aside from all the other reasons why this is very questionable, I'd argue that this is bad gun safety.

Isn't that supposed to be one of the main goals of their organization? https://twitter.com/fakedansavage/status/1341066021675757568

Like, one of the first rules of gun safety is "assume guns are always loaded".
And that DEFINITELY goes double for when they have been out of your sight.

and a possibly-loaded gun is exactly not the kind of thing you want tumbling around in a box under the tree. Presents are not handled carefully: it could easily go off, and any damage or injuries are now entirely your fault, "santa"

another important rule of gun safety is to keep them out of the hands of children.

And children definitely never sneakily open presents when they're not supposed to, or accidentally open the wrong present on christmas day...

So this is bad gun safety for like three reasons.

BTW, my favorite reminder of good gun safety is in the 1990 film Tremors.
Burt Gummer, the local gun nut, is holed up with some other survivors while the worms attack. The teenage boy demands to be given a gun, and eventually Burt gives him one.

after the teenager is unwise with the gun, it's revealed it was unloaded from the start, because Burt wasn't stupid enough to hand him a loaded gun. Burt takes it back... and checks that it's unloaded.

And it's a good reminder of that safety rule: GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED.

Even when you know you didn't load it, and you handed it to someone without ammo, who just showed that it was unloaded by failing to fire it, you double check before putting it away.

Anyway if you really wanted to do this questionable christmas thing, I think the correct way to do it would be to get a portable padded gun-safe, unload and secure the gun, lock it in the safe, and then wrap that, without the keys in the package.

Although if you check the LockPickingLawyer's videos, it turns out most portable gun safes are really terrible.

Anyway all the scenarios for disaster with a gun-present are unlikely but they're also all avoidable by NOT DOING THAT.

Most firearm accidents are unlikely, but unlikely things happen. That's why you're supposed to follow the rules to make them even less likely!

for example, I had a friend when I was a kid who had to go to the hospital because they had injured themselves by accidentally shooting themselves with an unloaded BB gun.

it was a compressed-air BB gun pistol, and they had unloaded it and was playing with the discharge of compressed air, by putting their palm up against the muzzle and having the gun shove their hand away when they fired it.

they had definitely unloaded it... but it turned out a BB had somehow gotten knocked out of the chamber earlier and was wedged inside the BB gun somewhere.

Repeatedly firing it in a weird position (pointing directly up with a lot of knockback from firing directly against something) managed to knock it free and it ended up in the chamber.

so they were repeatedly going *cachunk* (to arm it), PSSST, *cachunk*, PSSST, *cachunk*, PSSFT... then *cachunk*, OWWWW FUCK!

It was just a BB gun (which are "safer", not "safe") but it turns out if you fire it directly touching the soft skin of your palm, it doesn't matter that it's "just" a BB gun. You might get punctured.

Anyway... that organization should know better. And you could argue that "well they clearly MEAN that you should do it safely" but MAYBE THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE PUT THIS IN YOUR PHOTO?

god I didn't even notice the loose ammunition in there.

Anyway, no matter your feelings pro/anti guns, I think it's important to consider gun safety, and basic gun handling.

(Especially in the US)

Even if you don't own a gun, you should understand basic gun safety rules, in case you end up ever having to handle one. Same thing for kids: They should be taught basic gun safety so that they know how dangerous they are and how to not mishandle them if they ever handle one.

it's interesting that you get some of the same arguments about sexual education about gun safety.
Like teaching kids to handle guns is the same as saying "EVERY 10 YEAR OLD SHOULD HAVE A REVOLVER"

similarly you (should, at least) teach sex ed (of various amounts at different ages, obviously) so that they know what it is and know how not to get hurt if they do do it

and even if you know there's no guns in your house and have no plans to get any, your kids could be at a friend's house when they find an unsecured firearm.

They should know things like:
1. not to play with it
2. if they have to handle it (like to take it from their idiot friend, for example), how to do it safely

and it's definitely not the same as "ALL KIDS SHOULD HAVE GUNS" to say kids should understand very basic safely rules like "assume all guns are loaded" "don't point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy" "don't put your finger on the trigger"

I know firearms are a very controversial topic but hopefully that's about the least controversial stance you can take on them.

I'm from the south, man, we're big on guns but even we think "you should know how to be safe with them" is pretty universal.

(obviously also I'm talking from a perspective of the US.
If you live in a nation like Taiwan which has like 1 gun per 20,000 people, you can probably safely not teach your kids about guns)

similarly, growing up in North Carolina, I was never taught how to deal with a Hippo, despite them killing around 500 people a year.

Hippos are surprisingly dangerous for a herbivore, actually. They're aggressive and territorial and weigh SEVERAL TONS.
They're pretty fast both on land and in water, and can easily capsize small boats.

anyway my favorite stupid fact about them is that in 1910 there was a plan to introduce hippos to Louisiana, to handle the invasive water hyacinth clogging the waterways.
The bill narrowly didn't pass.

and I can only imagine how much of a disaster it would have been if America had decided it was a good idea to import an aggressive giant herbivore to the deep south.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG

and to tie it back to what this thread is actually about, Hippos also have incredibly thick skin that's usually wet.

Ask the British & the Zulu what happens when you try to shoot through wet animal skin with small arms.