Want to Learn About Gun Safety? Just Ask the NRA

The fact that the NRA has never conducted any study to test the before-and-after results of distributing their safety literature either in classrooms or in community groups makes it impossible to accept their self-congratulatory statements about teaching gun safety to kids.
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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 2: Guns are displayed for sale at the Personal Defense & Handgun Safety Center, Inc. February 2, 2012 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The North Carolina House Bill 650, which went effect on December 1, 2011, allows concealed weapons in public parks. It also allows local governments to regulate concealed weapons in certain recreational areas such as athletic fields through city ordinances. (Photo by Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - FEBRUARY 2: Guns are displayed for sale at the Personal Defense & Handgun Safety Center, Inc. February 2, 2012 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The North Carolina House Bill 650, which went effect on December 1, 2011, allows concealed weapons in public parks. It also allows local governments to regulate concealed weapons in certain recreational areas such as athletic fields through city ordinances. (Photo by Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)

Shannon Watts wrote a column for Huffington Post promoting more effective laws to hold parents accountable when their children get their hands on guns. She points out that child access prevention (CAP) laws make a real difference in unintentional gun injuries in which the victims are kids, but that the NRA has chosen to oppose such laws because CAP might "infringe on gun owners' rights to effectively protect their homes."

What Shannon neglected to mention is that the NRA goes a lot further than just fighting CAP laws. They also promote themselves as America's gun-safety organization through their Eddie Eagle program which they claim to have introduced to more than 26 million children in schools throughout all 50 states. The program materials consist of instructional brochures, DVDs, student workbooks and the like, all designed to "keep America's young children safe."

The gun industry and the NRA touts their commitment to gun safety because unintentional gun injuries have steadily declined over the past twenty years. The NSSF cites data from the National Safety Council which shows that deaths of children from accidental shootings has dropped by more than 70 percent since 1993, with all unintentional gun mortality for both children and adults now standing at an all-time low. What better proof could there be about the effectiveness of the NRA's Eddie Eagle program or other safety programs conducted by the NSSF? All the more reason why comprehensive CAP laws would just make it more difficult for gun owners to protect themselves, their families and their homes, right?

Duhhh, there's only one little problem. The NRA and the gun lobby in general can't ever seem to understand that causation and causality are two very different things. The fact that unintentional gun injuries have declined over the same period that the NRA claims to have introduced its Eddie Eagle gun safety program to millions of school kids doesn't mean that one has anything to do with the other, even if they occurred at the same time.

The NRA has never validated its claims about the effectiveness of Eddie Eagle through an objective, third-party source. And while the NRA Eddie Eagle website contains what at first glance appears to be an impressive list of individuals who comprise the program "task force," if you examine the list closely you soon discover that while it includes teachers, school administrators, NRA staff and a few cops, there isn't a single individual connected to the program in any way who has ever attempted to study the impact or value of the program at all.

Public health researchers have convincingly demonstrated that efforts to change the behavior of children by discussing issues in group settings yields, if any positive results. The most effective way to modify the behavior of children is on a one-to-one basis, and if the teaching is widened to a group setting, the target group should be very small. The fact that the NRA has never conducted any study to test the before-and-after results of distributing their safety literature either in classrooms or in community groups makes it impossible to accept their self-congratulatory statements about teaching gun safety to kids.

I'm not saying the Eddie Eagle program doesn't work. I'm saying that to use a totally non-validated safety program as an excuse for opposing CAP laws is shabby at best, harmful and unsafe at worst. The real reason that unintentional gun injuries have declined over the past twenty years is because gun makers have phased in more safety engineering (e.g., floating firing pins) and states now require additional safety features such as loaded chamber indicators and minimum trigger-pull weights. But neither factor invalidates Shannon's call for more comprehensive CAP laws. If the NRA was really serious about representing all those responsible gun owners, they would welcome laws that require guns to be locked or locked away.

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