Almost 500 people die each year due to accidents involving guns. You should keep this statistic in the back of your head if you’re going to buy a gun anytime soon.

You should also commit a bunch of different gun safety tips to memory. They’ll ensure that you’re able to reduce the chances of you ever being involved in a gun-related accident.

Don’t bring a new gun into your home without taking the proper precautions. You’ll sleep so much better at night knowing that you and your family members will be safe with a gun in your house.

Here are seven gun safety tips that should be on your radar.

1. Learn How to Use a Gun Before Bringing It Home

From the second that you start thinking about potentially buying a gun, you should do whatever you can to learn all about it. You should understand the ins and outs of this gun so that you’re able to use it properly as soon as you bring it into your home.

The gun shop that is selling you a gun should be able to provide you with details on it. You should also be able to read up on the gun that you’ll be purchasing so that you can get to the bottom of it.

This link can teach you more about one type of gun that you might be considering buying.

2. Invest in a Safe for Your New Gun

Once you know all about the gun that you’ll be buying, you can go ahead and bring it into your home. Companies like INKAS Safes have very high quality safes and vault doors that would be perfect for safe storage.

Any time you aren’t actively using or cleaning your gun, it should go into your gun safe. Proper weapon storage is going to be of the utmost importance because of the damage that can be done if you leave your gun out in the open.

You should be especially diligent about locking your new gun up if you have kids living in your home. You don’t ever want them to be able to get their hands on it at any point.

3. Keep Your Gun Unloaded at Home

When you bring a new gun home, you might be under the impression that you should leave it loaded all the time. But even with it going right into a gun safe, you should still get into the habit of keeping your gun unloaded more often than not.

As long as your gun isn’t loaded, it won’t be able to do any damage if it ever falls into the wrong hands. It’s why it makes all the sense in the world to keep it unloaded as often as possible.

4. Be as Careful as You Can Be When Handling Your Gun

As a new gun owner, you’re going to be responsible for doing gun maintenance on a regular basis. From cleaning your gun to practicing shooting your gun, you should maintain it as best you can to guarantee that it’ll last you a long time.

That being said, you should make sure that you’re always careful when you’re handling your gun. You should unload it before cleaning it and keep it pointed down towards the ground when it’s in your hand in your home.

5. Talk to Your Kids About Staying Away From Your Gun

Earlier, we touched on how you should lock up your new gun to keep it away from any kids living in your house. This is a great start, but it’s far from the only thing you should do to protect your kids from your gun.

Outside of keeping your gun locked up, you should emphasize just how important it will be for your kids to stay far, far away from your gun. You should also promise to teach them gun safety tips once they get to be a little bit older.

6. Store Ammunition in a Different Part of Your House Than Your Gun

If you really want to go all out when it comes to gun safety, you might want to take it upon yourself to store your gun and your gun’s ammunition in two different spaces in your home. It’s a surefire way to stop a gun accident from taking place on your watch.

Storing your gun and your ammunition in separate parts of your home might not be super convenient. But it’s one of the best gun safety tips that we can give you.

7. Look For the Right Solution for Carrying Your Gun

You’re obviously not going to buy a gun and keep it locked up all the time. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of buying a gun in the first place.

You’re more than welcome to take your gun out so that you can practice with it and see what it can do. But when you do this, you should have a reliable way to carry it around.

Depending on which state you live in, you might be able to holster your gun and carry it that way. But you might also want to see what other solutions you’ll have for keeping your gun safe.

Remember Each of These Gun Safety Tips

If you’re going to buy a gun, you should know how to be a responsible gun owner. It all starts with learning about the gun safety tips listed here and then putting them to good use.

Each of these gun safety tips will help to protect you and your fellow family members. It’ll prevent a gun accident from occurring and make you feel good about keeping a gun under your roof.

Find more tips on buying and owning a gun by browsing through our other blog articles.