Five months after the county first launched a free gun lock giveaway at three Anne Arundel County Public Library locations in April, it expanded it to all fifteen library sites Monday.
The program, which began in April at the Michael E. Busch Annapolis, Glen Burnie and Eastport-Annapolis Neck library locations, offers up to two locks per person, instructions on how to use them and literature on gun safety storage to county residents who are at least 18 years old.
At the start of summer, the program expanded to three more libraries — Deale, Odenton and Severn — due to its popularity, according to Anne Arundel Health Department spokesperson Megan Pringle. As of Monday locks are now available at the remaining nine libraries — Brooklyn Park, Broadneck, Crofton, Edgewater, Linthicum, Maryland City, Pasadena on Mountain Road, Severna Park, Riviera Beach and Westfield Annapolis Mall.
Since the program’s formation, nearly 2,000 locks have been given out. Anne Arundel was the first county in the state to launch a program like this and has seen “huge success,” Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman said in a statement.
The giveaway has been one strategy by the county to reduce instances of gun violence — specifically occasions in which children or other unauthorized users get ahold of other people’s guns. It was made possible through a roughly $12,000 grant from the Governor’s Office of Crime, Prevention and Youth Victim Services. These kinds of locks cost around $10 each online.
By far, the program has seen the most activity at the Glen Burnie and Michael E. Busch Annapolis locations, both of which have given out nearly 700 locks, Pringle said.
Initial feedback the library system has received on the program indicates people are picking up locks for all sorts of reasons. One grandmother retrieved locks for two of her guns because her grandson had gotten ahold of one and snuck off with it, said library spokesperson Christine Feldmann, adding no one was hurt.
Others have picked them up for members of their family in the military, partners who teach gun safety classes and for guns they inherited and don’t know what to do with yet. In some cases, kids have even convinced their parents to get locks for their guns after learning about the importance of gun safety from library personnel.
“Most people who picked up the locks talked about the ease in which we made getting the locks since there are libraries in most communities and they felt comfortable in a library setting,” Feldmann said