GUN OWNERS FOR RESPONSIBLE OWNERSHIP

Partnering with physicians & public health professionals

Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership (GOFRO) is partnering with physicians and public health professionals to seek ways to reduce gun violence and aid suicide prevention programs. GOFRO founding board member Paul Kemp is featured in this video, below, which was shown on PBS Newshour.

PARTNERING WITH UNIVERSITIES & MEDICAL SCHOOLS TO support RESEARCH INTO THE CAUSES & prevention OF GUN VIOLENCE

GOFRO board member Tom O’Connor is also a member of the advisory board of Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens (FACTS), a research consortium based at the University of Michigan. FACTS is an interdisciplinary group of more than 30 researchers, practitioners, and firearm owners across the united states who are dedicated to reducing child firearm injuries and deaths, while respecting gun ownership as an important part of the cultural fabric of the America.

The FACTS consortium was funded as part of a 2017 National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) effort to increase research on child injury prevention. The consortium seeks to engage multidisciplinary research experts across the U.S. to catalyze the science of child firearm injury prevention.

GOFRO strongly supports research into the causes and prevention of gun violence, including restoring and increasing federal funding through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).

partnering with st. charles foundation to offer free gun locks to schools

Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership (GOFRO) partnered with the St. Charles Foundation in 2018 to offer free gun locks and educational materials about safe firearm storage at schools in the Bend-La Pine School District. In one year, GOFRO distributed 700 gun locks and 500 educational brochures to families of Bend-La Pine students.

Every year in America, an average of 500 children die by suicide with a gun. Many suicides are impulsive, with 70 percent of attempts occurring within one hour of making a decision, and more than 90 percent of suicide attempts involving guns are fatal, compared to just 10 percent of all other methods.

Nearly 150 children in America accidentally shoot themselves or other children every year, and most of these deaths involve firearms from the children's own homes. These tragedies could be prevented if all firearms were stored safely. At a minimum, GOFRO believes that guns should be stored unloaded and locked, yet an estimated 1.7 million children live in homes with firearms that are not properly secured.

At GOFRO, we believe that gun owners should take the lead in preventing gun violence, and that we have a responsibility to help educate members of the public on safe firearm storage. Schools offer a convenient and discreet method of distributing free gun locks to families who need them, and by working with the school district and with individual principals, we help remind parents of the importance of safe firearm storage while offering free gun locks and educational brochures at Back-to-School nights. Safe storage is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to prevent gun violence, including suicides.