Guns are a hot topic in our country. That’s fine. Something, however, that I feel often gets lost in the conversation are some of those ‘simple’ and ‘common sense’ things we can do to help reduce accidental deaths by guns.
Hundreds of children are affected each year by accidental or unintentional gun violence that could easily be reduced by following a few simple steps. I had this infographic produced to help highlight these simple steps as well as create awareness for some of the statistics surrounding the issue.
I feel this is a very important topic to cover. My interest was sparked a few months ago when a woman I work with was telling me about a firearm she keeps on her bedside stand at all times. The pistol, she told me, is always loaded and ready for action. I asked her if she is concerned about her three year old daughter finding the gun and getting hurt with it. To that question, she replied adamantly that her daughter would never do that because she knows better.
Having three kids of my own, this response surprised me. I wouldn’t leave unattended chocolate anywhere near them regardless of what they know or don’t know because they are children. However, I thought, I don’t know much about children and guns either, so I figured I would get to researching.
That exchange got me wondering how many more people feel that way and what the results of those feelings are.
A few notable things I found in my research:
- While there are a lot of children, around 1.7 million, who are in situations that have the potential for an incident, relatively few incidents occur.
- A large portion of the population feel that having an unsecured firearm in the presence of children is totally fine because the children “know better.”
- The topic of guns, even when talking about them in the context of trying to help reduce injuries in children, is volatile.
I write quite a bit more on the topic, as well as posted the original infographic, here on a post I wrote about gun safety for kids.
Infographic with five easy steps to take to help improve gun safety for kids.
I gather that we’re supposed to connect the dots to a biometric solution?
Disclosure is strongly encouraged in Blogland, so you might want to add that if it’s necessary.
But, given the importance of the topic, I’ll ask: How close are we to biometric guns?
When I was making his account. Kind of hard to figure what the angle is; corporate? Consultancy? Advocacy? The post is interesting but more disclosure would be welcome.
I was a member of the NRA, specifically because teaching this sort of thing was the NRA’s mission. Once the organization abandoned that mission for its present one, the void has never been filled.
The result is that now the population either (i) has never, ever, been in contact with or near a firearm, and recoils from them in horror; and (ii) owns one or more firearm, and displays that ownership in order to maximize the degree to which group (i) is appalled at any given time.
I have always thought that it would be far more effective, from a public health perspective, to have an organization that fills the original role of the NRA– focusing on safety and training, rather than wading into the regulation wars. That would at least minimize the incidence of craziness like this bedside handgun mentioned above, and might actually begin to build an organization with sufficient credibility on both sides as to be able to address the political questions.
Not that that doesn’t happen in some households, but as told it feels a little … made up.
It is a gun safety education program for children, that they modeled on – Stop, Drop, and Roll – for fire safety. Do not touch, tell an adult, etc.
Problem is, schools will not allow it as it ‘normalizes’ and ‘encourages’ guns and gun use. I tried more than once to bring it to my own school system, but was denied.
So the NRA keeps offering the education – the educational establishment allowing them to teach is another matter.
I had Cambridge Police come in and help us identify drugs and firearms and teach us to always assume that the latter are loaded and never touch them, get an adult, etc. Not sure if this was standard (I realize as an adult a lot of stuff Cambridge did other districts don’t do)
The NRA is an extremist political organization that would put a Glock with a 20-round magazine in the hands of all first graders as a means of reducing playground squabbles.
Fuck the NRA. There needs to be something that exists for reasons of selling firearms.
I’ve got two kids. When a kid wants to go play at so-and-so’s house, I make a call to Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so.
“Do you have any firearms in the house?””
If no: great, thanks.
If yes: “Could little so-and-so please come to my house to play.”
At this point, there are exactly two houses my children are allowed to visit that have guns: grandpa and uncle. Both are retired military, both keep their weapons disabled and locked, with ammo locked separately, and both have incredible discipline when it comes to firearms. I trust them with my children’s lives. Everybody else? Nawp. I’m not saying that more people cannot be added to the list, but you don’t get on that list by words alone. You get on that list only after I see how you store your firearms and ammunition, and after I know that’s your M.O. all the time, not just this time.
I wish more parents did this. It would (a) embolden parents who are uncomfortable with their kids around guns to speak up for their own children, and (b) remind parents who do have guns that there are societal expectations for safety, thereby helping set safer expectations.
