Inside Hollywood’s new effort to curb gun deaths

A look at the “Show Gun Safety” campaign, an effort by “S.W.A.T.” creators and other television producers to portray safe firearm storage.

An elite police tactical officer comes home after an exhausting shift. He and his wife begin sharing details of their respective day – the cop recounting a harrowing moment saving the life of a woman and her child. But before officer Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson settles in, he has an important stop to make. Hondo heads to the bedroom closet, removes his semi-automatic service weapon, and safely locks it away in his gun safe. This scene is much more than a brief pause in the non-stop action on the hit CBS television show “S.W.A.T.,” rather, the intentional result of a new partnership between Hollywood and safety advocates to help save lives in an era of seemingly endless gun violence. “I’m big badass Hondo, and I get out there and take down bad guys,” actor Shemar Moore, who plays Hondo, told CNN. “But when I come home…I own a firearm, but it’s safe, it’s protected.” This approach of utilizing the entertainment industry to model safe practices is one of the successes of “Show Gun Safety,” a campaign launched by the advocacy group Brady United, which is now partnering with television studios across the country.