Opinion

Editorial: Unnecessary deaths It's time to bring charges against those who don't strictly adhere to the state's gun laws.

9mm rounds sit ready to fire at the Athena Gun Club target range in Houston. ( J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle ) 9mm rounds sit ready to fire at the Athena Gun Club target range in Houston. ( J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle ) Photo: J. Patric Schneider, Freelance Photo: J. Patric Schneider, Freelance Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Editorial: Unnecessary deaths 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The death this week of a 3-year-old boy after what appeared to be an accidental shooting at his grandparents' house in Spring brings to mind a recent article in The Washington Post about guns in Japan, a nation with some of the tightest gun-control laws in the world and, not coincidentally, one of the lowest rates of gun deaths in the world (12 last year, 10 of them tied to crime syndicates).

Let's say you want to own a gun in Japan. First, you must attend a class on gun law and gun safety, then pass a written test. Next, you must submit paperwork to the police about your family, work and educational background, as well as a medical certificate declaring you're not depressed or an alcoholic. The police will check to see if you have a criminal record and look into whether you've had any domestic or neighborhood disputes. A police officer will visit your home to see where and how you intend to store your gun.

Next, you must attend a full-day training course where instructors teach such basics as shooting-range etiquette, how to handle guns and how to hit a target. Pass the test, and you can apply for a permit. Once it's issued and you buy a gun, you must take it to the police station for inspection and registration. Only the registered individual can fire it.

Your permit is valid for three years. To renew it, you'll have to enroll in a refresher course and pass another test.

That's Japan and this is America, of course, where our fealty to the Second Amendment would never allow such intrusive government oversight. What we do allow are 33,636 firearms-related deaths a year (in 2013), including such corollary damage as the death of 3-year-old youngster who finds a loaded gun in his grandparents' nightstand. His is the fifth accidental child shooting in Harris County this year, including at least three deaths.

Nothing unusual about Harris County. A recent report found that nationwide at least two children are killed every week by accidental shootings. The numbers are probably vastly under-counted.

So if Americans have learned to live (and die) with more than 30,000 firearms deaths a year - and not 12, as in Japan (or three the year before) - then surely we can demand more from gun owners. Surely we can expect an adherence to responsibility on the part of those among us who so cherish their gun freedoms. We also can demand that those who ignore their responsibility suffer the consequences, as hard as that may be when a negligent parent or relative is mourning the accidental death of a child.

The easiest thing we can demand is for gun owners to secure their guns. By the way, it's the law. Adam Skaggs, senior counsel for the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, told the Chronicle's Rebecca Elliott that Texas laws are among the nation's strongest.

Safe storage, of course, doesn't mean leaving a gun on the top shelf of a bedroom closet. It means locking it, unloaded, in a secure place. It also means that parents need to check with friends and baby sitters to make sure guns are safely secured in their homes.

If you were a gun-owner in Japan, as The Post reports, you would be required to have a gun locker, affixed to the wall, with three locks on the outside and a metal chain on the inside to run through a trigger guard. You'll keep your ammunition in a separate, locked safe and the bolt in yet another safe. But, of course, that's Japan, not America, where we're more comfortable with thousands of men, women and children losing their lives because of guns, and thousands more injured.

Gun safety is easy. The more difficult decision we have to make as a society is to insist that prosecutors charge those responsible for making a firearm accessible to a child, a Class A misdemeanor in Texas punishable by up to a year in jail. No one is facing charges yet in any of this year's Harris County child shootings.

It's understandable why prosecutors would be reluctant to bring charges against a grieving parent, and yet those who choose to bring a weapon of death into their home must accept the responsibility that accompanies that decision. Perhaps prosecutors would be less reluctant if they knew the punishment could be tailored to the crime - instead of jail time perhaps a requirement that the responsible party give talks to PTA groups or civic organizations about gun safety and security and the horror of losing a child.

In a nation awash with more than 300 million guns, a grieving parent has a message we all need to hear. It's one voiced by San Antonio resident Angela Turner, a spokesperson for Moms Demand Action, a group calling for improved gun safety. "I know these deaths are unintentional," she told the Chronicle, "but they are also completely unnecessary."