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NORTHERN VALLEY AREA, NJ—As Northern Valley area police departments, school districts and parents focus on strategies to protect students from potential gun violence, a new Rutgers University study highlights the importance of gun safety education and proper gun storage in homes with guns—especially homes with children.
Police chiefs in several area towns—including Emerson, Closter, Tenafly and Park Ridge—have been increasingly engaged with their communities in discussions on gun safety and some have provided advice or guidelines for gun owners in proper handling and storage.
Most police chiefs had not seen the Rutgers study which analyzed results from 10 prior gun studies focused on gun safety education and safe gun storage at home.
“The studies found that even children who initially followed the rules after [gun safety] training did not use the safety skills they learned weeks later when placed in a room with a nonfunctional gun. This leads us to question if young children can retain the gun-safety skills they learn over time,” said Rutgers School of Nursing Professor Cheryl Holly, a study co-author and co-director of Northeast Institute for Evidence Synthesis and Translation.
Holly is a resident of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and started studying gun violence following the 2012 elementary school shooting where 20 children and six adults were killed.
The Rutgers study, published in the journal Health Promotion Practice, reviewed 10 studies on effective strategies for teaching gun safety to kids 4–9.
The study found that most gun safety training approaches, including “just say no” and telling kids to stay away from guns, skills-building approaches such as teaching children to resist touching guns, and knowledge-based programs where kids view videos or printed materials about gun safety, are not effective.
“The researchers found such programs do not reduce the likelihood that children will handle guns when they are unsupervised, that boys are more likely than girls to ignore gun safety rules and that few studies exist of gun safety programs for children beyond fourth grade,” noted a study summary.
Reached at home, Holly said that estimates by the Brady Campaign indicated there may be 1.7 million children in homes with loaded, unsecured guns.
“Sticking a gun under a couch cover is not safe storage,” she said via phone.
“This is an unrecognized public health issue,” said Holly, noting 2,600 accidental shootings reported between 2012-2014. She noted firearm injuries are the third leading cause of death for children 1–17.
“The most important thing is to store a gun safely with a gun lock on it. Some of the [education] stuff we do now is just not working. You forget half the knowledge once you go out the door,” she said.
Holly said programs that used active learning strategies, such as modeling simulation or feedback were found to be slightly more effective at teaching gun safety skills than programs that handed out literature although most failed to teach the children to put what they learned into practice.< Children who participate in a gun safety program often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm, she noted. “Tragic things are happening,” she added.
‘Safe storage’ not the norm
She said two key findings pulled from previous studies underlie the challenge of gun ownership in a home with children.
“Our study found that 85 percent of gun-owning parents did not practice safe gun storage and 72 percent believed their young children could differentiate a toy gun from a real gun,” she revealed.
Holly warned parents not to underestimate the ability of their children to find where they store a gun, or to not want to handle one if they find it.
Safe storage of a gun “is the best way to protect children and adolescents from gun injuries,” said Holly.
She said the safest options are to “lock the guns up and make sure children cannot get the key or safe access code, or better yet, don’t have a gun in your home.”
Park Ridge
Immediately following the shooting at the Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed and 17 wounded, Park Ridge Police Chief Joseph Madden posted an online firearms safety update listing four guidelines for safe gun storage. Madden was a panelist at a “Gun Forum For Safety” held May 24.
The four guidelines included: store unloaded firearms in a locked cabinet, safe, gun vault or storage case inaccessible to children; consider gun locking devices to render firearms inoperable in addition to locked storage; and if disassembled, parts should be secured in separate locations; ammunition should be stored in a locked location separate from firearms, and thoroughly check firearms to confirm they are unloaded when removed from storage.
Madden previously called for “a better relationship” between police and mental health professionals, without violating privacy rules, that could lead to identifying individuals who should not own guns.
Closter
Closter Police Chief Dennis Kaine said that, although he did not know of the Rutgers study, he recommended gun owners learn how to properly handle a firearm by getting instruction from a trained instructor.
Kaine spoke at a Closter gun safety forum May 16 and stressed that the state’s gun permit requirements are some of the toughest nationwide. He said getting a gun permit can take six months or more, and involves providing fingerprints, references, and physical and mental health examinations.
He stressed the gun application process in New Jersey can help to weed out someone who should not have a gun. He said safe storage is critical to prevent unauthorized access to any firearm.
Emerson
Police Chief Michael Mazzeo said the topic of safe gun storage “is a hard topic” when told of Rutgers’ study findings. A team of Emerson detectives recently investigated a threat made by a 13-year old at Emerson Junior-Senior High School resulting in a juvenile being charged with making a “terroristic threat,” said Mazzeo on May 18.
The alleged threat by the 13-year-old involved shooting classmates and recording the shootings.
Mazzeo said if young kids are home, locking the guns up in a secure safe is best. He said that so far no accidental shooting incidents have occurred locally and stressed educating youngsters on proper gun safety and gun handling is important.
“The biggest argument is, ‘If someone breaks into my house how do I get my gun?’” said Mazzeo.< He recommended teaching youngsters how to handle guns safely. “Every situation is different and it’s different for each family,” Mazzeo said. The chief said he was comfortable with New Jersey’s gun laws and repeatedly noted that the topics of safe gun storage and safe gun education were “hard topics” that need to be addressed by each family.
Woodcliff Lake
At the May 21 council meeting, a unanimous council passed a proclamation declaring Friday, June 1 as national gun violence awareness day. Supporters are asked to “wear orange” to bring awareness to gun violence.
Wendy Schwartz, a resident, and member of Bergen County’s Moms Demand Action, told members that she became motivated after the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting. She told members that a Washington Post article reported recently that in 2018, more students have been killed than U.S. servicemen.”
She said statistics show 96 people being killed daily by guns, with 62 percent being suicides. She said the Sante Fe, Texas, high school shooter obtained two guns—a shotgun and .38-caliber revolver—from his father who legally owned the guns.
The shooter killed nine students and a teacher on May 18 and wounded 10 others during a shooting spree before being arrested by authorities.
Schwartz told the council that 10 years ago she would have never thought that when she sends her second and fourth grader to a new play date, she asks the question: “Do you have any firearms and are they locked up?”
“I don’t care really much that they have the firearms; I really do care that they’re locked up,” said Schwartz. “I’m also under the impression that there are many gun owners that don’t think twice about this.”
Councilwoman Jacqueline Gadaleta said “people need to be really aware” of violence caused by guns and noted that she was not against Second Amendment rights to own a gun.
Gun violence awareness
To further increase awareness of gun violence, many northeast Bergen County communities have passed proclamations declaring Friday, June 1 as National Gun Violence Awareness Day. The day, and weekend, will feature parades, rallies, and marches in honor of a 15-year-old girl gunned down in Chicago in 2013.
Activists nationwide will wear orange—the traditional color of hunters to remain visible—to be seen as they rally against gun violence.
Proclamations supporting National Gun Violence Awareness Day were passed or proposed in approximately 15 Bergen County municipalities, said Lisa O’Donoghue, of Moms Demand Action. Others include Oradell, Tenafly, Englewood, and Westwood.
She said the county Freeholders are anticipated to pass a proclamation June 7 to declare June as gun violence awareness month.
Study followup
More information and links from the study are available at http://nursing.rutgers.edu/news/index.html#GunSafety.