Gun locks are synonymous with safety

On October 8, 2016   /   Whats New  

Originally produced by Wisconsin State Journal editorial • 

Original Article

A couple of simple gun locks could have prevented the shooting death of Weston School District principal John Klang a decade ago this week.

That’s why the State Journal editorial board launched a gun-lock giveaway after a student shot and killed Klang on Sept. 29, 2006, at the rural school near Cazenovia, about 70 miles northwest of Madison.

Neither the shotgun nor the handgun the 15-year-old shooter took from his father’s house and brought to Weston High School were equipped with steel-cable locks or other devices that prevent guns from being loaded or fired.

The State Journal’s campaign back then resulted in nearly 8,000 gun locks being distributed for free at hospitals across south-central Wisconsin. That means thousands of guns in Wisconsin are more secure today, helping to deter accidental and criminal violence.

But too many gun owners still store their firearms dangerously. Fewer than half of parents with guns in their homes, for example, keep their weapons locked and unloaded, according to the Harvard Injury Control Resource Center. Though a lot of parents hide their guns, a survey found that 70 percent of children with guns in their homes reported knowing where the weapons are, and half of those kids said they had handled the guns.

Most handguns are sold with gun locks. Yet many owners disregard or lose the devices. A sturdy gun lock costs as little as $10. And many police departments — including district stations in Madison — distribute them for free.

So there’s no excuse for not using one. Responsible gun owners should have gun locks on all of their firearms.

Some gun enthusiasts contend a lock defeats the purpose of a weapon. They want to be able to quickly pull their gun from a drawer and potentially use it to impede an intruder.

But disabling a gun lock should take just seconds for an experienced owner, and the technology of locks is constantly improving.

Ten years ago at Weston High School, a freshman brought two guns to school. The teenager’s father had stored them in his bedroom and in a cabinet, which the student pried open with a screwdriver.

At a minimum, steel-cable locks on those guns would have slowed the student, forcing him to think longer about what he was doing. The locks also could have stopped the guns from being loaded and fired.

A school janitor wrestled away the shotgun from the student. Klang then tackled the teenager, knocking the handgun away — but not before being mortally wounded by gunfire.

Weston students, staff and community membersremembered Klang on Thursday during a ceremony at the school. Klang made education fun and believed in all of his students, many of whom he protected with his life.

The anniversary of Klang’s death should prompt every gun owner in Wisconsin to ensure his or her firearms are locked and secure.

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Primary reasons to Use Gun Locks

On October 27, 2015   /   Whats New  

Toddlers in the U.S. average one shooting per week this year

ORIGINALLY POSTED BY YAHOO NEWS

Washington Post: 43 cases of shootings involve children 3 and younger in 2015

Dylan Stableford

By October 15, 2015 1:28 PMYahoo News

There have been at least 209 unintentional shootings involving children ages 17 and younger in the United States this year, according to Everytown, the gun safety advocacy group dedicated to reducing gun violence in America.

And according to the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham — who did his own analysis of news reports of such shootings — there have been at least 43 cases of shootings involving toddlers ages 3 and younger in 2015, or roughly one per week.

And in 31 of them, the Post reports, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself, with 13 of those self-inflicted gunshot wounds proving fatal.

The most recent fatal toddler shooting appears to have occurred in August, when police say a 21-month-old toddler in the St. Louis area found a handgun at his grandmother’s house and accidentally shot himself in the torso. The child was taken by his mother to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A week earlier, police in Alabama said a 2-year-old accidentally shot his father in the head and killed him after the boy’s mother had left work. She returned home and discovered her husband dead in their Hoover, Ala., apartment.

“‘Horrible tragedy’ is as close as I can come to putting words to it,” Hoover Police Capt. Gregg Rector told the Washington Post. “You think you’ve seen everything in this line of work and then something like this happens.”

But cases like it are not uncommon, the Post found. There were at least 12 cases in which a toddler shot someone else this year, the Post found, including two that resulted in death. In April, police in Cleveland said a 3-year-old boy shot his 1-year-old brother in the head and killed him.

The vast majority of toddler shootings this year involved boys, according to the Post’s report.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 33,169 total shooting deaths in the United States, including 505 determined to be unintentional.

