A gun under the couch in the living room. Really?
Excuse me, but WTH? And since this is a family friendly news organization, we'll just say that the H stands for heck in this case. But I'm sure I wasn't the only one with that response after reading about an accidental shooting that we reported on earlier this week.
Under the couch is allegedly where a handgun was when a child found it, fired it -- and shot a 2-year-old on Monday night inside a LaGrange apartment. Three other children – ages 10, 3 and 1 – were in the apartment at the time, according to investigators. A LaGrange detective said that how a child got the gun is still being investigated.
Thankfully, the child survived, but as of Tuesday remained on the critical-care list at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.
It’s been a busy week for gun news.
President Barack Obama appeared Thursday night on a nationally televised CNN town hall, “Guns in America,” after earlier in the week laying out 10 executive actions for addressing gun violence in the United States.
Among them, "if you are in the business of selling firearms, you must get a license and conduct background checks”; the establishment of an agency to track illegal online firearms; investment to increase access to mental health care, and emphasis on "smart gun" technology – all measures to improve gun safety.
In The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, veteran reporter Rhonda Cook looks at how Georgia handles background checks for gun sales and what residents have to say about President Obama’s actions.
Also today, be sure to see results of the AJC’s annual poll on top issues for Georgians on the eve of the 2016 legislative session, surveying voters’ attitudes toward a number of topics, including guns.
Susan Potter, senior editor of the AJC’s state government and politics team, said it doesn't look like gun policy will be a big issue for this year’s Georgia General Assembly, “but you can never rule the possibility out.” Continue to follow myAJC.com for all of our legislative coverage. Every year the team’s coverage is more and more robust.
But OK, I’m not going to get into my opinion about how the state General Assembly should act on gun policy issues. Nor will I get into my personal views on President Obama’s executive actions, or my point of view on guns. It’s not my role and, frankly, not anyone’s business.
But I am a parent -- and a former gun owner -- and I will scream this at the top of my lungs: Parents, put your guns away when children are present in the home. And away doesn’t mean hiding the thing under the darn couch.
Who knows what future complications that two-year-old will suffer from the gunshot wound to the torso. I will pray for her.
A few months before this week’s incident, the AJC reported on two other Georgia two-year-olds who were killed in what police called accidental shootings. Both boys, one in Acworth and the other in Jackson, were shot in their homes when guns were left within their reach. And both deaths likely could have been prevented.
I don’t care what your feelings are about gun rights or gun policy -- a gun should not be easily accessible to children. It’s pure negligence. None of these 2-year-olds were old enough to know better, but their parents, or whoever the adult was in the house at the time, should have known better. Children, by nature, are drawn to things they may not have seen before, like guns. So if you leave a gun in open view of a toddler, what do you think will happen? We’ve all seen kids form their hands in the shape of a gun and shout “pow, pow, pow.”
Georgia child gun deaths have mounted in recent years. An AJC analysis in 2013 showed that most died under circumstances that could have been prevented.
Perhaps parents should be required to go through what I went through when I was adopting my daughter. I’ve always believed that if all parents went through a fraction of the training and review that adoptive parents go through, they would be better parents for it.
Before becoming a parent, I had a 9mm handgun. I decided to get it after having my home broken into twice. Both times in broad daylight. The second time on a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon. My home in both cases was on a main street, not hidden in the woods. At the time, I thought I needed a gun for safety so I got one and spent many Saturdays “practicing” at the gun range. I was a single woman in Atlanta working odd, often late, hours. The home alarm I had in both incidents was yanked out of the wall so it wasn’t much help. In both cases, I could have been there, alone. I decided a gun, at the time, was what I needed for my own personal protection.
But my mind and my heart changed about having a gun in my home when I decided to adopt. For one thing, I was adopting a child from foster care and there were lots of rules around gun safety. Trust me, you wouldn’t find a gun under the couch going through the foster-adoption process. The training and rules and background checks are beyond rigorous, and for good reason.
Adoptive parents go through medical evaluations, criminal background checks and more. I turned in financial statements, employment proof, even proof of car insurance. As a parent seeking adoption through foster care I, along with family members who would care for my daughter in my absence, signed a child safety agreement. One part of the agreement read: “Gun safety-firearms take the lives of thousands of children each year.”
The agreement stated that “to prevent the accidental death of any child placed in the home,” I had to inform the agency about the presence of firearms and to secure all firearms using one of the commercial-brand safety locks, or keep it under lock and key. The agreement also stated that all firearms be kept unloaded and out of the view and reach of children in the home, and that children placed in the home never be allowed to handle guns. This was all part of the foster parent manual.
Maybe that lock-and-key requirement should be honored by all parents and adults when kids are around. Perhaps it should not just apply to those in the foster-adoption process.
Let’s be clear, I’m not knocking parents who have weapons in their home and I’m not advocating on any side of an individual’s gun rights. I’m advocating for common sense. Kudos to the Acworth police department for offering free gun locks to the community late last year in an effort to prevent further tragedies involving children. “If they see it, they will play with it,” the department posted on its Facebook page.
Do adults really need new laws to tell them to keep their weapons out of reach of young kids? If they do, shame on them. It’s common sense people, not politics.
Let’s hope more toddlers don’t end up at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta or worse for preventable accidental shootings. My message is simple: under the couch is not where guns belong when a child is in a home, period!
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