Gun storage measure worth supporting

To hear or read a mother’s testimony about a state gun safety bill, is to feel the anguish of a parent whose teenage son died needlessly because a gun was unlocked and loaded with a bullet.

Kristin Song read a remembrance of her 15-yearold son, Ethan Song, written in his voice about what he enjoyed and looked forward to. But his life ended, suddenly, when a .357 Magnum he and a friend were playing with accidentally discharged at the friend’s home in Guilford last year.

“Oh my god. What did I do? How did a bullet get in the gun?” Kristin Song, in Ethan’s voice, told the Judiciary Committee during a hearing Monday. She said the gun belonged to the father of Ethan’s friend.

Her compelling testimony was in support of House Bill 7218, An Act Concerning the Safe Storage of Firearms in the Home. It would “require the safe storage of all firearms, whether loaded or unloaded, in a home with a minor under eighteen years of age.”

With 21 co-sponsors, it amends an earlier bill to raise the age of a minor from 16 to 18 and makes a gun owner guilty of criminally negligent homicide if an injury or death results from the unsafe storage.

We have long written in support of reducing gun violence through measures on the federal level, such as universal background checks, and on the state level with the ban on untraceable guns, so-called ghost guns, homemade or created with a 3-D printer.

The safe storage bill in Connecticut should be a protection all would want. This bill could save lives.

From 2001 through 2018, 126 children through the age of 17 died from gun-related injuries, Sarah Healy Eagan, the state’s Child Advocate, said.

Slightly more than threequarters were homicides, 80 percent were boys, and a total of 87 were teens aged 15 to 17. The 39 who were aged 14 and younger include the 20 first graders killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. By race, 45 percent of the children who died in that 18-year span were white, 43 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic and 1 percent “other.”

Thus, boys aged 15 to 17, such as Ethan Song, would seem to be most at risk.

As Abbey Clements, a teacher at Sandy Hook at the time of the massacre, said: “Gun violence destroys. If we can save one life ... it would be worth it.”

The National Rifle Association has supported voluntary guidelines for safe storage of weapons. The emphasis is on voluntary. In testimony Monday, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, based in Newtown, argued against the bill as “another level of regulation on law-abiding hobbyists and businesses.” The organization pointed to its Project Child Safe, which since 1999 has distributed more than 37 million free firearm safety kits.

This is certainly a worthwhile project, that we applaud and encourage. But we believe consequences are needed for those who do not adhere to safety protocols. Pass the safe storage bill, known as Ethan’s Law.

As Abbey Clements, a teacher at Sandy Hook at the time of the massacre, said: “Gun violence destroys. If we can save one life ... it would be worth it.”