Something meaningful came to me from the Brady Campaign

I think it is safe to say that, in life, few things are black and white. No on, or no thing, is totally good or totally bad. This was brought home to me today when I read an entry in the Brady Campaign blog. Now, I obviously have very different feelings about guns and gun control than this group. In fact, I can't think of any group that I am more at odds with. But, just to prove that there are no absolutes, something they said really hit home.

Of course, I did not take the same meaning from the situation as the Brady group. But none the less, it made me think.

The message is in relation to a Ventura County Star (CA) article about a 9 year old boy who had been accidentally shot in the face while he and his step-brother were playing with a loaded gun he found in his home. Fortunately, his injuries were not life threatening and he is expected to make a full recovery. But it is indicative of an issue that must be addressed.

Of course the Brady Campaign takes this as a call to keep all guns out of the hands of the average citizen. An editorial in this same paper 2 days after the incident says:

 Although he may not realize it yet, a 9-year-old Camarillo boy is extremely lucky to be alive today after being shot in the face with a .45-caliber pistol.

According to police, the young boy was playing "cops and robbers" with his 13-year-old stepbrother at home Wednesday morning when the accident occurred. The bullet from the semiautomatic pistol entered the boy's cheek and passed through the back of his jaw, causing what doctors called soft tissue damage.

Here's where the luck comes in. Camarillo Police Sgt. Craig Adford told Star reporter Adam Foxman, "It could have been a really bad day today if it (the bullet's path) had been an inch different." In fact, the boy had recovered enough to be released the very next day from Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center, where he had been rushed after the shooting.

Now that's lucky.

Police are looking into whether the gun was secured and how the 13-year-old got his hands on it. Under the law, a loaded firearm in the home must be secured in a locked container, disabled with a locking device, or otherwise reasonably secured.

What happened in this Camarillo home will certainly serve as a warning and a lesson that this family and the two boys will never forget. It is also one that other parents, guardians and children would do well to note.

The latest U.S. data available show 3,184 children and teens were killed by gunfire in 2006. Of those shootings,154 were determined to be accidents, says the Children's Defense Fund. A study last year found that more than 1.7 million children in the U.S. live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns. (ed: not sure how they know this, as no one would admit to the serious felony if they did such a thing)

In the eyes of most children, guns are seen as toys. They don't realize how dangerous a handgun or rifle can be. If there is a gun in the home, children should be taught that firearms are not toys, that there is a big difference between real guns and those seen in TV and video-game shootings.

Another recent study revealed these sobering facts: In homes where a gun was present, 39 percent of youngsters knew where it was stored, and another 22 percent said they had handled it despite an adult warning to stay away.

Clearly, the decision to keep a handgun or a rifle in the home is not one that should be taken lightly. It's one that demands adults be extra vigilant in making sure children can't get their hands on these weapons.

Unlike the Brady Campaign, the editors apparently feel as though there is no problem with having guns in the home. They state that children need to be taught that firearms are not toys. I have to say that I agree 100% with them on this.

Children should never be put in this position to begin with. It is our jobs, as adults and as gun owners, to safely store all weapons away from the 3 C's (children, criminals and the clueless). If you can not manage this, you just plain should not own dangerous weapons.

But, on the off chance that other people are not as diligent as you, please teach your children as soon as they can think rationally that guns are very dangerous, that they should never be handled without an adult present, and that nothing bad will happen to them if they tell an adult if they do find one. When they get older ( and only you can decide when, based on each individual child's maturity) you can teach them how to check a weapon, how to safely unload it or to safely secure it until an adult can make it safe.

You can't make children not be curious about guns by scaring them, by ignoring them or by wishing things were different. Somehow we usually manage to teach kids not to run across a busy street without them getting run over. Or that the oven is hot without subjecting them to first degree burns. You have to teach them, explain to them, answer their questions and curb their curiosity. It is our jobs as adults and parents to properly gun proof our children.