Meanwhile, there is one common denominator in many school shootings and the more numerous gun accidents and suicides that receive little public attention: Kids who pull a trigger, in whatever circumstance, often get the weapon from a parent or other adult who left it unsecured.
Yesterday, Trace staffers Mike Spies and Sean Campbell helped a consortium of public radio stations in the Ohio Valley research a segment on child access prevention laws, which are designed to hold grownups accountable for failing to keep their firearms out of young hands. Research has indicated that the laws, if enforced (a big if), can reduce child gun deaths.
Last winter, disgusted by the shooting of children in his community, state Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, sponsored a “child access prevention” bill in the Kentucky General Assembly.
Neal’s bill — modeled after similar laws that have passed in 18 states and the District of Columbia, with some success, studies suggest — would have made it a crime to “recklessly” store guns in a manner that lets minors have unintended access to them.
Improper firearm storage would have been a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $250 fine. The charge would have risen to a Class A misdemeanor if a minor subsequently used the gun to hurt or kill someone.
Neal said he’s a gun owner himself, but it’s not asking too much for parents to use either a gun safe or a gun lock to keep their kids from harm.
“The statistics for unintentional shootings are staggering and avoidable,” he said. “Studies show that most children know where parents keep their guns, and many have accessed those guns when their parents were not around or the weapon was unattended or unsecured. This is a problem that cries out for common-sense action to protect our children.”
Neal’s bill died for lack of action in the Senate Judiciary Committee.Why don't these laws pass? I can site a number of reasons, including the power of the NRA gun lobby, but the Dorsey Cheves story is important beyond the horrible statistics because it describes the attitudes of many people toward guns in their homes.
“The norm in Kentucky is to keep guns in the home, and a lot of people don’t think it’s abnormal to keep them out around their children,” Dr. Susan Pollack, a pediatrician at Kentucky Children’s Hospital and director of the Pediatric and Adolescent Injury Program at the Kentucky Injury and Prevention Research Center.In a recent poll, 12 percent of Kentucky parents admitted they keep at least one loaded, unsecured firearm at home with their underage children.
Parents told police they kept loaded guns at home “for safety” and “to protect my family.” The majority stored their guns in their bedroom closets, mistakenly assuming their kids never looked in their closets. In a couple of cases, parents said they usually locked their guns in a cabinet, but they failed to this one time, or else their kids apparently discovered the keys. Otherwise, nobody reported using gun safes or gun locks.
According to the Giffords Law Center, 27 states and the District of Columbia have enacted some sort of Child Access Prevention law, though they vary considerably in strength. Kentucky’s is one of the weakest. Parents or guardians in the state are breaking the law only if they provide a firearm directly to a child when they know there is a good chance that the kid will use the gun to commit a crime.
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This guy needs to be on a speaking tour at gun shows, NRA meetings and at gun clubs.
“I’m a redneck,” he said. “I’m a hillbilly. I grew up in southern Kentucky. I’m not anti-guns. I’ve owned guns. But I don’t have guns lying around everywhere. Use common sense! If you’ve got kids in the house, lock up your guns. The gun store where you buy your guns? You can get gun locks there. You can buy a gun safe there. Lock up your guns so another child does not get shot. Why is this so hard for people to understand?”
- Gary Hamblin, whose 6-year-old daughter nearly died from an accidental shotgun blast near Greenup this year