I’ve been around guns my entire life. There wasn’t a time I don’t recall my dad having a handgun (protection) or rifle (for hunting). Growing up in Mississippi and throughout the South it’s commonplace to own firearms. Most of my cousins and uncles hunt and every roommate I had in college owned a handgun.
One roommate stored her handgun in a hollowed out Bible. I can’t make this stuff up people.
My female cousin shot her first deer at age eight. She learned at a very young age how to handle a gun safely.
My children are going up VERY differently and this concerns me. Living in an area where hunting is not as prevalent and gun safety is not a topic of conversation, do I need to worry about my neighbors owning a firearm? If they do, are they storing safely and completely out of reach? Are my chidren going to be exposed to a dangerous situation while visiting a friend’s home?
Tonight – Friday, Jan. 31, at 10 p.m. ET – ABC News will air a special report – Young Guns: A Diane Sawyer Special,” that takes an in-depth look at children and guns, and parent’s responsibility. They interview every spectrum – families with children that keep guns in the house, parents who have talked to their kids about the dangers of guns, however the numbers below are startling.
Every parent should be watching or set their DVR tonight for this crucial topic.
Did you know? 1 in 3 homes own a gun.
1.7 million — The number of kids under age 18 who lived in homes with a loaded and unlocked firearm in 2002. (CDC)
31 — The percentage of U.S. households with at least one child and a gun in the home in 2012. (General Social Survey)
1,337 — The number of American kids under age 18 who died from gunshot wounds in 2010. This is trending down from 1,490 in 2005 and 1,544 in 2000. (CDC)
7,391 — The number of American kids and teens under age 20 who were hospitalized from firearm injuries in 2009. That means that on average a child or teen is shot almost every hour. (Yale School of Medicine)
98 — The number of American kids under age 18 who died from accidental shootings in 2010. This is trending down from 150 deaths in 2000 and 417 deaths in 1990. (CDC)
85 — Roughly the percentage of accidental shootings of children where the shooter was also a child in 2003-2006. (Catherine Barber, MPA, Harvard School of Public Health)
80 — The percentage of accidental shooting victims who were boys in 2010. (CDC)
72 — The percentage of parents (both gun owners and non-gun owners) who say they have spoken to their children about gun hazards. (ABC News/Washington Post poll, May 2000)
14 — The number of states, along with the District of Columbia, that currently have laws that hold adults criminally liable if they fail to store guns safely, enabling children to access them. These states include California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Texas. (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence)
1 — The number of states with a law requiring gun owners to lock up their firearm. That state is Massachusetts. (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence)
resource: ABC News
Will you be watching tonight?
