The truth about kids and guns

by Larry S. Moore

Cynthia Tucker is the latest liberal journalist to use the death of a child to promote the agenda of gun control. In case you missed it, the Sparks family lost their child in a preventable gun accident. Since then the family has been dragged through the major media outlets as an example of why gun safety is a child safety issue and calls for more laws. The left-leaning media never misses an opportunity to use a tragedy if it fits their cause. Tucker even goes so far as to call for criminal charges. In my view, the family has suffered enough - Tucker should leave them alone and let them grieve in private.

Tucker next establishes her credentials as a gun expert saying she was child of the South and steeped in the gun culture. Having staked her ground as intellectually superior, she immediately launches into the "facts" as provided by the anti-gun Brady Campaign. She decries the finger-pointing politics involved in the gun debate while wagging both her tongue and finger at the NRA. That's the typical liberal agenda, if you can't blame George Bush then blame the evil, sinister NRA. It is all sheer nonsense and misleading information. The truth is quite different from the picture Ms. Tucker has painted.

Firearms accidents have declined every year since 1930, while the population and rates of gun ownership have constantly grown. Among children, such deaths have decreased 89% since 1975. Today, the odds are more than a million to one against a child in the U.S. dying in a firearm accident. You wouldn't know that reading Ms. Tucker's enlightened commentary. Check it out. My sources are the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Safety Council.

What organization and who do we have to thank for these low numbers? The NRA. Combined with thousands of volunteer instructors trained in all forms of firearms hold firearms safety courses across our nation. They do it quietly without fanfare in small communities and big cities. Tucker, who claims her father was a nut about gun safety, relates her story of picking up a loaded gun and pointing it at a younger sibling relative. I don't know if the incident is real or invented to cement her position as a gun safety expert. Sorry Ms. Tucker, but your father almost failed you. I wouldn't chose the words father, nut and gun safety to describe my father, who taught me about firearms. My father continually stressed safety and education. Guns were common tools on the family farms in Kentucky. Even though we all knew where the guns and ammunition were stored, I don't recall a single instance of any of us pointing a gun at another person. We got into plenty of other mischief, but the rules of gun safety were never violated.

Too bad Tucker's father didn't do a better job of educating her. Too bad she isn't writing about another NRA program called the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program. Eddie Eagle teaches children basic lessons about what to do when they find a gun. It's a simple message: Stop; Don't Touch; Leave the Area; Tell an Adult. Period. All my grandchildren over the age of three can repeat this lesson. It's important to prepare them now for the reality of the world that includes firearms and sometimes adults who make mistakes. I pray they listen and learn.

Do we really want to make our children safer? Education is the key. Why isn't the Eddie Eagle program and it's simple message taught in our schools? Several years ago State Representative Ron Hood introduced legislation to authorize schools to conduct firearms education. As Governor, George V. Voinovich officially recognized the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program. Ohio was the first state to appropriate funds specifically for schools to teach the program. Unfortunately, so few schools chose to take part that the funds were removed from the next budget. Why, in the name of safety and "if it saves just one child it will be worth it," haven't Ohio's schools gotten behind this program? How many children could have been educated about real firearms safety since the time Voinovich was Governor?

Outdoor writer and hunter education instructor Larry S. Moore is a long-time volunteer leader for Buckeye Firearms Foundation and winner of the 2005 USSA Patriot Award, the 2007 League of Ohio Sportsmen/Ohio Wildlife Federation Hunter Educator of the Year and the 2010 National Wild Turkey Federation/ Women in the Outdoors Hunter Education Instructor of the Year.