ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Gun violence surpassed motor vehicles as the number one cause of death for children and youth in 2020 in both the state of Maryland and the United States at large. While there are many factors that contribute to this reality, one critical component is the ease in which children can gain access to firearms within their homes and the homes of friends and family.
More than 46% of America’s children live in households with unsecured firearms.1 And in recent Secret Service analysis, around ¾ of school shooters obtained their firearm from the home of a parent or close relative. Years of research indicates that strong storage laws can have a significant impact in reducing the likelihood of youth accessing firearms. The impact of these strong laws will be in reducing unintentional deaths and injuries, occurrences where youth bring guns to school, and the ease in which guns can be stolen.
On March 20, 2018, a 17-year-old student gained access to his father’s gun, entered Great Mills High School in southern Maryland and shot and killed 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey and injured a 14-year-old boy. A strong Child Access Prevention law can help reduce unintentional shootings and youth suicides as well as incidents where a youth in crisis impulsively acts to harm others. In honor of her tragic loss and aiming to save others, Maryland’s Child Access Prevention bill has been designated “Jaelynn’s Law.”
Delegate Sandy Bartlett’s HB307(and Senator Will Smith’s SB858) seeks to do the following to Maryland’s existing Child Access Prevention law:
- Raise the age of protection to include 16 and 17 year olds;
- Articulate the parameters of safe gun storage: unloaded and secure;
- Eliminate the civil liability prohibitor; and
- Create public education materials on reduction of youth suicide and safe gun storage.
Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence’s executive director, Karen Herren, will testify on the bill.
1 Deborah Azrael, Joanna Cohen, Carmel Salhi, and Matthew Miller, “Firearm Storage in Gun–owning Households with Children: Results of a 2015 National Survey,” Journal of Urban Health 95, no. 3 (2018): 295–304.; Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael, “Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey,” JAMA Network Open 5, no. 2 (2022).
“Due to recent major spikes in gun ownership and now major spikes in the public carrying of firearms, access to guns is at unprecedented levels. Most gun owners want to be as safe as possible with their firearms but unfortunately a significant number of gun owners are not following the recommended practice of storing firearms unloaded and secured whenever they are not within their immediate control. Recent stories of children accessing unsecured firearms and killing and injuring someone as a result are beyond tragic as they both involve children and are entirely preventable with responsible behavior. Legislation around this issue is long overdue.”
Given the recent increases in gun ownership and public carrying of firearms, Maryland needs to clearly articulate what responsible gun ownership looks like and be willing and able to hold gun owners accountable when they fail to uphold those standards.
Other witnesses and supporters include:
- Melissa Willey – Mother of Jaelynn
- Rev. Greta Willis – Program director of MPGV’s Liberty Elementary Grief Support Program and founder of the Kevin L. Cooper Foundation
- Dr. Joseph Sakran – Johns Hopkins Hospital, trauma surgeon, director
- Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office (Robert Hill)
- Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office
- Maryland State Education Association
- Maryland Moms Demand Action
- Brady United Against Gun Violence
- And More
Upcoming bill hearing: Wednesday, February 15, 2023, 1pm
More gun control.
Less dead kids ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Funny how every problem mentioned in the article could be resolved by proper parenting. Thanks to an epidemic of worthless parenting, the dumb dems will try AGAIN to restrict lawful gun owner’s rights. You folks are seriously lucky that I’m not in charge down there…
You are a trip, Archie…”lawful gun owners”. What a ridiculous term. The same “lawful gun owners” whose weapons are stolen, lost or “borrowed” by their children to kill, wound and steal. “Lawful gun owners”. What a joke.
Well maybe if others were taught better they wouldn’t be stealing. Oh but that has to happen at home. More lawful gun use occurs everyday. And there are dozens of lawful uses of guns to protect life. But you don’t want to hear that. In fact, even if the stats were shown to you, you wouldn’t believe them.
That’s alright thought. When seconds matter, you can rely on the police.
It’s: “When seconds matter…the Police are only minutes away.”
Pretty sure if stats were shown to you, actual stats—not the political BS you are pushing, you would simply not reply. We have more guns in this country than people. Clearly more guns will not solve the problem we have with irresponsible “lawful” gun owners and sellers. Clearly more guns will not solve the problems we have if those who use a gun in the commission of a crime are not severely punished. Oh and I didn’t say there weren’t lawful uses of guns, now did I? No.
Gun storage argument will be shut down once challenged. DC vs Heller laid out perfectly that restricting gun storage to ONLY unloaded guns is unconstitutional and guns don’t need to be “locked” within the residence.
How about make it a crime for a parent to allow their children access to their guns. How about locking the parents up for this? If you have kids, lock your guns up AND don’t give them the combination or key to the safe. Simple, nothing else needed.
Yup. Funny how the gun nutters believe the only ones who should act responsibly are the criminals.
This horrible death could have been prevented with the enforcement of many existing laws, if enforced. Agree somewhat with this. First problem is we have many laws that need enforcing that will help. Second problem is if someone breaks into your home you have no immediate means to protect your family. You can secure a loaded weapon in a safe that can be accessed quickly and is accessible by only authorized owners/users. Parents do need to teach their children safe handling of weapons, if they chose to own weapons. Hold them accountable if they don’t. Raise the age of protection, YES. If you can’t legally own it, you should be prevented from having free and easy access to it. Articulate the parameters of safe gun storage? Every weapon I own has a user’s manual, READ it. The HQL, MSP 77R, FFL, literally every document I have seen concerning LEGAL weapon’s ownership talks about safe handling of the weapon.
What’s the point of having a gun for home protection if you can’t use it because it’s unloaded? Are you going to ask the criminal to pause momentarily while you retrieve your ammo and load your gun?
The States Attorneys for Montgomery and Howard counties are listed as attendees and supporters. The 2 state senators who drafted and filed SB1, which essentially will nullify concealed carry permits statewide, are both from Montgomery county. They have already placed severe Concealed Carry restrictions on their own citizens. Law abiding gun owning citizens are being regulated out of existence in MD.
No they are not.