Twenty U.S. Senate Democrats have issued a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), asking the agency to issue a statement of best practices regarding storage of firearms in the home. The letter states that, “Death and injury by firearm is one of the most significant public health threats to young people in communities across our nation.”
While the letter does not address specific practices that the GAO should endorse, it is telling that its focus is overwhelmingly on gun storage—that is, restricting all access to firearms by children—and on communicating the supposed risk of having a gun in the first place. Nowhere do the senators mention the value of campaigns designed to educate children about guns, either in the sense of the Eddie Eagle GunSafe® Program or through youth shooting initiatives. When did we decide that teaching children to make responsible choices was no longer on the table.
