Some parents give kids easy access to guns

The 1:30 a.m. phone call told Ashlyn Melton her son Noah was in trouble.

The mother from Addis, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, got in her car immediately and headed to her son's best friend's house where he was staying the night. She expected to hear the eighth-grade boys had toilet-papered a house or committed some other minor prank.

When she pulled up to the house, she noticed first the caution tape, police and the coroner's vehicle. Her son was dead, shot by his best friend who had pointed a loaded gun at him and pulled the trigger.

The two boys had been Face-Timing with two girls, and Melton believes her son's friend was trying to show off. She had taught Noah about gun safety from the time he was little, including never pointing a loaded gun at someone.

"It never dawned on me that other parents wouldn't teach their children," Melton said. "I never talked to Noah about that. You don't think to ask questions because you teach your children, you think other people would teach their kids too."

Recent studies show children in America have easy access to guns, often without the knowledge of the adults who own those guns, with fatal results.

Earlier this year, the Shreveport area saw two child fatalities due to firearm-related incidences. A 10 year old boy shot and killed himself with his parents' firearm in the family home on Prospect Street, while nearby on Colquitt Street a three-year-old shot himself while playing with a gun he found.

“As any parent knows, kids get into things they’re not supposed to," said Victoria Coy, a member of the Louisiana chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. "It just takes one accident, one bad day, one slip up. When unsecured, loaded firearms and children are involved, the stakes are just too high.”

Louisiana has the second highest rates of accidental firearm injuries and deaths in the nation. Data from a 2012 Louisiana Child Death Review Report revealed 19 adolescents were killed by a firearm in the three-year period between 2010 and 2012, and that homicide was the second highest cause of death in children aged one to nine years.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence ranked Louisiana 45th of the 50 states for gun safety ratings, and in 2011 the Daily Beast branded Louisiana as the fifth deadliest state for children because of permissive gun laws and the high rate of firearms-related child mortality.

For some, the solution to reducing those tragic numbers is simple: parents need to unload and lock up their guns.

A Violence Problem

The United States has some of the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide and firearms-related deaths in the world.

A 1994 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded America's children were 12 times more likely to be shot and killed than children from any of the other countries combined.

A 2008 report from the Children's Defense Fund estimated a child dies every three hours in across the country from a gun-related incident. Black children made up 45 percent of the total. But gun-related homicides and suicides were among the leading causes of death for children across racial lines.

“It touches every economic level, race, geographical area,” said Holly Sheets, Louisiana Law Enforcement for Gun Safety program witness coordinator. "Guns are part of our society, whether you like it or not. Chances are very high that your child will come across a gun, and they need to know what to do.”

The Louisiana Law Enforcement for Gun Safety program started three years ago in response to the abysmal rates of unintentional firearm injuries and deaths facing Louisiana children. Sheets, who's worked with LLEGS to educate thousands of children about gun safety, said parents shouldn't underestimate their children's ability — or desire — to gain access to guns.

"What surprised me the most in the beginning is the access these kids have to the guns without their parent knowing,” Sheets said. "Kids tell us ‘Don’t touch the gun’ when we ask what they should do, so they've heard the message. But they’re desensitized by the media. They don’t understand someone who is shot doesn’t get up again and continue going like they do in the video games. They’ll pick up a gun because it looks like a toy.”

Sgt. Brian Firmin, with the Baton Rouge constable's office and who leads interactive activities for children about gun safety through LLEGS, said many children aren't aware of the true power of guns. As part of his lesson, Firmin shoots a watermelon placed in a gun trailer.

“The hands-on demonstration where we blow a watermelon up, that gets their attention," Firmin said. "Some kids didn’t think it would be that loud, that devastating. I think they really get the point.”

“There’s a very fine line between being confident and comfortable with a gun and being careless," said Margot Bennett, Women Against Gun Violence executive director. "We see time and time again people who feel comfortable with their guns who don’t lock them up.”

Louisiana is one of several states that has no Child Access Prevention laws, which charge adults who give children access to unsupervised firearms with criminal liability. Coy added charges often aren't brought against the adults who could have prevented the children's access to the guns. In fact, according to an Everytown statistic, only 29 percent of adults who legally owned the firearm faced charges.

"When it's your child, when another adult drops the ball, that's when the stakes become clear," Coy said. "What's difficult is the lack of justice. Police departments are extremely reluctant to hold parents responsible for unintentional shootings."

Melton said she did not bring charges against the family whose son unintentionally killed Noah. She also said the family moved to a different city soon after the occurrence and has never talked to her about her son's death.

"Louisiana has no laws against not locking up your guns. If they had admitted fault, I might feel better, but they never admitted fault," Melton said. "They said it was an accident. It wasn't an accident. It was an unintentional death. I ask God daily to forgive them. I can forgive the child more than I can forgive the parents."

Melton said she was in therapy for a year following Noah's death but knew she had to be there for her daughter. She reached out to Mothers Demanding Action for Gun Safety and tells Noah's story to everyone who will listen, in the hope of saving other children's lives.

"The day this happened, I asked God to carry this for me. I chose not to be bitter. As traumatizing as Noah's death was, he's still making a difference in death," Melton said. "Gun violence is a hard thing to conquer because of poverty, where you live... but unintentional death of children, that shouldn't even exist. That shouldn't even be a statistic."

