Guns + Kids = Potential Tragedy

Gun experts say firearm safety education is needed to prevent accidental deaths, injuries to kids

Summertime is upon us, the season when out-of-school kids are frequently left alone in the house. So, a question to all parents and grandparents out there. Do you have guns in your home?

According to a new report from the Children’s National Hospital, 20,000 American children — yes, 20,000 — will be rushed to emergency rooms this year suffering from gunshot wounds. In 2015, more than 4,500 youngsters under age 21 died. Many were injured or killed as a result of in-home accidents (more common among younger children), but suicides and homicides were also listed as causes of death, primarily in older youths.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Kavita Parikh, called it, “A pediatric public health crisis.”

The study also found that almost half (44 percent) of American homes have at least one gun, and that many parents (40 percent of them) are in a state of denial thinking their children don’t know where the weapon is kept. The reality? Kids often know the hiding place and they have (22 percent of the time) actually handled the gun when the parents weren’t around.

This is not to condemn gun owners reading this. You’ve got the segment of ABC’s 20/20 program that ran an upsetting special on kids and guns a few years ago. With parents’ permission they took a group of young children, ages 4 to 10, and exposed them to a playroom with unloaded handguns strategically placed. All of those children had been admonished not to touch a gun — ever — but to back away, leave the area and find an adult.

But when left alone in the playroom, guess what happened? Only one girl out of 14 disobeyed, but more than half the boys not only touched a gun, they picked it up, pointed it at other children, pulled the trigger and, most chillingly, pointed it at their own face and pulled the trigger as they looked down the barrel.

The ABC program featured Dr. Marjorie Sanfilippo, an expert in pediatric psychology and gun safety. Her words stayed with me. “They can sit down and we can ask them to repeat (the gun warnings) but you can’t educate curiosity out of a child,” she said. While kids often play cops and robbers-type games and pretend to fall dead, Sanfilippo said, at that age they don’t understand what death really means.

The American Academy of Pediatrics supports providing free trigger safety locks as the best way to curb childhood injuries and death. They urge pediatricians to counsel families not to have a false sense of security about the gun in their home, especially if their child struggles with mental health or substance abuse issues. The Academy also wants its member doctors to encourage parents to ask about whether guns are present in the homes where their children go to visit.

Gun experts believe firearm safety education is the key, along with safe storage of weapons in a sturdy lock box or gun safe. It has been reported that there are now more civilian-owned guns in the United States than there are people, and we are a nation of 317 million. So teaching gun safety seems like a logical thing to stress.

I’ve always wondered what happened to the 9-year-old girl whose parents took her to an Arizona gun range for a lesson in how to shoot an Uzi submachine gun. I’m sure they figured this family outing to teach their child gun safety was a responsible thing to do. But in the end, the girl was not able to control the Uzi’s recoil. She accidently shot her instructor in the head and killed him.

Gun aficionados later agreed on two points. A child should not handle a submachine gun; rather, they should learn on a single-shot handgun first. And, the instructor (a military veteran) was standing in the wrong place as he assisted the girl.

When you consider some 20 kids are hospitalized with gunshot injuries every single day in this country, it’s clear something needs fixing. And it’s got to be more than just telling your child to never touch a gun. Clearly, that is not enough.

I cannot erase from my mind that 20/20 experiment during which those little kids — many of whom had just sat through a talk from a policeman and watched a “Don’t Touch!” video — just couldn’t keep their hands off the forbidden object. Without thinking, so many stared down the barrel of a gun and, casually, pointed it at their friends. It is easy to understand how an accidental shooting could happen.

This summer let’s all resolve to have the safety talk with the children in our lives, order those gun locks you’ve been meaning to get and don’t be afraid to ask the parents of playmates if they have guns in the house. We can’t get rid of millions of guns but we can try to protect our kids better.