Guest Column: On Keeping Guns Out of the Hands of Young Children
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THIS IS A GUEST EDITORIAL BY FIRST FIVE:
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
Over the last ten years, a child has accessed a loaded weapon and unintentionally shot themselves or someone else about once a day in this country. A third of those accidental shooters are five years old or younger, and almost all the victims are also children. Recent increases in gun ownership mean more children are in households with weapons. Every one of these tragedies is preventable with basic safety measures to keep children from accessing deadly weapons: firearms should always be stored unloaded and securely locked.
The heartbreaking film “All the Empty Rooms” won the Oscar for short documentary at the 2026 Academy Awards. It visits the homes of children who died of gunshots, to photograph their empty bedrooms – many left untouched since the day of their death. Accompanying the producers accepting the award was the mother of one such child, Gloria, who said, “We believe if the world could see their empty bedrooms, we’d be a different America.”
Between the years 2012 (Sandy Hook) and 2022 (Uvalde) the number of children killed in school shootings rose from under 50 per year to over 300 per year. Most school shooters accessed their weapons at home (60%) or from a relative’s home (17%). And school shootings are a very small percent of the overall impacts of gun violence.
As Everytown for Gun Safety notes – “every year more than 4,000 children and teens are shot and killed and over 17,000 are shot and wounded. Many millions of children are exposed to shootings every year.”
We can and must act to address gun violence both individually, and societally, and we know these actions help. States with legal requirements to store guns locked and unloaded, including California, have 35% lower rates of unintentional shootings by children. All of us can act to protect children from guns:
As a parent:
– Ask every household your child visits: “If you have guns, are they safely locked so no child can access them?”
– Educate your children about gun safety in an age-appropriate manner.
– Teach your children not to touch guns unsupervised, and to get adult help right away if they find one.
– Never allow children to modify toy guns or Airsoft guns to look more real.
As a gun owner:
– Store your guns locked and unloaded. It’s the law in CA, and good sense everywhere. Gun safes, trigger (cable) locks, and lock boxes are all available locally: call (707) 268-2132.- If you have a gun you don’t want, you can surrender it to local law enforcement.
As a citizen, you can support evidence based public health policies like:
– Responsible and consistent background checks for gun purchase.
– Red flag laws that restrict guns from persons known to be violent or in crisis.
– Safe storage laws, with liability if your unsecured weapon contributes to a tragedy.
– Required weapon handling training for all persons who possess a firearm.
The First 5 Humboldt Commission believes it is both our individual and collective responsibility to eliminate these tragedies. Secure your weapons, ask about gun safety when your child visits other homes, and support efforts to reduce gun violence.
About First 5 Humboldt
First 5 Humboldt works to improve the health, early learning, and well-being of young children and their families in Humboldt County using evidence-based methods and community engagement. For more information, go to: www.first5humboldt.org, find us on social media@first5humboldt, or call (707) 445- 7389
References:
1 L Miller A, et al. Firearm injury and young children: a critical review. BMC Pediatrics. 2025 Sep 24;25(1):690. doi:10.1186/s12887-025-06052-2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12462369/
2 https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/
3 K-12 School Shooting Database https://k12ssdb.org/
4 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.16.23300073v1.full.pd
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Hard to protect against stupidity. Some people should just not have guns.
Require all guns to be securely stored.
If a child accesses one, that means it was not securely stored.
The adult should face not only a felony for this, but they should be charged as an accessory to any crime a juvenile might commit with their gun.
leading cause of death for children? 2400 per year the last five years, and then 1700 before that. Common man. About the same as auto crashes. But you need to look at some gun deaths are intentional. Suicide at about one third or 1670. Though they did get their hands on a gun. It was intentional.