During debate on a measure (S. 397) that would prohibit certain civil liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers, the Senate approved an amendment to require child safety locks on guns. Sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), the amendment was approved, 70-30, on July 28. At press time, the Senate was expected to complete its consideration of the measure on July 29.
Sen. Kohl said that the amendment “goes a long way to help reduce the number of accidental shootings, particularly among the most vulnerable members of our society our children, by requiring dealers to sell a safety device with all handguns. We have all read troubling stories about lives cut short by accidental shootings and teen suicides. They are made all the more terrible by the knowledge that many were preventable. The annual number of firearm injuries and deaths involving children is startling…Eleven million children live in households with guns, and in 65 percent of those homes, the gun is accessible to the child. In 13 percent of them, the gun is left loaded and not locked. This amendment will help address this problem. It requires that a child safety lock device be sold with every handgun. These devices vary in form, but the most common resembles a padlock that wraps around the gun trigger and immobilizes it. Trigger locks are already used by tens of thousands of responsible gun owners to protect their firearm from unauthorized use, and they can be purchased in virtually any gun store for less than $10.”
Speaking in opposition to the amendment, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) stated, “A trigger lock does not a safe weapon make. A trigger lock can lay right beside a firearm. Unless it is inserted and locked, the firearm is still accessible. You can sell a firearm. You can demand that there be a trigger lock. Yet still someone who is irresponsible in the storage and/or use of a firearm can cause that firearm, by the absence of a trigger lock or the absence of a safe storage place, to be harmful to a child. That is reality.” He added, “My point in arguing or discussing this issue is not to suggest we ought not to be concerned, but to clearly recognize that we will not, by this, in any way create a perfect world. Safe storage devices are no substitute for common sense and a clear understanding that a firearm misuse can become, as we all know, a lethal device. A firearm irresponsibly used can become a lethal device…Nothing replaces the responsible action of an adult in his or her exercising of their constitutional rights to provide safe storage away from that casual curiosity of a small child about the uniqueness of a mom or dad’s firearm, owned and held in the homes of America.”
