TOLEDO, Ohio — The Gun Safety Consortium will issue a Request for Proposals on April 27 seeking products that gun owners can use to secure their firearms.
Mayors, county executives, police chiefs, and sheriffs representing at least 28 jurisdictions in 10 states will announce this action at an 11 a.m. event with more than 300 religious and civic leaders.
The newly formed group intends to use its combined purchasing power to encourage innovation on gun safety among gun manufacturers, investors and startups. Its initial focus is on identifying, evaluating, and eventually purchasing locking devices that gun owners -- police as well as civilians -- are likely to consistently use. Fewer than half of the nation’s gun owners regularly secure their firearms, according to research.
The consequences can be deadly. Tens of thousands of unsecured guns are used in suicides each year. Hundreds of thousands are stolen from homes and vehicles -- and typically enter trafficking pipelines.
Hundreds of children find unsecured guns each year and pull the trigger.
“No gun owner wants any of these things to happen,” said Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, co-founder of the Consortium. “Most gun owners understand the need to keep their firearm secured. But the real test is whether you will keep it secure 100 percent of the time. And that depends partly on the technology.”
Over the last six months, law enforcement officers from 10 cities and counties have conducted hands-on evaluation of four available or emerging gun security products -- a process that the Consortium will expand over the next year. The Consortium has screened, purchased, and distributed locking devices to participating jurisdictions, and several dozen law enforcement officers are analyzing each product and using them while off duty.
Each of the products being evaluated was developed by startup companies.
“We are seeing promising products beginning to emerge that will allow police officers and other gun owners to keep their guns secured but also readily accessible,” said Consortium Steering Team member Daryl Green, Chief of Police of Lansing, Michigan. “These products will save lives. With the RFP, the message we’re sending to the gun industry and other players in the market is: bring us more.”
The Consortium works in partnership with the Do Not Stand Idly By campaign (DNSIB), organized by the nonpartisan Industrial Areas Foundation citizens’ organizing network. DNSIB seeks pragmatic solutions to the nation’s gun violence epidemic. More than 300 DNSIB leaders will be present at the April 27 event to pledge their ongoing support for the Consortium’s work.
Speakers will include:
Mayor John Cranley, Cincinnati
County Executive Steuart Pittman, Anne Arundel County, Maryland
Sheriff Ron Hain, Kane County, Illinois
Chief of Police Daryl Green, Lansing
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, Toledo
DiAne Boese, United Power for Action & Justice, Chicago
Rev. Richard Gibson, Greater Cleveland Congregations
