GUNS IN THE HOME

There are an estimated 193 million guns in America. Some estimates range as high as 250 million. That's almost one gun for every man, woman and child in the United States. Guns are not just in urban and rural homes, they're everywhere – cities, towns, suburbs and farms. In fact, there is a gun in 43% of households with children in America. There's a loaded gun in one in every ten households with children, and a gun that's left unlocked and just "hidden away" in one in every eight family homes.

While the Brady Campaign united with the Million Mom March does not seek to prevent law-abiding citizens from owning, using, or purchasing firearms, people have the right to know the true risks associated with keeping a gun in the home. The fallacy that a home is safer with a gun in it and that a gun is a necessary means of self-protection is widely promoted by the gun lobby. The gun lobby also downplays or ignores the risks families take when they introduce a gun into the home.

Does a Gun in the Home Make You Safer?

No. Despite claims by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that you need a gun in your home to protect yourself and your family, public health research demonstrates that the person most likely to shoot you or a family member with a gun already has the keys to your house. Simply put: guns kept in the home for self-protection are more often used to kill somebody you know than to kill in self-defense; 22 times more likely, according to a 1998 study by the Journal of Trauma.[1] More kids, teenagers and adult family members are dying from firearms in their own home than criminal intruders. When someone is home, a gun is used for protection in fewer than two percent of home invasion crimes.[2] You may be surprised to know that, in 1999, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, there were only 154 justifiable homicides committed by private citizens with a firearm compared with a total of 8,259 firearm murders in the United States. Once a bullet leaves a gun, who is to say that it will stop only a criminal and not a family member? Yet at every opportunity the NRA uses the fear of crime to promote the need for ordinary citizens to keep guns in their home for self-protection. Furthermore, the NRA continues to oppose life-saving measures that require safe-storage of guns in the home.

Keeping a Gun in the Home Can Be Deadly

Because handguns and other firearms are so easily accessible to many children, adolescents and other family members in their homes, the risk of gun violence in the home increases dramatically. Consider this: The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns.[3] The risk of suicide is five times greater in households with guns.[4] What's more, tragic stories of accidental or unintentional shootings from the careless storage of guns at home are all too common. The statistic noted above bears repeating: a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a criminal, unintentional, or suicide-related shooting than to be used in a self-defense shooting. [5]

A Gun in the Home: Key Facts

• From 1990-1998, two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse murder victims were killed with guns.[6]
• Guns are the weapon of choice for troubled individuals who commit suicide. In 1999, firearms were used in 16,599 suicide deaths in America. Among young people under 20, one committed suicide with a gun every eight hours.[7]
• A gun in the home also increases the likelihood of an unintentional shooting, particularly among children. Unintentional shootings commonly occur when children find an adult's loaded handgun in a drawer or closet, and while playing with it shoot themselves, a sibling or a friend. The unintentional firearm-related death rate for children 0-14 years old is NINE times higher in the U.S. than in the 25 other countries combined.[8]

When Tragedy Strikes Home: Recent Incidents

• On March 21, 2002, a 14-year-old South Carolina boy deliberately shot and killed his 12-year-old foster sister. The boy had taken live shotgun shells from his father's house and used them in a shotgun that he had taken from his mother's bedroom.
  ("Alleged shooter under house arrest," The Herald (Rock Hill, SC), March 27, 2002.)

• On March 28, 2002, 15-year-old Quinton Bridges was shot and critically injured by his 15-year-old friend, Derek Scott Oaks in Tucson, AZ. The youths had been tossing water balloons and wrestling before Oaks loaded his father's rifle and aimed it at his friend's head while the teen sat at a computer playing a game. According to police, the boys were not arguing; Oaks didn't think the firearm worked because he tried to pull the trigger before he went in the room and it didn't fire. Oaks has since been charged with attempted second-degree murder.
  ("Teen charged with attempted murder," Tucson Citizen, March 30, 2002.)

• On March 30, 2002, a 9-year-old Seattle boy was wounded when a .22-caliber rifle he and his 13-year-old brother were playing with discharged. The boys were playing with the gun in a bedroom in their uncle's home.
  ("9-Year-Old Boy Wounded In Apparent Accidental Shooting," KOMO News web site, March 30, 2002.)

• On April 6, 2002, 3-year-old Stephon Starks shot and wounded himself with a .22-caliber pistol that he found in a dresser drawer in his mother's bedroom in Nashville, TN. Police said Stephon had gotten up to get some clean underwear after he wet the bed when he found the gun. He was climbing back into bed when the gun went off.
  ("Boy, 3, wounds himself after finding gun in mom's room," The Tennessean, April 7, 2002.)

• On April 8, 2002, a 4-year-old Jacksonville, FL boy died after unintentionally shooting himself, while playing with his grandfather's gun while the rest of the family was sleeping.
  ("Boy, 4, accidentally kills self," Florida Times-Union, April 9, 2002.)

Do Parents Do a Good Job of Keeping Kids Away from Guns in the Home?

No. A 1998 study by Peter Hart Research on behalf of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (now the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) found that, even though most parents realize that guns in the home endanger their children, many parents still leave guns accessible to kids.

Specifically, in the nationwide survey of 806 parents, 43% of households with children have guns, and 23% of gun households keep a gun loaded. 28% keep a gun hidden and unlocked. 54% of parents said that they would be highly concerned about their child's safety if they knew there was a gun in the home of their child's friend. Despite many parents' concern about the immediate dangers that guns left in the house pose to their children, they are failing to take the necessary steps to help ensure their children's safety. Perhaps most significantly, many parents simply do not view guns as a personal threat to their children or their family whatsoever.

Too often a parent drops off their child at a friend's house for an afternoon play session or a sleep-over party not knowing that the car ride would be the last time they would see their child alive. Why? The study found that most parents don't discuss the issue of guns in the home with the parents of their children's friends. Amazingly, only 30% have asked the parents of their children's friends if there is a gun in the home before allowing a visit. 61% of the parents included in the survey responded that they never even thought about asking other parents about gun accessibility.

Clearly, parents don't think about the tragic possibilities of an innocent visit to another home. While parents are asking each other about supervision, food allergies, adult television access, they are ignoring guns - the one factor that could mean the life or death of their child.

Child Access Prevention Laws

The Brady Campaign supports Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws, or "safe storage" laws that require adults to either store loaded guns in a place that is reasonably inaccessible to children, or if they decide to leave their guns left out in the open, to use a safety device to lock the gun. If a child obtains an improperly stored, loaded gun, the adult owner is criminally liable.

Although the primary intention of CAP laws is to help prevent unintentional injury, CAP laws can also serve to reduce juvenile suicide and homicide by keeping guns out of the reach of children. Currently, 18 states - California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin - have enacted CAP laws. In addition, Kansas courts have held that gun owners in Kansas may be held liable if they leave guns easily accessible to children.

April 2002

Endnotes

1. Kellermann AL. "Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home." Journal of Trauma, 1998; 45(2):263-67.
2. Kellermann AL. "Weapon Involvement in Home Invasion Crimes." JAMA 1995; 273(22):1759-62.
3. Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." New England Journal of Medicine. 1993; 329: 1084-1091.
4. Kellermann, AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership." New England Journal of Medicine. 1992; 327: 467-472.
5. Kellermann AL. "Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home." Journal of Trauma, 1998; 45(2):263-67.
6. "Homicide Trends in the United States." Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1998
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, from the WONDER Injury Mortality Data.
8. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Rates of homicide, suicide and firearm-related death among children – 26 industrialized countries." Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report. 02/07/97; 46:5. 101-105.