The purpose of this pilot study is to identify specific safety climate dimensions pertaining to firearm safety and accidental discharge of firearms. New items capture the seriousness in firearms training pertaining to safety, handling and learning. The new items were developed in cooperation with the Swedish Armed Forces. The new items together with the Nordic safety climate questionnaire and the military safety climate questionnaire were distributed to one regiment within the Swedish Armed Forces.

Data was collected and analyzed through statistical methods. An exploratory factor analysis initially indicated two new factors. The confirmatory factor analysis rejected one new factor keeping Serious firearms training. A two-level factor model was created influenced by accidents and incidents relating to firearms. Two latent variables were identified Safety Voice and Safety engagement both affected by accidents and incidents relating to firearms. The employee category squad leaders, soldiers or sailors at the lowest level of the organization, display significant differences compared to others in creating a climate were incidents and accidents might not be discussed or learnt from preventing unsafe behavior.

The results from this study have one dominant limitation, this being that the sample size is only from one regiment. The new factor Serious firearms training need additional testing and validation before being adopted into an instrument. Future research should focus on verifying the two-level factor model with additional data from other military installations and to incorporate other types of variables into the model.