Some call them "safe storage" laws, which are measures that require people to keep their guns locked up. On the surface, this makes sense. Kids are kids and most gun people will tell others they should have their guns locked up safe and sound anyway.
I, on the other hand, called the mandatory storage laws because to use the preferred terminology is to acknowledge that the laws in question actually make everyone safer. They don't necessarily.
See, part of the problem is that these laws don't account for any individual circumstance. They can't determine if your kids are trustworthy or not or if your situation requires your gun to be available while you sleep or anything of the sort.
"Why would a kid ever need a gun, though?" someone might ask.
Well, how about a situation like this?
A child shot and killed two men during a home invasion in Kentucky, officials said.
According to Kentucky State Police, troopers were dispatched to the home in Manchester around 4:30 a.m. Saturday for reports of a shooting.
...
Police said that the two men had broken into the home with the intention of stealing firearms from a safe.
During the break-in, a juvenile living in the home saw the men holding firearms. Acting in self-defense, police said, the child retrieved a handgun and shot both men before escaping through a bedroom window.
Police didn't say how old the child was, though they used the term "child" rather than "teenager", suggesting he or she was 12 or under. I could be wrong about that, though.
Regardless, they were under the age of 18, which means that in many states, they'd have been prohibited from having access to the gun and their parents could be prosecuted for not having the gun secured where the kid couldn't get it.
This isn't unique, either. There have been many occasions where juveniles of various ages accessed guns and used them to protect their own lives.
Some kids can easily be trusted with firearms because they're mature, responsible people. There's no reason they should left to the not-so-tender mercies of hardened criminals who are more than willing to threaten young lives. I don't want to be left vulnerable, so why should kids automatically be left so?
Now, not all kinds are up for that. My daughter, who I love to death, isn't there. She doesn't have access to any firearms because she doesn't have the maturity to justify it. My son, as a kid, did far earlier than most children do. In fact, he had the maturity to decline possibly having a firearm in his room out of concern his friends wouldn't know how to handle it responsibly if they came upon it.
Which just showed he could be trusted, in my book.
Yet mandatory storage laws don't take any of that into account. They can't, really, or else they'd be unenforceable. I'm OK with that but those who think they're good ideas aren't, so we get this.
And I can't help but wonder how many kids get killed because of it.
We know at least one this year who isn't because Kentucky didn't have such a law.
