Nail gun sellers often lack knowledge of risks: study

Durham, NC – People selling nail guns at home improvement stores and businesses that sell directly to contractors often fail to provide accurate safety information to customers, finds research from the Duke University Medical Center.

According to a study abstract, researchers posing as new users visited 217 businesses that sell or rent nail guns.

Researchers reported being given misinformation at almost 75 percent of the businesses, even though 62 percent of salespeople previously had used a nail gun, a Duke press release stated. Almost 60 percent of salespeople did not give any suggestions for safe use.

Although salespeople who had used nail guns and worked in construction stores were more likely to offer safety information, less than half of them understood differences in trigger systems.

Researchers said salespeople lacked access to information and were not aware of a voluntary 2003 industry standard recommending that nail guns be shipped with a safer sequential trigger. Sequential triggers require the nose piece of the nail gun to be pressed down before the trigger is pulled.

The study appeared online April 6 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.