Cabot police provide free gun-safety kits
CABOT — Tragic stories of a young child getting hold of a gun and accidentally killing a friend or family member occasionally pepper the news, bringing the conversation of gun safety back into the limelight. The Cabot Police Department has a simple solution to keep families safe from firearms: Visit the Police Department and pick up free locks for their guns.
The Cabot Police Department has partnered with Project ChildSafe to provide free firearms safety kits for local residents. Project ChildSafe is a program developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and supported by the U.S. Department of Justice and the firearms industry.
Sgt. Keith Graham, public information officer for the Cabot Police Department, said officers hope people will pick up and utilize the free locks to make their homes safer.
“The purpose of this project is to prevent and reduce the amount of unauthorized access of weapons to children,” he said. “We don’t want a child to get hold of a gun that’s unsecured and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else.”
Because Project ChildSafe is backed by the Department of Justice, the locks cost nothing for the local police departments, making the locks also free to residents.
“All they have to do is come into the Police Department and ask for one of the gun locks,” Graham said. “We have them set up in our dispatch room and in our records office. There’s no cost for them; it’s absolutely free.”
Graham said he acquired several sets of Project ChildSafe kits around Thanksgiving, and the department is trying to get the word out about the free resource so people can receive a lock.
“Any type of preventive measure you can use is better than no measure,” he said.
According to the Project ChildSafe website, more than 15,000 law enforcement agencies have partnered with the program to distribute more than 36 million firearms safety kits to people across the country. To learn more about Project ChildSafe — including how to make a tax-deductible
donation — visit projectchildsafe.org.
“We are pleased to have the Cabot Police Department as a Project ChildSafe partner,” Bill Brassard Jr., director of Project ChildSafe, said in a press
release. “Project ChildSafe is an important step forward in helping ensure that all firearm owners fully understand their responsibilities with respect to the safe handling and storage of firearms.”
Graham said there is no limit to how many locks people can receive, but he emphasized they are for
personal use and should not be sold.
The Cabot Police Department is at 101 N. Second St. Graham said the department will most likely hand out the locks at events such as CabotFest and safety days throughout the year.