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Responsible gun owners should secure weapons

 

By: Shirley Lochowitz

For the last several months I have read numerous letters pertaining to guns.

First of all let me state that I am not for gun control. I am for gun safety.

In a lot of the letters I have read many people talk about the need to have guns in their homes to protect themselves. I do not have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with are the number of people who call themselves responsible gun owners who do not keep their guns secured in their homes. This is a safety measure that is needed to protect children from serious injury or death. I know a lot of people feel that they don't need to keep their guns secured and give several reason, like:

1. I have taught my children about guns since they were young, so they are not curious about guns.

2. They know not to touch the guns because I have told them not to.

3. They understand what can happen if they play with a gun.

4. I need to have access to the gun if someone breaks into my home.

These seem to be the top reasons why people don't keep guns secured in their homes. But I would like to ask them to think about these points:

1. I can understand to a point where parents would feel confident that their children would not touch a gun . . . because they had been taught all about them growing up or they had gone to hunter safety classes. Did you ever stop and think that it might have the opposite effect? That if they were at a friends house the and the friend brought out a gun maybe they would say "give it to me I know all about guns"? The need to impress friends is very great while growing up.

2. Do our children always do as we tell them? We tell our children all the time not to do things because they might be hurt doing them . . . only to find our later that they have done exactly what we have told them not to do.

3. I don't think children even consider the out come of what could happen by playing with a gun, until it's too late.

4. I have asked this question many times over the last four years that I have been speaking out on gun safety in the home. But no one has been able to prove it to me in writing.

Please show me that the statistics are HIGHER for intruders killed or injured in a home than the amount of children killed or injured every single day by a friend or family member playing with a gun.

A gun that is left unsecured in the home.

I too taught my children not to play with guns . . .they didn't even play with toy guns. I thought if my children were at a friends home and someone brought out a gun that my child would be the first to leave . . but he wasn't.

He just didn't understand what could happen and that a gun could almost take his life. Since I was working as a police officer at the time, I had a gun in my home but it was kept secured. It was a simple thing that I thought every other person did. I have learned that is not the case. And even though children get killed or injured every day by these type of shootings, I see and hear so many parents say it would never happen to them, so they don't even think twice about what I say.

The only way to stop this is to think that it could happen in your home or the home of a friend where your child plays.

I have leaned all of this from my own experience. An experience I don't want any other family to have to go through.

My son was 12 at the time of his shooting, his friend 14. The friend comes from a well-educated family, he had gone to hunter safety . . .so he, too, knew not to play with guns. His family also left their guns loaded in their home because they too thought "nothing would happen."

This type of thinking almost cost my son his life.

Please don't let it cost someone you love theirs. If you choose to keep a gun, please keep it secured in your home.

I know that this is a very heated issue.

I do not choose sides, I only share our story so that from it others will learn it can and will happen to any family. I applaud The Journal Times for taking a stand on this issue with their recent gun series.

Shirley Lochowitz, Franksville, is a former Caledonia police officer. Since her son was accidentally shot in 1995, she has left the department and has been active in advocating gun safety.