Quality of consumer-targeted internet guidance on home firearm and ammunition storage.

Background And Objectives: Four storage practices protect against unintentional and/or self-inflicted firearm injury among children and adolescents: keeping guns locked (1) and unloaded (2) and keeping ammunition locked up (3) and in a separate location from the guns (4). Our aim was to mimic common Google search strategies on firearm/ammunition storage and assess whether the resulting web pages provided recommendations consistent with those supported by the literature.

Methods: We identified 87 web pages by Google search of the 10 most commonly used search terms in the USA related to firearm/ammunition storage.