Gun Safety and Safe Gun Storage

Senate Bill 124 isn’t about Gun Safety and Safe Gun Storage.

A Missouri Lawmaker is proposing a gun-centric bill in state senate which seeks to force parents of school aged children to disclose whether they own a firearm or not. The law would seek to punish gun owning parents who either do not disclose, or who do not store firearms safely and properly.

My personal take on safe gun storage and Gun Safety.

Anyone who has listened to me on audio in interviews about gun control/gun rights or who has read my pieces on gun safety knows I am a HUGE proponent of proper safety, including being much more intense about the proper storage of firearms in protective safes or by other means to make it very difficult for legal guns to be stolen and used as illegal guns. Furthermore, I want our children to be safe. The accidental discharge or misunderstanding of firearms leading to a death of a child is in many cases preventable. It is my belief that mandates for proper gun safety and storage in the home are among the ONLY legislative ideas I could wholeheartedly get behind.

Too many (one is too many, with something like this) children die, due to poor firearm storage or bad safety training or negligent gun owners. That does not mean that such an occurrence is rampant, per se. My position does not indicate that I think all guns are unsafe.

I will clarify my thoughts on the matter:

ALL Guns are capable of killing people. Children need to be monitored and trained sufficiently around firearms, and NO CHILD should be left unattended with a firearm until they are sufficiently capable of making good decisions and handling themselves at the same level as most responsible gun owners. I believe that NO ADULT should be making decisions on behalf of their neighbors or friends to allow someone else’s child to be around or have guns around them, without the permission of that child’s guardian.  Children are capable of using firearms safely, but it is OUR responsibility as adults and parents, and most importantly, responsible gun owners, to ensure that they remain safe at all times while around firearms. This includes the safe storage of firearms, and separate storage of ammunition within reason.

Many Pro-gun people will see my position above as extreme, but as a personal choice this is how I feel. I’m not advocating that we mandate this, but I suggest it as a good rule of thumb for those with children and guns who do not want to see accidents happen. There is a difference between trusting your children and exercising your right as a parent to control their access to things that could hurt them.  I’ll finish my position by saying: I have children and I work with children around guns often. I have never had a concern by following these rules and it seems to instill in a child a sense of understanding and comfort. They know that I trust them; they know they will be safe, and it encourages them to ask those questions they would otherwise feel they are bothering you with.

One more gun law that doesn’t solve a problem

Unfortunately, what is seemingly a step in the right direction with this proposed legislation is lost on the registration clause and full disclosure that many private citizens simply aren’t comfortable with. I don’t like talking about my safe location, the intricacies of my gun collection or the amount of ammunition I keep. I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling that information to a school representative anyway. Furthermore, I can barely trust (in many cases I do not trust) some school officials and teachers to properly educate my children, WHY WOULD I allow them to be trusted with information that could be used to target me for theft or violence or gun confiscation.

That’s the problem with legislators. They don’t think through the problems before they offer solutions. What could be an excellent starting point to promoting less theft of firearms and more gun safety for law abiding gun owners and their families is lost on the fact that the lawmakers cannot get past their incessant need to be controlled and watched over.

I for one do not need someone to know that I own a firearm for me to be responsible with it. I do not anticipate that my best practices of gun safety in the home will result in an accidental shooting, a fatality or a theft of my legal guns to be used in illegal crimes.

I for one do not need a nanny to watch over me and my liberties.

YES, I am FOR promoting gun safety and proper training, as well as comprehensive communication about the potential dangers of guns and their safe handling with children as it becomes appropriate. I would even like to see legislation that helps to keep our guns out of thieves and criminal’s hands. But I’m not sure how that would be administered, under the current thought process.   I want there to be as few deaths as possible by guns of our children. But I will state again, it does not seem that children are dying at an unheard of rate by guns in the home as we saw years ago. I am always for furthering the cause of safe gun handling, storage and usage.

Missouri Bill 124 does nothing to help gun safety

Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal introduced Senate Bill 124 into the Missouri state senate this week, proposing that Missouri lawmakers make it a crime for parents not to tell their children’s schools that they own firearms in the home. While her intent might be honorable (who knows, perhaps it’s not), her execution of a plan for heightened gun control is lacking. She indicates that the proposed law would make it possible to fine parents $100 if they do not report the firearms they own to their children;s schools. But what does this do to deter crime, deaths by accident or the obtainability of firearms by children? It seems like a revenue source for the state and at only $100, it’s a poor one at that.

Have our children’s lives been reduced to such a minuscule value?  We would likely never know that a parent was negligent in their “duty” to report, until after a child already has a gun, has been hurt by a gun or tells a teacher that the gun exists in the home. At that point, the safety of that child ceases to be the driving factor of this proposed legislation. It’s entirely possible, that the parents who would fail to report their guns and who would allow a child to possess a firearm without oversight are among the most likely to have children capable of discharging and killing themselves or other with that gun which ought to be safely stored. It is those parents which do not take safe gun storage or gun safety seriously.

That makes this proposed legislation completely feckless. It is without teeth, without benefit and seemingly, overtly ridiculous.

No matter how you view it, you cannot say that the major benefit of this legislation is to prevent crimes. It seems an emotional and cross partisan attempt at getting information about private citizens.

We don’t owe our government full disclosure, it is they who owe it to us.

I hope this bill gets shot down quickly, and then Missouri lawmakers attempt to enact meaningful and realistic legislation to reduce crime, mitigate gun safety concerns and keep guns out of schools and the hands of criminals and those who have mental conditions like the most recent school shooter.

If I had my way, I’d probably mandate that a collective be started to further the safe gun storage and gun handling practices already well-known by responsible gun owners to try to educate and prompt new gun owners into themselves becoming more responsible. Instead we are stuck with bogus legislation that misses the mark completely. When will we ever learn?