talked about the kit that's going out and I
encourage every single superintendent in this state to make sure
they look into that box
They share that uh with their school community
That's 114 other superintendents so I'm encouraging them to do
that
Because the most effective way to stop a tragedy is
to prevent it
Make it a priority to educate your communities on the
dangers of unsecured firearms
I cannot applaud our school board enough uh for the
steps they've taken to make sure that this is an
issue that we all address
Uh I do recognize that the Wake County Public school
system is a leader of school districts not only in
this state but in this nation and I think that
is uh the kind of leadership that we need from
our board uh to take that opportunity to share with
other districts uh the roles that they need to take
in making sure this is an issue that we address
Our students deserve to walk into their schools without fear
They deserve to learn in a world that protects them
uh so let's make sure we're doing everything in our
power to make this a reality because our kids they
are counting on us and so with that I wanna
thank you guys for being here and we will spend
the rest of our time uh taking questions that we
may have and Mr
Lassard I'll ask you to come back up uh and
facilitate
So I'll be glad to take uh questions
I'll just uh wrap up by saying one of the
other uh goals of this campaign is really to normalize
the conversation um to make it not political like we
we just heard from our speakers um so that if
you're a parent of a child and your kid's going
over to spend the night with uh a neighbor's kid
um or a friend
That you had the conversation with that parent about do
you have a gun in your house Is that gun
secure in your house We want to normalize that conversation
make it a conversation that you have every single time
If your kid has an allergy you always tell the
parent hey my kid has an allergy don't give him
any peanuts right Um the same type of conversation that
we want you to have um as a parent when
your kid goes over and spends the night with a
friend
Too many tragedies of kids under the age of 10
where a sibling or a friend pulls out a gun
and accidentally shoots that other friend we can prevent those
deaths from happening by simply doing safe storage and making
sure also those guns don't end up on the school
campuses
So I'll be glad to open it up to any
questions that anybody has um if any of our media
partners have any questions for us
Yes hi I'm Sydney with ABC 11
Um you've already mentioned this but could you just uh
repeat again just the trend that we're seeing here in
North Carolina and why it's so important to um why
are we targeting young people in schools um
Keeping them top of mind throughout all this
Absolutely
So I oversee juvenile justice in the state of North
Carolina and I will tell you the reason why we
um initiated this campaign um was that we were starting
to see the numbers of juveniles that were possessing firearms
greatly increase
Um so um if you look back at juvenile crime
it was 4% of juvenile crime in in 202919 um
so 5 years ago um involved the firearm 4% of
it
Last year 14% of juvenile crime involved the firearm
Um and so that's a huge increase almost a 300%
increase in the number of uh kids that are are
possessing firearms while they're committing crimes
Now the the simple act of carrying a gun on
a school campus is a crime in itself um but
they're also committing crimes of stealing those firearms from vehicles
um
And I think that several of our speakers brought that
up
Uh I know uh Chris brought it up as far
as what we're seeing as far how how those guns
are getting in felon's hands and also in in juvenile's
hands
We did a study and we looked at a couple
of jurisdictions in the state and 60% of the guns
that were stolen from vehicles the car was not even
locked
All right the car wasn't locked and then the gun
was not locked up in the car
All right uh I always tell people cars are not
gun safes
All right um and especially if the car's not locked
Um and if you have a bumper sticker on the
back of your car that says I'm a proud gun
owner
Know that your car is probably gonna be targeted as
one of those cars that um thieves may go look
at as a place to get those guns
And so your your question was specifically about why why
kids why are we focusing on on the juvenile and
and and guns coming on the school campuses
It was mainly because we were seeing those numbers increase
Um as I said we saw um 87 guns coming
on school campuses last year in the state of North
Carolina that ended up in 2
176 complaints against juveniles being filed in juvenile court um
and it just wrecks that that kid's life
Um a lot of times they're gonna end up in
juvenile detention
They're gonna get suspended from school um but it also
wrecks the environment at that school campus the educational environment
for the principals the teachers all the people that have
to deal with the aftermath of those guns coming on
the school campus um so we will really want to
focus on making sure that
Schools are safe places for our kids um and one
of the ways that we can ensure that happening is
making sure that guns don't end up on the school
campuses and as I said before 75% of those guns
that ended up on a school campus last year came
from the kid's own home
Um they didn't get it off the street they didn't
steal it they actually just bought it from home um
and so it's so important
A lot of parents think if I just had the
conversation with my kid and say don't touch that gun
They won't take it anywhere
They won't play with it and the reality is that
kids do all kinds of things that we as adults
tell them not to do all the time um and
and I always put it in the terms for parents
You ask them not to go look for your Christmas
presents that you hide under the bed or in the
closet and they always find them
They're gonna find your gun too and kids are curious
