02. Loaded and Unlocked Guns
Many children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns. Every parent and grandparent needs to be careful where their children play and ask if there is a gun in the home.
One third of all households with children younger than eighteen have a gun and more than 40 percent of gun-owning households with children store their guns unlocked. Twenty-two percent of children with gun-owning parents handled guns in their homes without their parents’ knowledge. More than half of youth who committed suicide with a gun obtained the gun from their home, usually a parent’s gun.