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That’s up from 4.6 million children in 2015. Driving factors include record-breaking pandemic gun sales and diversifying gun owners.
New research shows that 6.7 million U.S. children — roughly one in 10 American children — live in a household with at least one firearm stored unlocked and loaded. Unsecured firearms are a major driver of family fire — a shooting that results from someone misusing an unsecured firearm from the home. Every day in America, eight kids are unintentionally injured or killed by family fire.
According to three waves of the National Firearm Survey (2015, 2021, and 2025), the share of gun-owning households with children that store at least one firearm unlocked and loaded has held steady at approximately 21%. That percentage has stayed largely the same over the last decade.
Data show that roughly 9 million more children live in a gun-owning household today than in 2015, and the number of those in unsafe-storage homes rose by approximately 2.1 million between 2021 and 2025 — driven by more households with children becoming gun-owning, not by a change in storage behavior.
| Survey Year | U.S. Child Population (0-17) | U.S. Gun-Owning Households With Children | Children in Gun-Owning Households (Any Storage) | Children in Homes With Unlocked, Loaded Firearms | Share of All U.S Children (Unsafe Storage) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 73.7 million | ~13 million | ~23 million | ~4.6 million | ~6.2% |
| 2021 | 73.6 million | ~16 million | ~30 million | ~4.6 million | ~6.2% |
| 2025 | ~70.9 million | ~17 million | ~32 million | 6.7 million | ~9.4% |
Sources: 2015 — Azrael et al., J Urban Health (2018); 2021 — Miller & Azrael, JAMA Network Open (2022); 2025 — Miller et al., JAMA Network Open (2026). Child population figures from U.S. Census Bureau / ChildStats.gov. Household counts for 2021 and 2025 are derived estimates.
The number of U.S. children living in any gun-owning household has climbed measurably over the past decade. This is being driven by a few key factors, including record-breaking gun sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, shifts in buyer motivations, growing demographics of firearm owners, and more.
An estimated 7.5 million Americans became first-time gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021, collectively exposing more than five million children to a household firearm for the first time. An analysis by Brady also found that unintentional shootings perpetrated by children resulting in injury or death peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 248 incidents in 2021.
New gun owners since 2020 are disproportionately motivated by personal and home protection rather than hunting or sport — a category of buyer that research consistently links to handgun ownership and less secure storage. However, modern secure storage options like biometric safes effectively balance safety with immediate accessibility.
Roughly half of new gun owners during the pandemic surge were women, many of them parents — a demographic shift that brought firearms into households that had not previously owned them.
Handguns now make up the majority of new firearm purchases. Compared to long guns, handguns are far more likely to be purchased for personal protection and stored loaded and accessible for quick access in an emergency. More education is needed to make firearm owners aware of storage devices that provide this type of quick access.
Perceived increases in crime, political polarization, and intensified self-defense marketing have lowered the threshold at which suburban, family-oriented households choose to own a firearm.
In 2025, the Department of Education canceled nearly $1 billion in school mental health grants, which eliminated funding for initiatives that enabled school districts to conduct outreach to community members about responsible gun ownership and secure firearm storage.
More U.S. children than at any point in the past decade live in gun-owning households, and many of their parents are first-time gun owners, meaning they may have never used a firearm or been trained on how to properly secure firearms. Yet most parents know that kids are curious and can find anything. According to one study, one in five parents who said their child never handled a gun without supervision were contradicted by their child’s reports. And despite the tendency of gun industry marketing to emphasize an urgent need for self-protection, bringing a firearm, especially a handgun, into the home increases the likelihood of firearm death or injury. In fact, victims who respond to a crime with a gun are 2.5 times less likely to escape the offender than those who don't.
of fatal unintentional shootings among children occur in a home
of school shooters get their guns from the home of a parent or close relative
of all domestic violence homicides involve a firearm
Victims who respond to a crime with a gun are 2.5x less likely to escape the offender
If just 20% more households stored firearms locked, youth firearm suicide and unintentional firearm deaths could be reduced by over 30%.
Another key way to protect your family is “ASKing” about guns in the homes of others. ASK stands for Asking Saves Kids and is a fundamental part of Brady’s national secure gun storage awareness program, End Family Fire. Just like parents and guardians ask questions about allergies and pets before playdates and visits to other homes, ASK encourages parents to add another question to this conversation: “Is there an unlocked gun where my child plays?” It’s a simple question that has the power to save lives.
Our End Family Fire program, a collaboration with Ad Council, is changing the way gun owners think about and store their firearms. It is the only national program that uses the power of Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to bring gun owners into the conversation to reduce firearm deaths.
Our goal is to change the conversation around how guns in the home are stored, used, and discussed. And it works: 57% percent of gun owners who saw Brady's End Family Fire PSAs make changes to store their firearms more safely.
Protect what matters most by securing your firearms
Asking Saves Kids (ASK) reminds parents, guardians, and caretakers to ask:
“Is there an unlocked gun where my child plays?”
Most unintentional shooting incidents occur during the week of Independence Day, New Years, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Just days ago, a 16-year-old shooter killed three young children and a dedicated teacher with his mother's shotgun. No parent should ever have to wonder if their child will come home from school.
Sign the petition and tell Congress to stop the school shootings!
