This legislative session, state lawmakers are deep in the weeds of expanding gun rights, seeming to have a hard time finding ways gun rights are restricted in Arizona.

They are trying to speed up the process for citizens to get permits for specialized high-caliber weapons, such as machine guns. They are coming up with a scheme to fine city council members who try to pass and impose gun laws that are stricter than state laws. They are even trying to create a separate felony for stealing a gun from another person, which is already a felony.

But a little effort to protect kids from unsecured, loaded guns? Impossible even to discuss.

“Their priorities are all messed up,” Steele told me. “I swear we’re going to have personhood for guns or voting rights for guns soon.”

Understand that American children dying by gun isn’t a small or isolated problem. In Arizona in 2012, at least 32 kids were killed by firearms, according to the 2013 Arizona Child Fatality Review, a report that goes through every child death in the state. Of those, 50 percent of the deaths were by a gun belonging to the dead child’s biological parent, including many suicides. As with accidental shootings, leaving a loaded gun unsecured makes suicides by firearm easier.