Survey: Families Not Storing Guns Safely

[cool hand luke 22:36]

It is apparent now why there have been reports of intrusive questioning of parents at pediatric offices in the past few years.

Just the kind of slanted survey useful for lobbying for safe storage laws.

This survey's definition of safe storage apparently doesn't allow for keeping a loaded firearm for home defense.

Strangely, the survey omitted mention of the fact that many more children are killed by medical malpractice than by firearms every year.

Survey: Families Not Storing Guns SafelyBy LiveScience Staff

Few American families that keep firearms in their homes store them safely, a pediatric researcher says.

Nearly 200 million guns are privately owned in the United States, and more than one third of all American homes report keeping at least one gun in the house, according to previous studies.

Researchers surveyed more than 3,500 parents in pediatric offices across the United States and Canada. A total of 23 percent of the families surveyed reported owning firearms, and close to one third of them reported safe storage practices.

“Over 70 percent of families surveyed reported not storing their firearms safely in their residence,” said Robert DuRant of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. “This concerns us a great deal because having guns in the home increases the likelihood that they will be used in a suicide or unintentional injury.”

Several patterns of firearm storage emerged from the study data, detailed in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, mostly influenced by firearm type, family socialization with guns and the age of the children in the household.

“Our research shows that unsafe gun storage is associated with families who were raised with guns in the home,” DuRant said. “They tend to be more comfortable with guns and are less likely to store them safely.”

“We also found that families who had children aged 2 to 5 years and owned long guns were more likely to store guns safely than families with older children,” he added.

Families with two adults in the home were more likely to own guns, the study found. Those in rural areas were more likely to own long guns and to store them unlocked but separately from ammunition.

Families that owned handguns were more likely to store the guns locked but loaded.

The National Rifle Association was unable to comment on the results of the study by the time this story was published.

DuRant encourages all pediatricians to talk with parents about safe gun storage practices. The safest practice would be to remove guns from the house, but if parents are unwilling to do that, they should lock them and store the ammunition separately, he said.

“It’s imperative that parents understand the necessity of storing guns safely in the home,” DuRant said.

http://www.livescience.com/health/070604_firearm_storage.html

 

[FireMax]

The doctors of this country are generally to the left of the average citizen. I used to work around them and on issues of guns, they, as a whole, come down even farther left.

 

[obxned]

Very, very few doctors have any firearms training of any sort. They are less qualified to give advice on firearms than I am to do major surgery.

 

[rampage841512]

It's nice how they tell us what they mean by 'safely,' isn't it?

 

[pax]

The National Rifle Association was unable to comment on the results of the study by the time this story was published.

Translation: "I, the reporter, failed to do my homework in a timely manner. When I finally called the NRA ten minutes before going to press, the receptionist refused to go on record with an opinion, unless and until I showed them the study or at least told them what the study actually said."

pax

 

[k8do]

Uuuuh, sorry guys but not all doctors are knee jerk leftists...
This doctor keeps a loaded gun at hand (even the ones out in the workshop in the safe are loaded just in case) At least a third of the docs I know are hunters or fishermen...
I do not give my patients questionaires, they are on my office for medical advice not social engineeering...
I can't speak for the knee jerk leftists who happen to be doctors <It takes all kinds of idiots to wreck a village, etc.)


Dr. O

 

[revance]

Pediatricians should have Pax make up a nifty pamphlet on teaching children about firearms and firearm safety and distribute them to the parents of all their patients. After all... just because someone doesn't own guns doesn't mean their children will never come in contact with them.

 

[Playboypenguin]

I am a firm believer of properly storing firearms...especially if you have children, but what exactely is this researchers definition of "properly stored?"

 

[Unregistered]

I am a physician, and agree that most pediatricians are liberal, but this story really isn't about pediatricians, it is about a group of public health workers who did a study, not physicians who did a study!

 

[Kreyzhorse]

What is proper storage? I have no children so some of my guns are readily available if needed. As a child, I was raised around guns and once my sister and I were past the infant "what's this stage?" my Father kept a hand gun easily accessible by keeping it under the bed. Was it unsafe storage? I don't think so. Dad allowed us to shoot at an early age and we understood proper firearm handling and how dangerous they were. Would the doctors in this article say the gun was stored in an unsafe manner? Yes, I'm sure they would. But what disappoints me is that this article fails to mention any type of education on safe firearm handling. In my opinion, safe firearm practices and education should be as much, or if not more, important to preventing accidents than safe storage.

 

[Technosavant]

I am a firm believer of properly storing firearms...especially if you have children, but what exactely is this researchers definition of "propely stored?"

Could be anything up to and including handing them in to the police for destruction. Could be meaning keeping them in lockable storage. Could be meaning keeping them unloaded, locked up, maybe disassembled, with the ammunition locked up in a separate location (fine for hunting rifles, darn stupid for defensive weapons).

I'm betting it is probably referring to the last- locked up in one spot with ammo somewhere else (also locked). Look at the last sentence of the story. Ideally, they want it somewhere else, but if you MUST keep a gun, it should be locked up with separate secure ammo storage.

I am amused how they say that families who grew up around guns didn't store them "safely." Maybe they understand that education cures many ills, and once kids get older, they can be trusted if properly raised.

Treating guns as anathema around kids and firearm education as promoting violence has all the efficacy of sex education that is 100% abstinence. Funny how they often rail against the latter, but wholly embrace the former.