and when that curiosity turns into them playing with the
gun it often ends up in tragedy um in our
schools or in our communities
Yes
Coincider with WRAL can you uh go more in depth
about like how this would ideally work with schools and
where their role comes in Is this like a weekly
newsletter they sent out or a case by case basis
and what have you heard from other school systems around
the state about their willing
So we're we're here in Wake County because they they
were the first to partner with us uh but we
have several other school districts that have already started to
partner with us on this campaign and we'll be going
to other locations across the state to um emphasize their
their partnership in in the coming months um but this
was the kickoff of this NCA 4 schools campaign in
our state um and so we're we're excited to go
to all 115 school districts across the state and have
this conversation
Um how does the campaign itself work You're exactly right
What we're going to do is have quarterly messages
We're not going to do one every week but we'll
have quarterly messages that will be sent out to school
districts that they can just take in from their coms
department at their school district put it in newsletters that
can go out to parents to get that information
We're partnering with the NCPTA um who's also going to
uh at PTA meetings have these conversations with designed PowerPoint
presentations that a school leader can do a counselor
At the school can do a police chief or a
school resource officer at the school can go and do
a presentation for the PTA about this campaign so we're
sending that those materials out to law enforcement all across
the state of North Carolina so they can do this
It includes PSAs public service announcements that they can include
in their newsletters that they can show
We've got some really powerful testimonial videos that are included
in the campaign of parents that have lost their kids
to gun violence or kids that were saved because they
Um properly secure their farm in their house um so
we've got PSAs that we will be sending out to
school districts also that they can include as links to
those those newsletters that they're sending out
Um so there's lots of materials and we'll be providing
gun locks um if they're interested in in uh being
a distribution point for gun locks at their school we'll
provide gun locks to that school um so that parents
can just pick them up at the school
What we found from the research is that you can
have the conversation with people
Um if you had the conversation with people about 25%
of people will change their behaviors just by having the
conversation
But if you provide the intervention which is the tool
the the gun lock in this case then we found
that 75% of people actually uptake and use that that
gun lock moving forward
And so we not only want to provide them with
the materials education materials but actually the resource as as
the AG emphasized in his his
Comments the big difference in this campaign is we're providing
the hardware also to make sure that they can actually
use those locks
We've already distributed 120,000 gun locks across the state of
North Carolina um and we will continue that
We we just purchased another 60,000 that will be part
of this campaign um moving forward
Yes
one what are your metrics for success in this case
and have you seen improvement in uh reducing some of
these incidents Yeah so uh our metric uh when we
started the campaign was um as as the AG mentioned
in his comments um 42% of households in the state
of North Carolina possess a firearm
Um that's uh the people that were willing to to
to report it on a survey
There's some people that are very skeptical about providing that
data so we think the number is probably a little
bit higher than that around 50% of households
But what we also know is of those 42% of
households 50% of those households said that they did not
properly secure
Of their firearm in their house and so our goal
in this campaign is to reduce that 50%
We want to reduce it to 0% but we know
that that's gonna be a big hill to climb
So in the 1st 3 years of the campaign we're
trying to drop that from 50% down to 40% um
and each year after that we would like to reduce
that that number moving forward um because we know for
each of those guns that are secured um that's one
less gun that can end up on a school campus
one less gun that could be used as a
Accidental death of a young person
So that's that's the big metric that we're looking at
um but the other metric that we're gonna look at
is the number of guns that are ending up on
school campuses
um so we're gonna measure that over time and then
we're also gonna look at the number of guns that
get into the hands of juveniles when they're committing crimes
so that 14% I was just talking about a few
minutes ago we're going to measure whether or not we
can decrease that 14% back down to a more reasonable
number
Um hopefully no juveniles will use guns to
Crimes but um we know that there will be some
and we want to make sure that they don't have
access to those firearms moving forward and that 30% that
we saw in the youth behavior survey um we want
to change that dynamic too
So we've got those four big metrics that we're looking
at um to to really make sure that this campaign
is moving forward correctly and we've partnered with RTI International
um who is uh doing the research that's actually gonna
do an evaluation of the campaign moving forward so that
we know that we're meeting those metrics
Other questions Uh can you use an observer um it
was mentioned earlier that um it's considered serious and that
you know people will be charged if they allow um
uh children to get access to their guns but considering
the level of the severity of is that how much
of a deter is that actually the case because I
I believe it's not it's still a misdemeanor or it's
not
It is a misdemeanor in the state of North Carolina
