From KERA:

Daryl Howard turns 65 in October. He has a Glock .45-caliber handgun stored in his desk at home, but hopes never to use it.

“It’s not something that’s taken lightly,” Howard says on a weekday afternoon, in his second-floor Dallas apartment. “For me, there was no second option. It was something I felt was really necessary for me to be safe.”

Howard, who says he owns his gun for protection, is in good health. Getting a handgun license 15 years ago did not raise much of a fuss for his children, or son-in-law, Justin Allen.

“You were very educated about it,” Allen says to Howard. “That’s one reason why I feel so comfortable with him owning a handgun.”

Millions of elderly Americans like Howard own guns, according to a 2017 survey by the Pew Research Center. An April 2019 University of Washington study found that about a third of older adults don’t store their firearms in the safest way — locked up and unloaded.

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