The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has released an innovative new publication titled Straight Talk About Nail Gun Safety that uses a comic format to illustrate the potential risks of traumatic injury using nail guns and how these risks can be reduced. Real-life examples from residential building construction are used to explain nail gun traumatic injury risks related to the two different nail gun triggering systems and a variety of residential framing nailing tasks.

As a safety awareness publication, Straight Talk About Nail Gun Safety provides potential and new nail gun users with basic information to help them recognize potentially unsafe conditions and nail gun features that increase the risk of traumatic nail gun injury. It can be used in conjunction with safety training required by OSHA or to reinforce previous nail gun safety training. However, NIOSH notes that distribution of this publication alone will not satisfy OSHA safety training requirements, which are described in detail in Nail Gun Safety: A Guide for Construction Contractors and can be viewed and printed or downloaded from www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-202/.