Perceived neighborhood safety is associated with unsafe firearm storage practices not firearm ownership

While the association between neighborhood disadvantages and firearm-related injuries and deaths is well documented, our knowledge is limited about the influence of neighborhood safety on firearm ownership and storage practices. This study intends to examine how perceived neighborhood safety is associated with having firearms in or around home and firearm storage practices among firearm owners in the United States. Using data from the 2024 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey on 61,315 U.S. adults residing in 13 states, we estimated multivariable generalized linear models with log link and Poisson distribution to assess the likelihood of firearm ownership by level of neighborhood safety. Next, multivariable multinomial logistic models were estimated to assess the risk of mutually exclusive firearm storage practices. Robustness of the relationship was checked by sex, household income, and education sub-groups. No differential likelihood of keeping firearms in or around the home was found by perceived levels of neighborhood safety after accounting for demographic and socioeconomic attributes. However, living in a perceived unsafe neighborhood was found to be associated with a higher likelihood of having firearms loaded and unlocked. Compared to firearm owners in extremely safe neighborhoods, firearm owners in unsafe neighborhoods were 10.61 percentage points (95% CI: 5.70, 15.52) more likely to have firearms loaded and unlocked. By showing a link between perceived neighborhood safety and firearm storage practices, this study may help initiate concerted efforts to improve neighborhood safety and promote safe firearm storage practices.