Kathleen Anderson
Appearances
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Oh, But to answer your question, too, about the point of sale, there are, you know, security gun storage is supposed to be covered in gun safety classes and permitting classes. The issue is that there's no... universal standard across all points of sale about what you're supposed to do.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And so there are certainly responsible gun stores and shooting ranges and such that try to emphasize this message that certainly take firearm suicide risks, as Barry alluded to very seriously, and do pass on that information. We do have partnerships with some law enforcement officers who
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
or offices across the state when they're issuing gun permits, where they pass out information about secure storage. Mendota Heights is one of them. And so there are movements in different pockets with different individuals and agencies that do take this message on, but it's not universal. But the more we can get that message out and again, kind of create that cultural shift
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And that pressure for everybody to take this message seriously, the better. And so there is opportunity for action there. I did want to circle back quickly to Clarence's question about resistance to the message of secure storage.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Dr. Katke brought up a great one of the biggest ones that people say is that, you know, the whole reason I have a firearm in my home is for protection and I need to be able to access it instantaneously. there are devices out there for sale that allow you to do that and do that quickly.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
When we table in the community, one of our groups has a biometric safe, their personal safes, and they reset the code so that they can show people just how quickly you can get into a biometric safe using a code in the event that you should need to access your firearm quickly. Some of the resistance I get is that People saying my kids know better.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
I talked to my kids about gun safety and my kids know better. And the doctors in the room are laughing. The parents, the parents that know anything about child development are laughing because we know that kids may hear better. Right. They may have been told better, but that doesn't mean that they know better that, you know, kids, child, the brain is just not developed enough.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
to the point where they can understand the risk. Um, and you know, children as young as two and three can pull a trigger, um, often with fatal results. And so a big part of our training, when I do my presentation, my free presentation in the community is, um,
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Time permitting, I actually like to start with a grounding exercise where I ask everybody to imagine, think back to their own childhood and teenage years and think about a time when they did something that their parents had explicitly told them not to do. And, you know, Dr. Kaki's nodding his head because he's got his own story, right? And we hear all sorts of things.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
When I ask people to share back, you know, we hear about playing with broken glass, playing on railroad tracks. And then there's almost always a teenage boy who talks about getting into the liquor cabinet and then getting into the gun cabinet.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And, and that's, that's the thing that we want the adults in the room to start to remember that kids do all sorts of stupid stuff because of curiosity, peer pressure, impulsivity, recklessness, and that doesn't make them bad kids. It just, it's just part of growing up and it's our job as adults to prevent them from having that access and
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
not the job of impulsive, curious kids to keep themselves from getting into get accessing a gun. You know, we don't tell we don't tell toddlers, I told you not to get into the bleach, right? Like we lock up the bleach. And that's, that's a big part of our message is just like, even children that go through gun safety training courses are
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
are just as likely to touch a gun when they come home from that. Their brains just aren't developed enough to keep themselves from that compulsion. So that is a huge myth that we hear, just that idea that my kids know better. And what's really upsetting to me when I hear it is the sort of backhanded,
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
that a kid who does access a gun had it coming, you know, kind of this idea that like, especially when there's survivors in the room that are testifying on behalf of their child that they've lost due to an accident, non-intentional shooting, this idea that their kid didn't know better. And it's like, no, the adults didn't protect the children. That's what happened here.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
So that's my piece on that part of the resistance to that message.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Generally, we try to be a little bit diplomatic that the best storage device for you is the one that you're actually going to use. But that rope, zip lines, hiding, I mean, none of those, it needs to be locked in some way. Anything that can be easily cut, isn't going to prevent a resourceful teenager from getting into it, or we haven't even touched on gun theft yet.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
But the guns, unsecured guns in cars are the leading cause of guns on the black market. And it's driving all sorts of other, you know, car break-ins and then The guns get into the hands of people who are otherwise barred from having them, and then they're using those guns in crimes. I mean, the add-on effects of unsecured guns is catastrophic for our country, as we're seeing.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And so having a locked device, all the better if the ammunition is stored separately, is the gold standard for us. And the biometric ones are great because they have such instantaneous access to the person who's charged with having that gun, who's allowed to have that gun.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
I do. And that's a great point. We talk about gun owners being the most credible messengers for secure storage. And one of the things, so whether that's law enforcement, veterans, people who are hunters or do it for sport, we are always welcoming and encouraging them to center themselves in that conversation because they can practice that M, the modeling responsible behavior.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
