Guilford County tragedy renews focus on North Carolina gun storage law

A Reidsville child’s death is forcing a hard look at how North Carolina’s gun-storage law works in real homes, not just on paper. Eight-year-old Gabriel Sanchez died after a gunshot wound at a home on U.S. Highway 29 North on May 25, and his 19-year-old brother, Luis Alberto Sanchez Jr., was charged June 1 with misdemeanor storage of firearms to protect minors.

Court records say Sanchez Jr. lived in the same home as Gabriel and left a firearm in a condition that could be discharged in a way he knew or should have known would allow an unsupervised minor to access it. Investigators later determined the firearm was unsecured and accessible to multiple juveniles in the home, turning a private household failure into a criminal case under state law.

North Carolina General Statute 14-315.1 makes unsafe firearm storage around minors a Class 1 misdemeanor when a person who lives with a minor owns or possesses a firearm and stores or leaves it in a condition that allows an unsupervised minor to reach it, and the child gets access without parental permission. In practice, prosecutors would have to prove those elements: that the defendant lived with the minor, possessed the gun, left it accessible in the required way, and that a minor got to it without permission.

The related warning law, G.S. 14-315.2, requires firearm sellers or transferors to provide a written copy of the storage statute and post a warning at the sales counter. State lawmakers have also kept the issue alive at the Capitol. In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly considered a bill that would have required guns in homes with minors to be kept in locked containers except when carried on the person.

The case also arrived as Gov. Josh Stein proclaimed June 1-7 as North Carolina S.A.F.E. Week of Action, part of the state’s Secure All Firearms Effectively initiative. The program is described as a partnership involving the Governor’s Office, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and input from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, with local partners across the state promoting safe storage.

Tommy Massey, a North Carolina concealed carry instructor, urged gun owners to treat every firearm as dangerous and never leave one on a table or nightstand where a child can reach it. He said safe storage means using a gun safe, a lock box or a gun lock, and he stressed that training matters as much as possession.

The urgency is backed by injury data showing that unintentional firearm deaths among children often involve children gaining access to guns during play or while showing the weapon to others. In Guilford County and across the Triad, the lesson is plain: when firearms are in a home, secure storage is not an extra precaution. It is the difference between safety and a tragedy that cannot be undone.