Last month, the CDC said that there was no nationwide data “regarding the age of the person who pulls the trigger in an unintentional shooting.” Everytown, though, counted 100 unintentional gun deaths of children 14 and under, 61 percent more than reflected by CDC data.

The common denominator in most of these accidental shooting cases is that guns are left unsecured by parents or guardians. According to Everytown, more than 2 million American children “live in homes with guns that are not stored safely and securely. According to the group’s 2014 report “Innocents Lost: A Year of Unintentional Child Gun Deaths“:

About two-thirds of these unintended deaths — 65 percent — took place in a home or vehicle that belonged to the victim’s family, most often with guns that were legally owned but not secured.

More than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them. Of the child shooting deaths in which there was sufficient information available to make the determination, 70 percent (62 of 89 cases) could have been prevented if the firearm had been stored locked and unloaded. By contrast, incidents in which an authorized user mishandled a gun — such as target practice or hunting accidents — constituted less than thirty percent of the incidents.

Not depressing enough? The Post’s report on toddler shootings includes a few sad caveats,according to Ingraham:

These numbers are probably an undercount. There are likely instances of toddlers shooting people that result in minor injuries and no media coverage. And there are probably many more cases where a little kid inadvertently shoots a gun and doesn’t hit anyone, resulting in little more than a scared kid and (hopefully) chastened parents.

Notably, these numbers don’t include cases where toddlers are shot, intentionally or otherwise, by older children or adults. Dozens of preschoolers are killed in acts of homicide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But I haven’t included those figures here.

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Gun Owners Lose at the Supreme Court

On June 23, 2015   /   Whats New  

Originally posted at:

The Shooters Log
http://blog.cheaperthandirt.com/

Gun Owners Lose at the Supreme Court

By Woody published on in News

When the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) recently denied certiorari (review) in the case of Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco, gun owners were the losers.

As Law Shield program lawyer Justin McShane in Pennsylvania wrote, “…[D]espite the clear language in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), there simply were not enough votes (four justices out of nine) to get the case reviewed or enough votes to gather a ‘GVR,’ as was advocated.”

GVR means SCOTUS “Grants certiorari,” “Vacates” the decision below, and Remands the case to a lower court.”

A 2007 San Francisco ordinance requires residents to keep handguns locked up or disabled with trigger locks when the gun owners are not carrying their weapons. Another part of the case dating to 1994 bans hollow-point bullets.

Petitioners—six San Francisco residents who keep handguns in their homes, as well as two organizations—filed suit to challenge this law under the Second Amendment in 2012. They lost at the district court level. Then, in March 2014, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision and left both the lockbox requirement and hollow-point ban intact.

In their petition for a hearing before the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs argued they had precedent on their side, citing the high court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case, the justices ruled that under the Second Amendment, a gun owner has a right to self-defense with a gun available within the home.

But only two justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, voted to review the case, two short of the four justices necessary.

It's hard to see any silver lining in the Supreme's refusal to consider Jackson. As a result, a ban on hollow point ammo was allowed to stand as well as a ridiculous storage standard for guns in the home.

If San Francisco–area gun owners violate Section 4512 of the San Francisco Police Code, they are in a world of hurt. That ordinance “provides that ‘[n]o person shall keep a handgun within a residence owned or controlled by that person unless’ (1) ‘the handgun is stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock that has been approved by the California Department of Justice’ or (2) ‘[t]he handgun is carried on the person of an individual over the age of 18’ or ‘under the control of a person who is a peace officer. The law applies across the board, regardless of whether children are present in the home. A violation of the law is punishable by up to six months of imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $1,000.

In a six-page dissent, Thomas, joined by Scalia, wrote that the San Francisco gun laws are “in serious tension with Heller” and that the prior court rulings had “failed to protect” the Second Amendment.

“San Francisco’s law allows residents to use their handguns for the purpose of self-defense, but it prohibits them from keeping those handguns operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense when not carried on the person,” Thomas wrote.

