Sparta ‘Links up’ With Gun Safety Website

Written by Michael Daigle

The Sparta Township Council agreed last week to place a link on the township website to a site that promoted gun safety measures relating to children.

The site was promoted by Deputy Mayor Molly Whilesmith, who said she met with the police department and representatives of the website Asking Saves Kids.

The sitewas created by the Center to Prevent Youth Violence and has the support of the American Academy of Pediatricians. Whilesmith said the main support for the website comes from the Brady Foundation, named for James Brady, President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination of Reagan.

Whilesmith said the site promotes gun safety around children through a series of questions aimed at increasing awareness.

Mayor Gilbert Gibbs said as long as the police department approved the group he was in favor of providing the web link.

Resident Paul Johnson said he would support the move as long as the message was related to gun safety, which he supports,  and not gun control. He said  he was concerned that the Brady Foundation would use the Asking Saves Kds site as a way to promote its agenda of gin control.

Councilman John Schon cautioned that gun related issues were politically sensitive, and that the township needed to be careful what groups and outside messages it promoted on its site.

The Asking Saves Kids website does present a series of question relating to guns: Are there guns in the home? Are they loaded and out in the open or safely secured?

The site also presents a survey of data from numerous studies.

For example:

·      Almost 90 percent of accidental shootings involving children are linked to an easy-to-find, loaded handgun in the house (Society of Pediatric Nurses, 1998).

·      Eighty-eight percent of the children who are injured or killed in unintentional shootings are shot in their own homes or in the homes of relatives or friends (Pediatrics 2005).

·      An average of 8 kids and teens are killed by firearms every day and 42 additional children and teens are seriously injured (Injury Mortality Reports, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC, 2010; 2011).

·      In 2010, 134 children and teens ages 0-19 were killed in unintentional shootings (Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Injury, Prevention and Control)

·      In 2011, 2,886 children and teens ages 0-19 were treated in emergency rooms for unintentional gunshot wounds (Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Injury, Prevention and Control).