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| NOVEMBER 13, 1998 10:00 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Center to Prevent Handgun Violence 202-289-7319 |
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| Many Parents Leave Guns Accessible: Parents Concerned But Don't Take Action To Protect Kids From Guns, New Study Shows | ||||
| WASHINGTON - November 13 - More
than two in five of all American households with children also have guns, and of those,
about one in four keep those guns loaded and/or unlocked, according to a new study by
Peter Hart Research on behalf of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. And,
although most American parents realize that guns in the home endanger their children, they
do not take active steps to protect them from accidental access. In the first
national survey to query parents about their interactions with other parents about guns in
the home, the research found a significant gap between what parents know about the dangers
of guns, and the actions they take to ensure that their children will be safe in the homes
of others. In the 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 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. Most understand the dangers of guns: 71% knew that at least one out of three households has a gun, and 59% that one-third of gun-owning parents keep their gun loaded and accessible at least some of the time. But the vast majority also don’t see the risk to their own child: 73% believe that it is "not at all likely" that their child would find and handle a gun without permission. Those seemingly contradictory beliefs translate into a "disconnect" between talk and action. Although 75% of parents – and 88% of gunowning parents – say they have discussed with their children what to do if they find a gun in the home of a friend or neighbor, only 30% have asked the parents of their childrens’ friends if there is a gun in the home before allowing a visit. 61% of the parents responding haven’t even thought about asking other parents about gun accessibility, for various reasons, including the assumption of safe storage (23%) or because it just never occurred to them to ask (25%). "Clearly, too many parents are just not thinking about the tragic possibilities of an innocent visit to another home," said Robert Walker, President of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. "We know that parents are asking each other about supervision, food allergies, and TV habits, yet they are ignoring guns -- the one factor that could mean the life or death of their child." Although most parents are not asking each other about gun accessibility, it is not because the question is awkward or difficult. 41% of parents think it is always appropriate to ask about guns in the home, another 25% think it’s appropriate to ask if they do not know the other parents well, and only 10% feel it is never appropriate to ask about guns in the home. Gunowners and non-gunowners feel similarly about this issue, meaning that the vast majority of gunowners do not find questions about their gun storage to be offensive or inappropriate. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence plans a major, national public education campaign to convince parents to be sensitive to gun storage issues and to encourage them to talk to each other to minimize the risk their children will be injured or killed by guns. With this in mind, parents were queried about which facts would best catalyze these conversations. 28% believed the most important message is that "55% of all accidental shootings are committed by a child or teenager," 20% that "Guns kept in the home kill family members more often than they kill in self-defense," and 18% that "Half of all handguns in the home are loaded, not locked, or both." The poll was released at a Washington, D.C. Symposium on Guns and Children as a Public Health Issue, which featured Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Boston Police Commissioner Paul Evans, Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader Martin Luther King, III, gun injury researcher Dr. Arthur Kellermann of Emory University, Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel of the HELP Network, and Andrés Soto of the Pacific Center for Violence Prevention, as well as Peter Hart. "We at the Center don’t want to keep reading about four-year-olds shooting each other by accident, or teenagers killing each other with their parents’ accessible guns," Walker said. "Only when parents are as conscientious about guns in the home as they are about lesser dangers can we protect our children from these terrible, and unnecessary, tragedies." # # # The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, chaired by Sarah Brady, was founded in 1983 to reduce gun violence through education, legal advocacy, research, and outreach to the entertainment community. Based in Washington, DC, CPHV’s national initiatives include prevention programs for parents and youth on the risks associated with guns, legal representation for gun violence victims, work with the entertainment community to encourage deglamorization of guns in the media, and research of the risks associated with guns and the efficacy of gun control laws. |
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