guns and kids and safety, from the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Gun owners make a lot of mistakes relating to safety, mistakes which result in a lot of American kids being dead or injured.  The reality is that we have five times the deaths of children from firearms of the other 23 richest, most developed countries that we think of as the most civilized on the planet.

The NRA claims that gun education makes kids safe around guns. It does not. The NRA tries to keep pediatricians from addressing the public health issue of children and guns, and to keep  doctors from addressing the issue of guns and adult risks with them.  The serious failure of safety with guns around children must be considered when we look at putting 'good guys' with guns in schools.  The reality is that the people the NRA identifies as 'good guys' are screw ups and too often they are not very good at all.  Just recently a professional firearms instructor, hired as a school guard, left his firearm behind in the school bathroom to be discovered by a student.  In the past year, not one but two concealed carry permittees were recklessly negligent in how they stored and secured their numerous firearms, resulting in one of their children killing another in both cases.  Yet we are told repeatedly how safe and responsible concealed carriers are, in spite of the obvious examples of bad judgment and unsafe behavior. The argument that there aren't as many more as their could be is unpersuasive to the rest of us who are not obsessed or who do not have a fetish relationship with firearms. 
From the Journal

“They’re Too Smart for That”: Predicting What Children Would Do in the Presence of Guns

Susan M. Connor, PhD*, Kathryn L. Wesolowski, BS‡

Objectives. We examined parents’ beliefs about how children would react to finding guns, with particular emphasis on how parents reasoned about children’s actions.

Methods. Based on a randomized telephone survey of Northeast Ohio residents, we focused on the 317 urban and 311 rural respondents who had children 5 to 15 years old in their homes. Respondents were asked about gun ownership and their expectations of how children would react to finding guns. Analysis examined responses in relation to various demographic and socioeconomic variables.

Results. All respondents—regardless of gun ownership, geography, race, gender, education level, income, or child age—were equally likely (∼87%) to believe that their children would not touch guns they found. Fifty-two percent of those reasoned that children were “too smart” or “knew better.” Only 40% based their predictions on specific instructions they had given their children. Only 12% (15/122) of owners stored guns locked and unloaded. Only 3 of 13 variables tested were positively associated with safe storage: having a child 5 to 9 years old, having at least a 4-year college education, and having an income ≥$65 000 per year.

Conclusion. Results indicate that parental beliefs may effectively relieve adults of responsibility and place the burden on children to protect themselves. The implication for injury prevention is that caregivers’ unrealistic expectations of children’s developmental levels and impulse control may influence storage decisions or the inclination to address gun safety issues with children or other adults with whom children spend time (relatives, playmates’ parents).