Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence: Safe Stories

the Ad Council and Brady, in partnership with dentsu, launched the newest addition to the life-saving End Family Fire program: 'Safe Stories,' a multimedia campaign and immersive digital experience that shares the real stories of seven people who contemplated taking their own life by a firearm. The effort, which is told through a book that doubles as a gun safe, encourages safe storage to prevent a personal moment of crisis from turning into a tragedy. Unfortunately, in America, 65% of gun owners have at least one unlocked firearm, allowing children and others access to them, too often with deadly results. End Family Fire is changing the way gun owners think about and store their firearms, and is the only national program that uses the power of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to bring gun owners into the conversation to reduce preventable firearm deaths. Now in its fifth year, the public education effort has had proven success at changing attitudes and behaviors around gun usage and safe storage. According to an Ad Council study, 74% of respondents who are aware of End Family Fire's gun suicide prevention PSAs agree that storing all of their guns locked and unloaded reduces the risk of someone dying by suicide in their home, compared to 56% of those not aware. The term 'family fire' - which refers to a shooting caused by someone having access to a gun from the home when they shouldn't have it - was created for the public education campaign and has been adopted by media, influencers, public health groups, research institutions, medical professionals, public officials, and more. The new 'Safe Stories' campaign comes as gun suicide rates have reached a record high, with the largest one-year increase in over 40 years and accounting for more than half of all firearm deaths. In the US, 67 people a day die by gun suicide, more than those lost to firearm murders and unintentional shootings combined. Access to a firearm also triples the risk of death by suicide, with suicide attempts with a gun being fatal 90% of the time on average. Evidence shows that in a moment of crisis, having a firearm that is stored securely - locked, unloaded, and away from ammunition - can prevent those fatal outcomes.