What can be done to reduce the number of children killed accidentally by guns?

Photo by Gregory Wild-Smith via Flickr

They die in the households of police officers and drug dealers, in broken homes and close-knit families, on rural farms and in city apartments. Some adults whose guns were used had tried to store them safely; others were grossly negligent. Still others pulled the trigger themselves, accidentally fracturing their own families while cleaning a pistol or hunting.

And there are far more of these innocent victims than official records show.

"A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities. The killings of Lucas Heagren, Cassie Culpepper and Alex Whitfield, for instance, were not recorded as accidents. Nor were more than half of the 259 accidental firearm deaths of children under age 15 identified by The Times in eight states where records were available," write Michael Luo and Mike McIntire for the New York Times.

Today's Question: What can be done to reduce the number of children killed accidentally by guns?

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