My Gun’s Been Moved is Available For Pre-Orders

Kayla Austin, creator of My Gun’s Been Moved, has presented her device at CES. Photo provided by AppreyPR.
Kayla Austin, creator of My Gun’s Been Moved, has presented her device at CES. Photo provided by AppreyPR.

My Gun’s Been Moved is Available For Pre-Orders

By Tia Carol Jones

With My Gun’s Been Moved, Kayla Austin gets to combine two of her passions: Activism and Entrepreneurship. She has been able to create a product that includes social justice, technology, media and entrepreneurship. It has been a blessing for her to see business, entrepreneurship and technology as an opportunity to solve an issue that can save lives and prevent injury.

Now, the smart pad is patent-pending and is available for pre-orders. People can put in a $50 deposit and the product cost $150 in pre-orders and $200 after pre-orders.

Austin, a senior at Howard University, created My Gun’s Been Moved after doing research and learning that a large portion of shootings involving children happened using a parent’s gun. It is a smart pad, connected to an app that notifies the user when the gun has been moved from the pad, and allows users to call law enforcement or an emergency contact. She has also developed My Safety Circle to expand the conversation around responsible gun ownership, storage and monitoring in homes.

“This election year, gun violence is a topic we know will be talked about and those conversations are already starting. We’re planning to put ourselves into more of those conversations that are happening nationwide as well,” she said.

In 2022, Austin was awarded a cash prize for My Gun’s Been Moved by Pharrell Williams as part of his Black Ambition Prize, which works to close the opportunity and wealth gap through entrepreneurship by investing capital and resources in Black and Hispanic founded startups. She was also named one of Teen Vogue’s “21 Under 21,” AT&T’s Dream in Black Future Dream Makers and the National Urban League’s Future History Makers.

Austin is using social media to amplify the stories of survivors and families who have been impacted by in-home gun violence and accidental shootings from improperly stored firearms. There is a podcast in production featuring interviews with survivors and community organizers who are doing work on gun violence prevention, with the goal of amplifying the work they are doing.

“We hear about shootings involving children a lot. Most of the time, we think of either school shootings and things of that nature. But, what we really want is when people hear about gun violence against youth, we want them to think about safe storage and firearm ownership and what it looks like to be a safe gun owner,” she said.

When it comes to why safe gun ownership is not part of the conversation around gun violence, Austin believes it is because the focus is on politics and legislation, which she said, needs to be changed, but on the microlevel, she wants the gun violence conversation to include what gun owners can do to keep their children safe, with safe practices in the home. She added that while shootings involving children with improperly stored guns are happening at an alarming rate, it isn’t being covered as much as mass shootings. She said it happens eight times a day. She believes media coverage on shootings involving children from improperly stored guns needs to increase.

Austin has been part of the Howard University PNC Center for Entrepreneurship and participated in an event with The Reverend T.D. Jakes where she was able to talk about My Gun’s Been Moved and how to properly store firearms. She also participated in Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally on gun violence prevention. There, she met with organizations doing work around gun safety that included Everytown for Gun Safety and the Brady and Moms Demand to see how they could collaborate.

“This year, our focus really is to build stronger relationships with people that are doing the work … whether that be on the policy level or the neighborhood level” she said.

Austin estimates the product should be available in the Winter. For more information about My Gun’s Been Moved, to preorder the smart pad or sign up for My Safety Circle, visit mygunsbeenmoved.com.

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