On Monday, Master Lock Co. announced that it was recalling more than three-quarters of a million gun locks because it was concerned that the locks could be opened without using a key. The company, which made the announcement in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said that it would replace any of the 752,000 locks that are affected by the recall. The recall announcement indicated Master Lock had not received any reports that their locks had been disabled, but the company was concerned that a "manufacturing discrepancy" would allow "children and other unauthorized users" access to a firearm equipped with one of these locks. The CPSC release noted that many of the defective locks were sold with S&W firearms. Further details are available at www.cpsc.gov. NRA has long stated that trigger locks are just one option responsible gun owners may wish to utilize for securing their firearms, but this recall vividly highlights one reason why we oppose storage mandates of any kind for firearms. Most gun locks, even non-defective ones, can be defeated by anyone with enough curiosity and determination, so any parent who relies on simply following a government mandate on "safety" is risking a potential tragedy. On the other hand, education programs such as NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe ProgramŽ have been proven to reduce firearm-related accidents among children, by teaching kids to avoid guns if they come across them in an unsupervised situation -- regardless of whether or not the gun has a locking device attached, and regardless of the effectiveness of the device. Unfortunately, we should expect anti-gun extremists such as Al Gore and Bill Clinton to continue to call for laws mandating that all gun owners use devices such as the ones recently recalled. It is our hope that lawmakers will continue to reject such proposals, especially in light of this recall, as government storage mandates will most certainly put lives at risk.
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