1.3 "Guns are too dangerous to keep in the house if you've got children."
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This article is from the talk.politics.guns Official Pro-Gun FAQ, by Ken Barnes (kebarnes@cc.memphis.edu) with numerous contributions by others.
1.3 "Guns are too dangerous to keep in the house if you've got children."
See_Guns, Crime, and Freedom_by Wayne LaPierre, Regnery Books,
ISBN 0-89526-477-3, (1994), where he devotes an entire chapter
(Chapter 9) to this. "Guns, Crime and Freedom_is also out in
"trade paperback" (an oversize paperback) from HarperCollins,
ISBN 0-06-097674-8 (1995). [Wayne LaPierre is the chief executive
officer of the National Rifle Association, and one of its spokesmen.
NRA can be reached at 11250 Waples Mill Rd., Fairfax, VA 22030,
at (800) NRA-3888 for membership information, (703) 267-1000 for
general inquiries, and on the Web at http://www.nra.org/ ]
also
Kleck,"Point Blank,"pp.276-280.
"Accident Facts,"1994_by National Safety Council Staff, ISBN
0-87912-183-1, (1994)
American Sports Shooting Council website at http://assc.org/index.html
In summary: The death of children, whether by abuse, neglect, homicide,
suicide, or accident, is a particular tragedy, because for most children
their safety is dependent on adults to protect them from harm. This
responsibility for protecting children is primarily that of their
parents, as it is for so much of their physical, emotional, and
intellectual sustenance. As with any potentially dangerous item in the
home, it is the responsibility of parents to do their best to secure
their firearms from misuse by children who are unaware of that potential
danger, as much as responsible parents try to protect their children
from the hazards of electricity, household chemicals, poisons, and
physical injury from falls, sharp objects, fire, choking, or drowning.
Part of that protection, when they are old enough to understand, is
education. Safes are available which allow quick access to defensive
firearms when needed, while preventing unauthorized access; and modern
firearms (particularly semi-automatics) are designed with safety
features to prevent accidental discharges. In an attempt to further
reduce gun accidents in the home, fifteen major firearms manufacturers
representing the American Sports Shooting Council (ASSC) voluntarily
agreed October 9, 1997 to package locking devices (such as trigger
locks) with each new handgun they produce. Six other companies are
now considering joining the agreement. But "childproofing" a home
is no substitute for "accident-proofing" or "gun-proofing" a child so
that they can understand the dangers and actively avoid them, whether
at home, at school, or at a friend's house.
Irrationally, the same people who use accidental shootings of
children to advance the cause of "gun control" are often opposed to
educational efforts to teach children how to avoid gun accidents and
injuries, though they may favor education as a means to make children
aware of the risks of venereal disease and pregnancy. The U.S. National
Rifle Association, for its part, has championed the cause of gun safety
and training for over a century, and since 1988 has promoted a safety
program for children in grades K-6 which tells those youngsters to
"Stop! Don't Touch! Leave The Area! Tell An Adult!" if they find a gun.
The NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program (originated by Florida grandmother and
current NRA president, Marion Hammer) has been used in schools across
the nation, and was awarded the National Safety Council's Outstanding
Community Service Award in October 1993. The rate of firearms accidents
generally has been declining since the 1970s, largely due to public
education about the basic rules of firearm safety, even as the number
of firearms in the U.S. population has increased. Firearm-related
accidental deaths involving children 14 and under in the U.S. totaled
227 in 1991, trailing many more commonplace causes of accidental death
among children, including car accidents (3,087 deaths), fire (1,104
deaths), and drowning (1,104 deaths).
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