It won’t eliminate accidental injuries and deaths resulting from kids playing with guns, but it would reduce incidents (to say nothing of reducing suicides), and that would be a good thing.
I feel like people would be put off by the question, but I do like the idea of social pressure on gun ownership.
Some of us might also be shocked at how many people own guns.
I care about the health and safety of my children more than anything. And by “my children” I include in that any child who is under my care at the moment.
If another parent doesn’t get that, intuitively, then I don’t want my kid under that parent’s supervision anyway.
Would be to have grandpa and uncle teach them.
What if the other parent lies? Or, what if they find one out and about one day? The latter happened to my kids once. Turned out to be a pellet gun, but holy moley was that a day. They, thankfully, knew what to do.
Fear, alone, is not enough, because fear can be overcome. They need to respect them.
Teach them what? That guns are dangerous? That they’re not to be *touched* by children? Or how to pick them up, hold them, and use them safely?
Because the former: you bet. But you don’t actually need a gun to do that, and you don’t need a gun owner to do that. It seems to me that one does not require a gun owner to teach gun safety to kids (which, really, simply amounts to: don’t touch it, and if you’re around one not being held by a police officer, go find an adult immediately).
And if the conclusion wasn’t obvious, I also steadfastly reject the idea that gun safety requires gun use training. My safety record with guns is exactly the same with F-15 Tomcats and F1 race cars for that matter — I’ve never used one, so I’ve never used one dangerously.
If the parent lies? If I had any reason to believe that the parent would lie to me about something like that, my kid wouldn’t be going there anyway.
If a parent did lie about that, his or her kid would get damn lonely real quick, because I’d let every single parent in the kid’s school know that not only did the parent have guns in the home, but that the parent directly lied to me about it.
Would you trust an adult with your child if that adult lied about gun availability in the house?
I hear you, but that’s not quite fair.
Specifically, to whom is it not fair, and to whom am I obligated to be fair when it concerns judgment about the safety of my children?
… your parental standard on to another parent, and questioning that parent’s judgment.
There’s also the privacy issue; I may not want you to know I have a gun (maybe my kids don’t know).
That said, it would be nice if we all agreed on this, and it wasn’t offensive to ask such a question. But at the moment, it is.
Unpleasant maybe, but not unreasonable.
The problem is that this works mainly when kids are really young. Eventually they become sufficiently independent that they may transgress parent-imposed taboos.
There’s no way to prevent a teenager (even pre-teen) from going to a friend’s house, even if you say no-go. But it’s also very hard to prevent a teenager (even pre-teen) from accessing a firearm in a home once he’s in that home — which is why my preference is for my kids to not be in the home where there’s a gun in the first place.
…these are just more reasons the government does in fact have a legitimate interest in regulating how guns are stored even in the privacy of your own home.
It’s not fair to ensure my kids are only in places that I think are safe for them?
I’m the parent of my children all the time. If a place doesn’t meet my standards of safety for my kids, my kids will not be there. Period.
If you* are offended by my concern for my kid’s safety at your house, I’m glad to know that your fragile ego is more important than my concern for my kid’s safety. Your kid is still welcome to come to my house. If you don’t want me to have a gun, your choices are (a) to tell me but ask me to keep it private — fine, but my kid isn’t going to your house; (b) to lie — see answer earlier if I ever find out, or (c) choose to not answer, in which case, see (a).
* By “you” I mean the other kid’s parent, whose house my kid may go visit
People can take offense to anything, and somebody is always sure to do just that. But I absolutely disagree with you that, by American societal standards, it is “offensive” or “unfair” (your words) to ask if there are guns in the house where your kids are going to play.
…until such time as it is to be used – period! To me the notion that you should be able to grab a weapon and pull the trigger in a single motion sounds like wild west machismo fantasy more than anything grounded in reality.
a course was held after school so we could get our FID cards. There were about 30 of us. Five or six years before, kids used to bring their guns to and keep them in their locker until after school.
When I ask my students about guns, very, very few of their families have them in their home.
Source: Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Kalesan et. al., June 2015
I confess that I’m skeptical to the claim that MA has 50 percent more gun ownership than NH (or that 1 in 4 in DC , but I think that the general trend lines are about right.
…that MA is ahead of NH at all. I would have thought that NH would have if anything a higher absolute number of gun owners than MA despite being about 1/5 the population.