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In firearms, a safety or safety catch is a mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling.
Safeties can generally be divided into subtypes such as internal safeties and external safeties. Sometimes these are called "passive" and "active" safeties , respectively.
Firearms with the ability to allow the user to select various fire modes may have separate switches for safety and for mode selection or may have the safety integrated with the mode selector as a fire selector with positions from safe to semi-automatic to full-automatic fire.
Some firearms manufactured after the late 1990s and early 2000s include a mandatory integral locking mechanisms that must be deactivated by a unique key before the gun can be fired. These integral locking mechanisms are intended as child-safety devices during unattended storage of the firearm—not as safety mechanisms while carrying. Other devices in this category are trigger locks, bore locks, and gun safes.