THE HOAX OF SAFE STORAGE FOR GUNS

Paul Gallant


Last fall, Project HomeSafe, a nationwide program to distribute free gun
locks "to protect children", was suspended, one year after its
implementation.  The reason? Police in Knoxville and Chattanooga
discovered the devices can unexpectedly spring open.

About 400,000 locks had already been given to over 600 law enforcement
agencies. Faulty "safety" devices are just the tip of the iceberg of the
dangers Americans are being asked to accept, no questions asked, all in
the name of "sensible" gun laws.  And the intensive propaganda campaign
designed to create the perception that mandatory "safe-storage" schemes
are both responsible, and beneficial to the welfare of our children and
our families, has only just begun.

Lamenting the "access to firearms" in "The Crime Drop in America", Garen
Wintemute declared with alarm that "remarkably, one-third of handguns in
the United States, perhaps 20 million guns, were stored loaded and not
locked away." A clear and present danger to the families in those
households?  Not according to current safety figures.  In 1994, fatal gun
accidents dropped to their lowest level since record-keeping began in
1903. They've fallen each year since.

What should have been "remarkable" to Wintemute is that among children
under the age of 5, there were just 20 fatal gun accidents in 1998. Contrast
that with about 600 children in the same age group who drowned.  More
children under the age of 5 drown in 5-gallon buckets of water than from a
firearm accident. Twenty million "loaded" guns and the lack of safe-storage
laws notwithstanding, America's gun-owning parents must be doing something
right.

We're told that trigger-lock laws are the cure for firearm accidents and
thefts. What we're not told is that trigger-locks won't stop
10-year-olds, who can pop them off with screwdrivers or break them with
hammers, as can determined criminals.

So just who is the target of these "reasonable" gun laws, and what's
their real purpose?  Rather than saving lives, could it be that
trigger-lock laws are intended, instead, to condition Americans into
believing that firearms aren't acceptable for self-defense, or worth the
bother?

The most up-to-date research on the subject comes from John Lott and John
Whitley. Their study, "Safe Storage Gun Laws: Accidental Deaths, Suicides,
and Crime", is scheduled for publication in the April 2001 Journal of Law and
Economics. Analyzing data spanning nearly 20 years, Lott and Whitley found
that not only did such laws not save lives, they cost lives by removing
firearms from the realm of self-defense.  During the first 5 years after
passage of safe-storage laws, the group of 15 states that adopted them saw an
average annual increase of over 300 murders, 3,860 rapes, 24,650 robberies,
and over 25,000 aggravated assaults.

The real danger of safe-storage laws was brought home in an incident last
August in Merced, California, when a pitchfork-wielding man attacked Jessica
Carpenter's 7-year-old brother and 9-year-old sister. Jessica's father kept a
gun in the home, and his children had learned how to safely handle it. But
the gun was kept locked away and hidden from the children, and 14-old Jessica
was forced to run to a nearby neighbor for help. She begged him to grab his
rifle.  By then it was too late.

In the aftermath, the children's great-uncle, the Rev. John Hilton,
declared that their father was "more afraid of the law than of somebody
coming in for his family". Violation of California's safe-storage law is
punishable by confinement to state prison for up to 3 years, and/or a fine of
up to $10,000. Compliance with it, and the fear of being prosecuted for its
violation, cost the Carpenter family two of their children.

Government mandated safe-storage laws?  Forty-five years ago, one of the
most popular sitcoms was "Father Knows Best". Starring Robert Young as head
of the Anderson family, it centered around family values and personal
responsibility.  The fact that the show was not entitled "Government Knows
Best", and that there hasn't been a single show with that title since, is no
accident. Half a century later, it's still parents, not legislators, know
best how to keep their children safe.

Trigger-lock and safe-storage laws, like other "reasonable" gun laws, may
sound like "common-sense" precautions for any responsible gun-owner to
take. But all they do is turn the home into a safe zone for criminals.


  The writer is a Wesley Hills optometrist and is chairman,
			   Gun-Owners for a Safe Society (GOSS)