The Houston Chronicle on locking up parents who don’t lock up guns (Dec. 12):

In memory of four Michigan teenagers who won’t be spending time with their families this Christmas and in sympathy with six others and a high school teacher traumatized for life, we offer a modest proposal:

Any parent or guardian who refuses to secure guns in their home, arguing that a locked and unloaded gun denies them quick access to thwart a home invasion or other mortal threat, should be required to implement an alternative strategy. We propose designating an adult in the household to keep vigil just inside the front door every night, a loaded pistol, rifle or shotgun lying across their lap, ready in an instant to blow away those dangerous would-be intruders they fear so much. Parents, of course, could trade off, each taking four-hour shifts sitting guard or alternating night shifts.

We’re being facetious — sort of — but our proposal is no more absurd than keeping loaded, unsecured guns around the house, accessible to curious toddlers and troubled teens alike. Those kids or other family members who live in the house every day are the ones far more likely to get shot than any hypothetical intruder.

We offer another proposal, not so modest: Perhaps it’s time for those parents who refuse to lock up their guns to find themselves locked up instead.

The shooter at a high school in Oxford Township, Mich., on Nov. 30 was 15, authorities said. He fired more than 30 rounds at students and teachers.

He not only had access to a loaded weapon but was allegedly abetted by his parents. Authorities say his father bought him the 9mm Sig Sauer SP2022 on Black Friday. His mother took him target shooting, and after a teacher observed him searching for ammunition on his phone, the mother texted her child, “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.” The parents kept the loaded pistol in an unlocked drawer in their bedroom.

Despite behavior at school so worrisome that school officials called the parents into a meeting, the parents refused to take their son home when asked to do so. Just hours later, authorities said he emerged from a bathroom and began firing.

“If the incident yesterday with four children being murdered and multiple kids being injured is not enough to revisit our gun laws, I don’t know what is,” Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald said. She charged the shooter as an adult with murder, terrorism and other crimes.

Then the prosecutor took an extra step. She charged the shooter’s parents with involuntary manslaughter, because, she said, they should have known their son was a danger to the school. The parents, who fled to Detroit after the massacre, have pleaded not guilty. They face up to 60 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors are often reluctant to charge parents whose children commit mass murder, in part because the parents have a constitutional right to own a firearm. A growing number of states, including Texas, have Child Access Prevention laws that generally require gun owners to safely store guns and keep them out of the hands of minors. In Texas, a person can be held criminally liable, albeit for a Class C misdemeanor, if he or she doesn’t take reasonable steps to secure a firearm or leaves it loaded somewhere a child is likely to access it. The violation becomes a Class A misdemeanor, carrying up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine, if a child uses the gun to injure or kill someone, including himself.

McDonald said she had no choice but to charge the parents. “I am in no way saying that an active shooter situation should always result in a criminal prosecution against parents, but the facts of this case are so egregious,” she said.

“I’m angry as a mother. I’m angry as a prosecutor. I’m angry as a person that lives in this county. I’m angry,” she added. “There were a lot of things that could have been so simple to prevent.”

Would that we all get angry at parents of children who live in homes with unsecured firearms.

Guns, just behind car crashes, are the second-leading cause of death for American children, according to the Giffords Law Center. Each year, more than 8,000 kids are killed or seriously injured by guns. An estimated 70-90% of guns used in youth suicides, unintentional shootings among children and by school shooters under age 18 are acquired from the homes of relatives or friends, according to the center.

Failing to secure weapons in the home also feeds an epidemic of gun thefts in this country. Stolen guns are likely to be diverted underground, a prime market for criminals.

Most gun owners we know, including members of the National Rifle Association, are hyper-careful about keeping guns in the home secure. They know the danger to their children and other family members. They also know that it’s surpassingly rare for an individual to need a weapon so quickly that a gun safe, lockbox, gun case, trigger lock or cable lock would put them in mortal danger. Far more likely is an unintentional shooting or suicide.

James Densley and Jillian Peterson, professors of criminal justice writing recently in the Los Angeles Times, suggested that the Oxford Township school tragedy could be a catalyst for reviewing laws and filling in loopholes regarding safe gun storage. We would like to think so too, since many of the reforms that would make a difference are so simple.

For example, negligently leaving a loaded gun in the reach of a child who uses it to shoot himself or someone else should be a felony here, not just a misdemeanor.

As in Michigan, prosecutors should consider charging irresponsible gun owners under other statutes not directly related to gun storage. Texas also needs to get Child Protective Services involved much more quickly when law enforcement finds unsecured guns in the home.

According to the Giffords Law Center, only 13 states have any sort of safe storage requirements. Texas does not. Surely we can agree that we need such requirements.

In light of the continued proliferation of guns in this state — not to mention the rise of homemade “ghost guns” — and the lax oversight for which this state is notorious, we also encourage a more robust public information campaign for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s “Keep ’Em Safe Texas” initiative. It’s a program designed to inform gun owners about safe gun storage. House Bill 1 during the past legislative session provided $500,000 for the biennium to keep the program going.

What happened in Michigan is a reminder, yet again, that guns brought into the home to protect our children are actually killing them, as if Texans — after Santa Fe, after El Paso, after Sutherland Springs — needed a reminder. With those Michigan children uppermost in our minds, surely we can take modest steps to keep our own children safe. The Second Amendment shouldn’t protect outrageous irresponsibility and deadly negligence.