Melton said Noah's death impacted his school community. Noah's class — now seniors — started a tradition of including his initials on every class shirt and also dedicated their senior chant to him at the school homecoming pep rally.

Parents who own guns often cite the need to protect their children, especially if they live in out-of-the-way places like the country. Shelby Peele, a chiropractic assistant at Broadmoor Chiropractic clinic, said having a daughter made her more eager to be able to protect herself and her family. Peele owns a Glock 19 and a Beretta and has taken several training classes in order to be able to properly use them.

"Ever since I had my daughter, my thinking has changed. I want to be able to protect myself and my daughter if need be," Peele said. "Being women, we are typically the ones that people go after because they feel like we are weak. Since we as women have that stereotype, I don't want to make it easy for someone to come after me or my daughter."

Kristen Blakeney, who lives 20 miles out in the country from Monroe with her husband and five-year-old son, grew up with guns and owns several. When her son was born, she remembered having an earnest conversation with her husband about whether they should get rid of their guns.

"I remember bringing him home from the hospital and talking to my husband about ‘What are we going to do?” Blakeney said. "I hear what happens on the news with kids and accidents, and it is scary."

The Blakeneys, who own guns primarily for self protection, decided the safest course of action would be to keep their guns while teaching their son about gun safety. When her son was a toddler, Blakeney said she would hang the guns on nails hammered into the ceiling, far out of reach. She started safety lessons — about not touching guns and the damage guns could do — when her son was three years old. When her son turned five, she tested him.

Blakeney said she left an unloaded gun on a table in the family living room and then told her son his daddy had left something in the room. She didn't tell her son specifically about the gun; she wanted him to find it, to see what he would do.

"He started walking toward it," Blakeney recalled. "And then he stopped, and the first thing he said was, 'I have to go get Daddy.'"​

But Bennett said parents have no real way of knowing for sure that their children haven't handled guns in their absence.

“Older kids are impulsive and younger kids don’t know better,” Bennett said. “Some gun owners are so busy protecting their families from a fictitious threat that they ignore the threat their gun presents from within.”

Louisiana's gun laws offer no additional protection

Everytown tracked fatality trends by conducting a national census of publicly-reported unintentional child gun deaths from December 2012 to December 2013 and found totals were 61 percent higher than official statistics, in which unintentional gun deaths are sometimes counted instead as second-degree murder or homicides.

Children obtained the firearm from a family member in 76 percent of the 66 cases where the source of the firearm causing the fatality was known. Eight-four percent of unintentional deaths occurred in a home or car of a friend or relative. Toddlers, age 2 to 4, were more likely to have died from self-inflicted gun shots, while older children (aged 12-14) were more likely to die at the hands of another child.

Recent occurrences in Louisiana illustrate the dangers of gun access to different age groups.

In 2011, a five-year-old boy in Bossier City died from a gunshot wound to the head after he found his father's gun in the house. A two-year-old in Baton Rouge and a 12-year-old in Sweet Lake both were killed in 2013 by teens who were "playing" with guns — while nearby in New Orleans, a five-year-old girl shot and killed herself with a revolver belonging to her mother's boyfriend that she found in a closet.​

“There are some tragic instances where parents haven’t properly trained their children or stored their firearms," said Shreveport's Bruce Canfield, a historian and author of 12 books about U.S. military weaponry. "These are negligent, completely avoidable.”

Stored, Locked, Unloaded

Coy said Moms Demanding Action for Gun Safety supports the Second Amendment — and also responsible gun ownership.

“It shouldn’t be controversial to tell parents to lock up their guns, to use them responsibly,” said Coy. "We think it is irresponsible to ask young children to be the bearers of their own safety for what should be an adult responsibility. Having an unsecured, loaded gun in a home with a kid should be completely unacceptable in today’s society."

Blakeney said gun-owning parents can take simple precautions to keep their children safe, including purchasing gun safes and gun locks and also educating their children about proper gun safety. She understands the dangers guns can pose to children, but she also realizes the dangers presented by living far away from a city. She had to ask herself some hard questions when she came home one day to find her house had been burglarized, and she said owning guns is a matter of being prepared for anything when living out in the country.

"I didn't think my house was going to be burglarized, but it was. What if I had been there with my son?" Blakeney said. "My son needs a mother. I will be here for my son."

She added, "With guns, you have to be responsible. I never forget two things. I'm constantly thinking, where are my kids? Where are my guns? You have to know where the both of those are. If you're careless, it could mean someone's life."

Melton said parents also need to know about the gun practices of other families. Parents should ask their children's families about whether they own guns and how they store them. Parents should also talk with their children about what to do if they are around friends or adults who bring out a gun.

"I taught Noah everything I could about gun safety," Melton said. "It didn't save his life."​

By the numbers:

1/3 - number of children in the United States who live in a home with a firearm

43 - percentage of guns reportedly left unlocked in the home, according to 2014 study "Innocents Lost"

13 - percentage of those guns left unlocked and unloaded, according to 2014 study "Innocents Lost"

83 - percent of worldwide firearms death involving

22 - percent of children surveyed in 2006 Harvard report who admitted to handling firearms without parents' knowledge

70 - percent of children under 10 surveyed in 2006 Harvard report who said they know where the family guns are kept