By Robert Farago via The Truth About Guns
“A 4-year-old child accidentally shot herself and her mother in Indianapolis, Indiana,” rt.com reports. “The 25 year-old mother was shot in the back of the head and is being treated in hospital. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed on Sunday that an adult and child were shot. They added that there was ‘no immediate threat to the community.’” Which isn’t strictly true.
Whenever a gun owner acts irresponsibly by leaving a gun unsecured around children — especially when a child is injured or killed, or injures of kills someone else — it effects the gun owning community. Negligent discharges by or at minors give the antis ammunition for their crusade to enact safe storage laws. [Click here for a state-by-state look at child access prevention laws.]
The efficacy of safe storage laws is a matter of debate. Gun control advocates are insensitive to the fact that aren’t any facts proving that safe storage laws prevent tragedy. Once again, those who favor “common sense gun reform” (or whatever they’re calling it today) rely on the “if it saves one life” argument.
How many more lives would be saved by state-sponsored childhood firearms safety education? No idea, but if we’re simply applying common sense to the problem, education has got to be the better bet. I mean, a gun owner can keep his or her children safe by securing their firearms — at least in theory, kids being clever little bastards) — but what about OPGs? Other People’s Guns.
The real problem for the gun owning community: safe storage laws set set the stage for “home inspections.” After all, how can the all-caring state establish that an adult’s firearms are safely stored before there’s an accident? Random home inspections are SOP in the UK, where The Old Bill can check firearms storage compliance at any time, at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
To protect against the possibility of home inspections, to protect gun rights generally, gun owners need to secure the firearms in their home and teach all children The Four Rules of Gun Safety at the earliest possible age. Meanwhile, our Indianapolis mom earns our IGOTD award. Here’s hoping she recovers enough to accept it.
