Guns and kids don’t mix; keep ’em apart
Q: I am a parent and a gun owner. What is the best way to safely store my firearm at home?
A: While it would be safest for your children to not have a gun in the home, there are many things you can do to safely store your firearm. Always store your firearm unloaded and locked. Use a gun safe or lock box to which your children do not have access to the combination or key. Store the ammunition separately, and use a trigger lock. Just like wearing your seatbelt, get in the habit of locking up your gun every single time.
Just as you want to keep your kids safe in your home, it is important to keep them safe when they are playing at a friend’s house or staying with relatives. There is a great campaign that is a collaboration between the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) called ASK, Asking Saves Kids. The goal of the campaign is to encourage parents to ask, “Is there an unlocked gun in your home?” before allowing their child to go over to play. While this may feel like a difficult question to ask, 93 percent of parents reported being okay with being asked. About one in three families with children have guns in their home, and 40 percent of those keep them unlocked. In fact, 25 percent of those households keep the gun loaded. Up to 75 percent of kids ages five to 14 know where the family gun is kept and 22 percent of kids had handled the parents’ firearm without their knowledge. These statistics point to the fact that many families have guns that are not stored safely, and that the kids know where they are. Children are curious and telling them not to play with guns is not enough. Asking about safe gun storage before your child goes over to play is important to address, just
as you might discuss car seats, food allergies and any special health issues before dropping your child off for a play date. If they do report having a gun that is not stored safely, have the kids come over to your house to play instead.
Safe storage of firearms is incredibly important. The Brady Center reports that over 17,000 American children and teenagers are injured or killed every year due to gun violence. This equates to 46 every day, including seven fatalities. Eighty percent of unintentional firearm deaths in kids younger than 15 occurred in a home. Children as young as three may be strong enough to pull a trigger, so safe storage is important from the beginning. In New Mexico, there were 211 deaths due to firearms in children aged 0-18 between 2006 and 2016 (as reported by the Centers for Disease Control). Additionally, firearm injury is one of our state’s leading causes of nonfatal injury. Suicide by firearm is increased by a factor of 17 in homes with guns. If there is someone in your home suffering from depression or mental illness, the safest thing to do is remove the gun from your home.
While statistics are important and useful, it is knowing the actual stories of children who have died from accidental firearm injury that I find most compelling in discussing safe storage of firearms with families in my office. I will never forget that day in my training when the pediatric service was called to the trauma room in expectation of a very young gunshot wound victim. Unfortunately, there was nothing that we could do as the child died before arriving at the hospital. While any unexpected death is very difficult to handle, this was especially difficult when we learned that he died because his older brother accidentally shot him. This event changed his family’s life forever. They lost a child. The older brother now had to live with the knowledge that his younger brother died by his hand. This story is not unique; it has occurred many more times than it should have. This was entirely preventable.
Thank you for asking about the safe storage of firearms. As a pediatrician and a parent, my goal is to do everything I can to keep kids healthy and safe. At my practice, this is something we ask about and address at every wellness visit, just as we discuss nutrition, development, and many other areas of safety and preventive medicine. I will close with a motto from a grassroots organization working toward preventing accidental firearm injury and encouraging the use of gun locks. “Love our kids, lock your guns.”