“Despite the clarity with which we described the Second Amendment’s core protection for the right of self-defense, lower courts, including the ones here, have failed to protect it,” Justice Scalia wrote in dissent. “Because Second Amendment rights are no less protected by our Constitution than other rights enumerated in that document, I would have granted this petition.”

http://blog.cheaperthandirt.com/supreme-court-refuses-hear-case-san-fran-gun-laws/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=0620chronicle&utm_campaign=20150620-gunownersloseatthesupremecourt

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Project ChildSafe Hits Major Milestone with 1,000 Supporter Organizations

On March 2, 2015   /   Whats New  

News post from Project ChildSafe Website

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation, trade association for the firearms industry, announces that 1,000 manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, ranges, hunter safety instructors and conservation groups have joined with NSSF to promote Project ChildSafe, the industry’s national program to encourage responsible firearms ownership and provide safety materials to all gun owners.

These 1,000 supporters are in addition to the 15,000 law enforcement agencies that have partnered with NSSF since 1999 to distribute free Project ChildSafe firearm safety kits, which include a cable-style gun lock and safety education literature. Last year alone, NSSF and its partners distributed nearly 240,000 kits throughout the U.S. Since its inception, Project ChildSafe has distributed more than 36 million firearm safety kits in all 50 states and the five U.S. Territories.

“This milestone is more than a number—it’s further testimony to the commitment on the part of the firearms industry, individual gun owners and the sporting community to make gun safety and personal responsibility a priority,” said Steve Sanetti, President and CEO of NSSF. “These are all organizations that, collectively, can amplify the messages of Project ChildSafe. We’ve made great progress in helping reduce fatal firearms accidents, which are dropping dramatically and make up only 0.5 percent of all accidental fatalities. Our goal is to further reduce accidents, theft and intentional misuse by preventing unauthorized access to guns.”

In the past year, major national organizations including the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, the International Hunter Education Association (USA), The National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers and Pheasants/Quail Forever have joined with Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse, the Mule Deer Foundation, the Wild Sheep Foundation, the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation and Team USA Shooting, along with hundreds of individual retailers and gun ranges, to promote the messages and mission of Project ChildSafe to their members and through their marketing campaigns. This collective outreach has reminded millions of gun owners to safely and securely store their firearms when not in use.

Central to promoting firearm safety is Project ChildSafe’s “Own It? Respect It. Secure It.” initiative, whose logo is used by supporters as a continual reminder to securely storage guns to keep them out of the wrong hands. A program infographic helps gun owners decide on safe storage options for their lifestyles and budgets.

“Proper storage is the number one way to prevent firearm accidents,” Sanetti said. “The more we can get this message out, the more we will continue to see firearms accidents and misuse decrease. With these tremendous supporters on board, and more joining every day, the more Project ChildSafe will succeed in this mission.”

NSSF first launched Project ChildSafe in 1999 (prior to 2003 the program was called Project HomeSafe). The program’s distribution of more than 36 million free gun locks is complemented by the more than 70 million free gun locks manufacturers have provided with firearms purchased since 1998. Gun owners who want a free firearm safety kit that includes a gun lock can locate participating law enforcement agencies at projectchildsafe.org.

Project ChildSafe was long supported by federal grants provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. Since 2008, when this funding was eliminated, the firearms industry has solely funded the Project ChildSafe program.

Project ChildSafe is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity supported through contributions from diverse public sources to Project ChildSafe Inc. To learn more about Project ChildSafe or to make a donation, visit projectchildsafe.org.

Original article from NSSF Blog

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Project Childsafe

On January 4, 2014   /   Whats New  

Regal Industrial Sales proudly supports Project Childsafe.

Project ChildSafe is a nationwide program that promotes safe firearms handling and storage practices among all firearm owners through the distribution of safety education messages and free firearm Safety Kits. The kits include a cable-style gun-locking device and a brochure (also available in Spanish) that discusses safe handling and storage. Since 2003, the Project has partnered with local law enforcement agencies to distribute more than 36 million safety kits to gun owners in all 50 states and five U.S. territories.

Project ChildSafe’s success is attributable to law enforcement, elected officials, community leaders, state agencies, businesses, the firearms industry and individuals who have worked to help raise awareness about the importance of securely storing firearms in the home.

– See more at: http://projectchildsafe.org/about#sthash.1UcJz0aL.dpuf

Brought to you by Project ChildSafe

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