Effort distributes gun safety locks

HAYWARD, Wis. (WBZH) – The Hayward Medical Center has partnered with a nonprofit youth organization to distribute gun safety locks during medical visits.

SCOPE stands for Sawyer County Outdoor Projects and Education. The organization has provided 250 trigger locks free of charge during routine well-child visits with clinicians. Those visits also feature conversations with families about gun safety. 

The program is run in cooperation with the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Kellan Klubben is an ER and Family Medicine Doctor at Tamarack Health, and says the clinic’s had discussions with families before about gun safety. But this program goes a step further.

“There specific kind of questions we ask are, ‘Are there firearms in the house? Are they locked? Are they out of reach of children?”

“There are a lot of guns in homes because that’s a big hobby up here. Traditionally there’s always been a lot of hunting in the Northwoods. So there’s a lot of access to guns… We try to do our best to find where those risks may lie and help kind of circumvent them as early as possible,” says Klubben.

There were more than 16,000 firearm deaths last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Injuries were about double that number. Klubben says that the goal of the partnership with SCOPE is to decrease gun violence statistics.

“That’s our goal, is to get as many of these out in the community as possible. So I tell people, even if you tell somebody and they’re not a patient here, have them come by and we will give them a gun lock, we’re happy to do that,” says Klubben.