I'm not sure where you got the figure 95% of gun owners are responsible gun owners. We believe that the majority of gun owners want to be responsible gun owners, but the figure looks more like about 50% do not practice secure storage. And so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear because we can't assume that 95% of people are practicing secure storage. It really is more half and half.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
But all of the leading, meaning national gun violence prevention organizations that I'm familiar with, Giffords, Brady, Everytown, have gun owners caucuses and kind of subgroups for people who identify as gun owners who are committed to common sense solutions to reduce gun violence. And so those groups exist.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And any platform we have to call more gun owners to get involved in that very particular lane of the advocacy is an opportunity to take. So any gun owners that are listening, if you could please join our efforts, you really are the most credible messengers when it comes to being responsible and taking common sense precautions to prevent gun violence in our communities.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
We're so focused on giving people the numbers, and I didn't want anyone's takeaway to be that, oh, well, they said 95%, so 95% of people are practicing secure storage.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Yeah, the idea is not having it in the same, like if you have a lock box, not having the ammunition stored next to the gun in the single lock device. So even just having it stored separately and differently, separately in the house is a barrier.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Yeah, sure. Thank you so much, Dr. Kutke. So the Be Smart program was launched in 2015 to promote responsible gun ownership in order to reduce child gun deaths. We, as Dr. Kutke mentioned, a lot of attention is paid to mass shootings, school shootings. but the reality is that the majority of gun deaths are happening in the home. And so many of those are preventable.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
When children get a hold of a gun, they often go off and one in four times they are fatal. And we know that with the the gun ownership rates that we have across the country, if people are not securing them storely, children across the country are at risk, and they're at risk of bringing those guns into schools, to play dates, and endangering others in the process.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And so our message is very simple. In order to reduce gun violence across our country, if you have a gun in the home, storing it securely, by which we mean unloaded with the ammunition stored separately, and that if you don't have a gun in the home, asking about guns in the homes that your children visit.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And so whether that's grandparents, aunts and uncles, babysitters in the early childhood years, play date, you know, neighbor's houses for play dates, and then certainly in the teen years as well. And just having that a part of your normal check-in when you're, when you're preparing for a play date.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
Well, and another thing, Dr. Stan, I think parents as, as their children are starting to go over to other people's houses that aren't family members where you, you, you, you can't, I don't think anyone should be assuming whether or not there's a gun in the home, but I think we tend to with family.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
But it is natural and common now to ask questions about, you know, if there was going to be any transportation, you would ask about an age-appropriate, weight-appropriate car seat or be, you know, you're doing that dance of, oh, do you need to borrow my booster? You know, we have safety conversations already. We talk about pets, allergens.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
We should be talking about screen time and internet access. I know I don't want my children going over to a house where kids are on YouTube for hours, right? So modern parents are kind of getting in the habit of asking these questions and it not necessarily being awkward, but just sort of a part of the getting to know you, getting to know whether I trust you to be over, my child over in your space.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And we don't get defensive about you know, about whether I have a dog, right? Like that's not, that's not a safe, that's, that's, that's, that's not something to get defensive about. And part of what we're trying to normalize is that asking about a gun shouldn't be a taboo. It's not a political question. It's a safety question.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And we actually got this feedback from our healthcare providers that not even focusing on whether there's a gun in the house, but actually phrasing the question in If you have guns in the house, how are they secured? So I'm not asking you necessarily like, are you a gun owner? Are you not a gun owner? I'm just saying, hey, if you are a gun owner, how do you secure your guns?
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And in our experience, most gun owners are responsible gun owners. They're very proud, especially if they've got kids in the home. They're eager to talk about the lengths they go through to keep their kids safe. And it's a point of pride for them. And that's something that we really want to celebrate in these conversations is that
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
that's, that's the goal is that people that are choosing to have guns in the home are storing them securely and taking this very seriously. That's what we want to highlight. If someone gets cagey or defensive, then that's just not, that's not a house that you want your kid going to, because all it takes is one curious game of, of hide and seek to end in a tragedy.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
And, and you, you can't, there's no going back from that. You know what I mean? Like there's, it's, That's that. And so on the other side, I know Dr. Katke asked how I ask the question. I ask it as a part of all of those safety questions. I also am working on volunteering that information. So, you know, if someone's coming to my house, I say just a heads up. We have a small dog.
Health Chatter
Firearm Storage & Safety
He's very friendly. No guns in our house. Are there any allergens that I need to be aware of? And just kind of sandwiching it in with those other safety questions to help normalize it as well.