Guns and Children in the Home: Can They Coexist?

Three children in Harris County have been shot in just four days after playing with guns at home. Two of the three have died. 

This is tragic. 

I grow frustrated as the national response becomes fixated on the right to carry. That conversation is not one I’m going to get distracted by . . . . In the United States, the Second Amendment of the constitution gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of [themselves] or the State. Thankfully, our legislature has the power to regulate this to prevent criminal activity. 

Additionally, the great state of Texas is a “shall-issue” state which means qualified 21+ year old applicants have the legal right to receive “carry permits” for concealed weapons. In order to earn the right to carry, applicants must successfully complete a state-certified handgun training. 

Many say that guns and children in the home cannot co-exist. We know, however, that guns and children share many homes across this great nation and those children are in homes that are not going to surrender their rights any time soon. Let’s turn the page on this discussion and focus on the more important issue – the responsibilities required when you exercise your Second Amendment rights, especially when you have children in the home. 

According to the Pew Research Center, an estimated 283 million guns were in the hands of civilians in the US as of 2013. That same year, approximately 4.5 million firearms (including approximately 2 million handguns and 2 million second hand firearms) were sold. As of data reported in 2014, about 1/3 of all Americans with children under 18 at home had a gun in their household; including 34 percent of families with children younger than 12. 

Taking a closer look here, it is estimated that Texans own around 51 million firearms and nearly 20 percent of all the guns in America. 

With these weapons come an un-paralleled responsibility, and that responsibility increases exponentially when you have children in your home. 

As you think about the lives of two children lost and one severely injured, I ask you to review the bullet points below: 

• Fourteen states, including Texas, have laws which impose criminal liability on adults who fail to store guns safely and enable children to access them. 
• The law states that a loaded firearm must be stored in a place which cannot be accessed by a child under the age of 17, or secured with a trigger lock if there is reason to know that a child under 17 may gain access to the firearm. According to the Texas Penal Code, "Secure" means to take steps that a reasonable person would take to prevent the access to a readily dischargeable firearm by a child, including but not limited to placing a firearm in a locked container or temporarily rendering the firearm inoperable by a trigger lock or other means.
• New as of 2013, guns in cars. Allows people, including students, with concealed handgun licenses to store their firearms in their cars on a university campus or in parking lots. Neither public nor private universities can create a law prohibiting it. 
• Parents with guns in the home – create a Gun Safety Plan and Pledge that outlines your gun safety plan. This should include how your family will clean weapons, store weapons and ammunition and keep weapons locked. It should also include who, in the home, should have access to the weapons and the roles each family will take when it comes to the weapons. Everyone will work to make sure weapons are out of sight, never in plain view, never accessible, never unlocked, and never where a child could reach them. 
• Parents, talk to your children about gun safety. Children of all ages should be able to handle this conversation in an age-appropriate manner. Teach children that even “exploring” the weapon of an adult left in plain view is extremely dangerous. Guns used inappropriately and handled incorrectly can and will kill or injure you. 
• Parents, talk to other parents. Ask: Do they have weapons at home? How do they store them? Who has access to them? Are there older siblings in the home? Do they have access to the weapons? Are there weapons in a car that might be transporting your child? 
• If you’re a family that hunts, that is wonderful! Chances are your child will be more comfortable around weapons of all kinds. This fact must not mitigate the extreme caution that must be exercised when using weapons. It must also be communicated that not all children have the same experiences and a weapon in the hands of a more experienced minor could translate into utter tragedy in the hands of that minor that is less experienced. 

The law gives people the right to bear arms. It’s your duty to take that responsibility seriously. Here’s one last statistic: according to one 2006 read (Private Guns, Public Health), in terms of accidental fatalities, “American children younger than 15 are nine times more likely to die by a gun accident than those in the rest of the developed world.” 

We must take this issue and the protection of children, seriously. 

Lock your weapons, install gun locks (they are actually free while supplies last through the Harris County Sheriff’s Office) and talk, talk, talk to your children, friends, neighbors and peers about gun safety.