It's absolutely sickening that people would bring a weapon like this into a home with a small child.
Why take that risk?
Guns In the Home
There are more than 310 million guns in circulation in the United States — approximately 90 guns for every 100 people.
In 2013, 1,670 children (age 0 to 18 years) died by gunshot and an additional 9,718 were injured.
An emergency department visit for non-fatal assault injury places a youth at 40 percent higher risk for subsequent firearm injury.
Those people that die from accidental shooting were more than three times as likely to have had a firearm in their home as those in the control group.
Among children, the majority of unintentional shooting deaths occur in the home. Most of these deaths occur when children are playing with a loaded gun in their parent’s absence.
People who report “firearm access” are at twice the risk of homicide and more than three times the risk of suicide compared to those who do not own or have access to firearms
Suicide rates are much higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership, even after controlling for differences among states for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and alcohol or drug abuse.
Among suicide victims requiring hospital treatment, suicide attempts with a firearm are much more deadly than attempts by jumping or drug poisoning — 90 percent die compared to 34 percent and 2 percent respectively. About 90 percent of those that survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.
In states with increased gun availability, death rates from gunshots for children were higher than in states with less availability.
The vast majority of accidental firearm deaths among children are related to child access to firearms — either self-inflicted or at the hands of another child.
Studies have shown that states with CAP laws have a lower rate of unintentional death than states without CAP laws.
Domestic violence is more likely to turn deadly with a gun in the home. An abusive partner’s access to a firearm increases the risk of homicide eight-fold for women in physically abusive relationships.
Safe Storage of Guns in the Home
The U.S. General Accounting Office estimated that 31 percent of accidental deaths caused by firearms might be prevented with the addition of 2 devices: a child-proof safety lock and a loading indicator.
Approximately one of three handguns guns is kept loaded and unlocked and most children know where their parents keep their guns.
73 percent of children under age 10 know where their parents keep their firearms and 36 percent admitted handling the weapons, contradicting their parents’ reports.
More than 75 percent of guns used by youth in suicide attempts were kept in the home of the victim, a relative, or a friend.
Gun owners in a household (predominantly men) are more likely to report that their gun is stored unlocked and loaded, compared to the non-owners (predominantly women) in those households. This argues for better education of household members regarding safe storage in homes with children.
https://injury.research.chop.edu/vi...-violence/gun-violence-facts-and#.VvjASHq1Ufo
