The Napa County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved a new ordinance that restricts residents from keeping firearms in their homes unless they are stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock.

The new ordinance goes into effect Nov. 9.

Securely storing firearms not only reduces the risk of accidents or fatalities but also serves as a deterrent against theft, said Napa County board chair Belia Ramos.

“The passage of this ordinance underscores our collective commitment to protecting some of our community’s most vulnerable members, including children and individuals experiencing suicidal impulses,” Ramos said.

The ordinance approved Tuesday states that quick access to a loaded firearm heightens the risk that a young person’s impulsive decision to die by suicide will be carried out without reflection or seeking help.

The law applies to houses, apartments, condominiums, in-law units, accessory dwelling units, motels, hotels, single room occupancy units, timeshares, mobile homes, recreational vehicles and other vehicles where human habitation occurs.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.