The Gun Aware Project (Gap), founded by Karen and Nick Fischer in 2023, has distributed over 4,000 gun locks, with 1,000 going to local departments. Volunteers from Community Works, a program of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, have assisted in these efforts, engaging with more than 15,000 people across a four-county area in rural Virginia.
The project focuses on sharing storage safety information during fall back-to-school events in public schools. One of the initial distributions took place in Giles County, where the sheriff's office, led by Sheriff W Morgan Millirons, collaborated with Gap. Sheriff Millirons issued a statement describing firearm safety as a component of responsible gun ownership.
The initiative aims to find common ground with conservative gun owners on gun safety, despite the issue often being considered unbridgeable in rural politics. Firearms were the leading cause of death among American children and teenagers in 2023, resulting in 2,581 deaths for those under 18.