	Child-Access Prevention laws are typically created on the same premise across the board: to put the onus of protecting the children in your home from firearm violence – accidental or otherwise - on the parents or guardians instead of on the children themselves. This is an issue that is, however, as divisive as any other gun safety measure with both proponents and staunch opposition. The oppositional force to child access prevention laws argues that they would prevent a homeowner from easily defending their property, while proponents reply that this would decrease both suicides and homicides by juveniles. 
	These statistics might foster the belief that child access prevention laws should be more prevalent, however there are only 27 states plus the District of Columbia with currently active child access prevention legislation. A confounding piece of the puzzle continues to be how each state defines child access prevention legislature – some states utilize legislation that penalizes guardians for even leaving the firearm in a place where a minor could potentially access it, while others require the minor to have actually laid hands on the weapon before they will consider the parent or guardian negligent. Of these options, 14 states plus the District of Columbia utilize negligent storage legislation – the other 13 require usage. 
	This lack of a unified, cohesive Child-Access Prevention legislation is where I draw my policy suggestion from: there needs to be a policy across all 50 states and territories that is the same unilaterally which punishes parents or guardians the same way across the board for negligent storage of firearms. I suggest taking the Child-Access Prevention laws currently utilized by Minnesota and making them nationwide: any parent or guardian who is found to have stored a firearm in a location where the child in the home could easily access it is fined up to $3,000 and might serve up to one year of jail time. The only time in which the parent or guardian would not be considered culpable would be if the juvenile obtained the firearm by breaking and entering, or some other unlawful method of firearm obtainment. In these cases, the juvenile would be looked at through a different lens and potentially sent to court for further decision.
	With its stringent legislature regarding firearm possession and safety, Minnesota remains one of the top states for gun safety. 
Minnesota law preempts all municipal and county regulation of almost everything related to firearms, not just juvenile possession or intent:
Even local parks and trails are considered cause for a more restrictive environment: local government is given permission to regulate firearms on state trails in an even narrower manner than state law dictates. These might seem excessive, but it is these laws and regulations that keep the state’s citizens safe as compared to the national average. 
	While Minnesota might be near the top of child access prevention laws, it is important to note that it is not the top state in terms of gun safety as a whole. In fact, Minnesota is near the middle of the pack due to its less rigid stance on assault weapons in general, and notating the fact that its firearms dealers must not have a specific license – just a few security measures that have been put in place. There is also no current limit to the number of firearms that can be purchased at any given time – a red flag when it comes to certain public health concerns like mass shootings. 