and I do know that there are efforts that are
being made to change that law to make it more
severe um but um we won't get into that today
because that's uh that that gets into the political side
of it um and we're trying to get a uh
on a non uh a bipartisan approach on this campaign
specifically but I do know that as an adult myself
even get charged with a misdemeanor in my role that
would be a pretty bad thing
Um and I think most people in our community don't
want to be charged with a crime
Um I do know that in in the case of
the Headingham shooting um we did have the parent be
charged in that case um and so uh we are
looking at um how that's being used
We we're working with the DA's and with uh chiefs
of police to actually work on that that law and
see if there are tweaks that need to be made
to that law moving forward um and so um I
work on the uh serve on the
Fatality task force and I think we've made some recommendations
that I can get to you um that kind of
walk you through some of the changes that we've recommended
for additional legislation to make it more severe um but
I don't think anybody in our society wants to get
charged with a misdemeanor
It affects your job it affects your credit it affects
all kinds of things that happen in your life
Um it should be some a thing that deters people
but the thing that ultimately should deter people is that
the law
Is that we wanna say kids locks
If you have a child in your house
Um and that child gets access to that firearm um
and they kill themselves
The guilt that you'll feel for the rest of your
life is far more than anything that we can do
through through the law or for the general assembly moving
forward um and so we're trying to make sure to
emphasize the why of of making sure that people understand
that this is a a life safety issue um and
and that should really be the thing that should be
driving gun owners to make the right decision
Yes
Uh Brian Sgo with uh Univision 40
Uh can you speak a little bit about the Hispanic
community as well I see that some of the resources
you have are in Spanish as well
Uh what have you seen in terms of gun safety
regarding Hispanic community What is the need there uh to
reach those families as well Absolutely
So all our materials are in Spanish and in English
um and so um the gun locks themselves have um
the materials all on on on both sides of the
um car
One side is English one side is Spanish but also
the materials that are on our website are also in
Spanish um we think it's extremely important to reach the
Hispanic community
um we know that um that in in that community
that there are quite a few people that are gun
owners um and we wanna make sure that this message
gets across to them also
Um we do have a couple of interpreters that are
here today so if you got some questions after the
uh or would like to get some messaging in his
in in Spanish we can do that for you also
um and and answer some questions that way if that
would help out but we absolutely wanna address that community
um make sure that they um are getting these materials
and understand the the the important a child's life is
a child's life
I don't care what you look like um and so
we wanna make sure that in in our communities that
the safety message is getting across
Thanks for being here today
Uh any other questions Yes
Hi I'm Emily with WRIL um you mentioned the uptake
and how you get this big increase um when you
have a lot to give to somebody um you said
75%
I keep thinking about the 25% who are maybe still
not convinced
Is that because they're maybe already practicing safe gun storage
or what are you may be hearing from some of
those people about why they might still be resisting
Yeah so I think that the AG did a great
job of emphasizing this
I I I really don't think that there's that many
people that um
Don't want to do this
Um I think it's uh educating them about the importance
of doing it um and making sure that they have
the tool to do it with
And so I would say uh the the the small
resistance that we have seen is that some people that
are gun owners say that they want to make sure
in an emergency they have quick access to their farm
That's not an excuse anymore though
Um we have biometric locks uh safes that are available
now that you can use your thumbprint you can use
your voice you can get into that safe within a
matter of seconds um and have access to that firearm
And so I I don't know why anybody would be
against it anymore
Um it makes good sense
It makes good sense for keeping your stuff
Why would you want somebody to steal your
Stuff um and guns are are an easy target
There we found especially um down east uh earlier this
year and and later part of last year um it
was part of gang initiation for kids to go out
and try to steal guns from vehicles um and so
I I tell people all the time don't make yourself
a target um lock up that farm and and keep
it secure
So I don't think there's a huge resistance to it
I think there's just a a a a a group
of people that were concerned about that emergency um access
to the firearm and then I would say the other
group of people are the people that just don't remember
to do it um and that's the purpose of this
education campaign is to remind them that they have a
responsibility to do it um and that um it the
why behind it it it saves kids' lives
Any other questions We'll take one more
There's one OK and um I I I think any
of the speakers are available to do interviews after the
the press conference if you'd like to speak to any
of them
Um we appreciate you being here today
Thank you Doctor Taylor
Thank you Principal Price for uh having us here today
and hosting us at this beautiful facility um and thank
you principals for the the work you do each and
every day uh to make sure that our kids are
getting the education that they need
Thank you all so much
Principles we have the little token of the preferences
You can meet me at this
That's no bad for you