National SAFE Day in the United States Date in the current year: June 4, 2024

National SAFE Day was founded in 2016 by the Brooklynn Mae Mohler Foundation. It was started by Jacob and Darchel Mohler, the parents of a 13-year-old girl who had been accidentally shot and killed by her best friend because the friend’s parent neglected gun safety rules and kept his handgun loaded and accessible.

On the day of her death Brooklynn came over to her friend’s house to wait for her father to keep her up. What Brooklynn’s parents didn’t know was that there was an unsecured, loaded handgun in the friend’s house. The girl’s father had taken her shooting with him a few times and left the gun in a kitchen cabinet for her to protect herself from a possible intruder.

Brooklynn’s friend was trying to disarm the gun when it went off. The bullet hit Brooklynn in the lower spine, killing her. To honor Brooklynn’s memory and raise awareness of gun safety to prevent further child deaths, her parents started the Brooklynn Mae Mohler Foundation and founded National SAFE Day.

SAFE is an acronym that stands for the four gun safety tips that one must follow to make sure firearms are out of reach of children:

• Secure all firearms in your home.
• Ask about unsecured firearms whenever you child visits someone else’s home.
• Frequently talk to your children about the dangers that firearms can pose.
• Educate and Empower others to be SAFE.

According to statistics provided by the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, dozens of children die from accidental firearm-related injuries every year, and 90% of them occur at home (50% at the victim’s home and 40% at a friend’s or relative’s home). Most of these deaths occur when children play with firearms that have been left loaded and accessible.

Over 3 million children in the United States live in households where firearms are kept unlocked, loaded and ready for use at least part of the time, and around 75% of elementary school-aged kids know where their parents keep their gun. Although more than half of unintentional shootings involve children between the ages of 10 and 14, children as young as 3 may have enough strength to pull the trigger on a handgun.

Although there are educational programs that teach children about gun safety, such as the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program developed by the National Rifle Association, a study has shown that it is hard for young children to control their curiosity around firearms, and the only way to keep them truly safe is to make sure that guns are kept out of reach of children at all times. This is why National SAFE Day is so important.

How to observe National SAFE Day? First of all, make sure your firearms, if you have any, are stored safely. Educate people around you, especially the parents and guardians of your child’s friends, about the SAFE rules and spread awareness on social media using the hashtag #NationalSAFEDay.