The first 100 gun locks at Baltimore’s Central Library were gone within 24 hours. Beginning in late July, Johns Hopkins University and the city’s public library system distributed 800 free cable locks across five library branches to incentivize safer firearm storage — no ID or reason required.
Katherine Hoops, a pediatric critical care physician at Johns Hopkins who helped organize the distribution, said the team wanted people to be able to get locks without having to document what firearms they own or explain their need. “We wanted it to be easy, low barriers,” she said. “Nobody’s going on a list.”
Hoops said the effort aimed to fill a gap she’s frequently encountered in her work treating kids and researching safe storage: Health care providers can encourage families to secure their firearms all they want, but barriers like cost and time may stop families who want to start storing their guns more safely. So Hopkins and the city turned to the same place many residents already go for help: the library.
Research links secure firearm storage to lower risks of suicide and unintentional shootings. It’s a way to put a barrier between a gun and someone who should not have access, whether a curious toddler, a young person considering suicide, or a thief trying to steal a gun.
“We see that secure storage is protective against suicide, definitely, but also homicide, unintentional injuries, and theft,” Hoops said.
Though gun deaths have been falling in recent years, Hoops said the work is still needed, especially after the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that firearm suicide deaths are still increasing — and fastest among young people of color.
“We know that 80 percent of youth who die by firearm suicide have used a family member or a friend’s firearm to which they gained access,” she said. “So secure storage is as important as ever, if not more so.”
In September 2023, I wrote about a similar effort in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, where public libraries had distributed more than 2,300 gun locks. Hoops and her partners in Baltimore looked to Anne Arundel as a model. But over the last few years, library systems serving communities across the country have also embraced the approach, often partnering with local health departments and city governments.
Last year, Baltimore County’s public library system and neighboring Howard County began offering locks.
In 2024, Tampa, Florida, added four libraries to its police department’s free gun lock program. The same year, Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s library system launched a program making locks available at its 41 locations.
New Orleans libraries began hosting giveaways in 2023, partnering with health officials, Children’s Hospital, and Be SMART to distribute locks and biometric safes. Los Angeles County offers free locks at six libraries, while St. Louis County in Missouri makes them available at all 20 branches.
The appeal is straightforward. Libraries are familiar, free public spaces, and people trust them. “We’re known in the community as being a neutral safe space,” said Monroe Goins, the director of safety at Cleveland Public Library, which is also running a gun lock program.
Cleveland’s pilot grew out of a conversation between library Director Felton Thomas Jr. and Ohio state Representative Darnell Brewer about Cincinnati’s effort, Goins said. The library brought the idea home, partnering with Cuyahoga County and the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio on a yearlong pilot offering free gun locks and safes.
Distribution began in May at three branches, selected using police data to identify neighborhoods where the effort could have the greatest impact. By July, Goins estimated that the library had given out between 100 and 150 locks and safes.
Residents must be at least 18 to get the devices, but they don’t need to show identification, Goins said. They can walk in and ask for a device while supplies last. The county also organizes sessions where residents can learn how to use the equipment.
Cleveland’s library plans to assess its pilot after a year before deciding whether to expand. Goins said the program fits with responsibilities his library already assumes. Staff members receive de-escalation training and connect people facing abuse or exploitation with resources. Gun locks are another practical form of help residents can find there.
“We are a partner with the community, and we take our role seriously,” he said.
In Baltimore, the library’s safe storage initiative is part of the city’s broader Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan and supported by $245,000 in community project funding secured by U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume, who represents the city in Congress.
Hoops said she expects the partnership between Johns Hopkins and Baltimore’s public library system to expand to more locations over the coming months and offer different types of safes and locks. Helping families obtain equipment that meets their needs is key, she added. For example, someone who owns a firearm for home defense may want a device that opens quickly when they need it.
“You can store your firearm securely and still have quick access to it,” she said.
While cable locks can cost as little as $10, they’re more difficult to use, take longer to disengage, and are less of a meaningful threat deterrent than a safe. Gun safes tend to be more expensive, and modern quick-access biometric locking safes, which open with a fingerprint scan or code, can cost upward of $150. The high cost could prevent someone from taking the step to store their gun safely because the cheaper alternatives hinder the entire reason they bought the gun in the first place.
“You’re more likely to use the device that you choose,” Hoops added. “Sometimes we need to help and step in with the resources.”
The work is personal for Hoops, who treats critically ill and injured children. “I have taken care of too many children who have been injured or killed by firearms,” she said. Though child and teen gun deaths have fallen in recent years, firearms remain the leading cause of death for people under 18, surpassing car crashes for the sixth year in a row.
Hoops believes that if more people would store their firearms securely, it would help lessen the toll not just for children, but for everyone. “It’s not a perfect fix for everything,” she said, “but it helps for everything.”