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Guns account for 10 percent of all deaths among children ages 5 to 14, and for every child who dies from a gunshot wound, three others are injured, and a quarter of those injuries bring on permanent disabilities (Brody, 2006). Many young children are all too familiar with guns, having seen them on television, in movies, or in video games. " As a result, some children may not realize that when a real person is shot, he may never get up again."

The most frequent perpetrator in childhood gunshot fatalities and injuries is another child, who may have assumed that the gun wasn't loaded or wasn't real. The most frequent sites of childhood encounters with guns are their own homes or the homes of friends or relatives.

• A review of firearm ownership and storage in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine revealed, "firearms are as likely to be present in U.S. homes with children as in homes without children, and they are often stored in unlocked locations and/or loaded.
• The May issue of The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine revealed that children knew a lot more about the location of guns in the home and were far more likely to have handled those guns than their parents thought.
• A study by Dr. Tamera Coyne-Beasley found one-third of gun owners in the United States with children under 6 kept a firearm unlocked at home, and guns were kept unlocked in 56 percent of homes where children visited.

These findings suggest that teachers may be able to play a role in helping parents lock and empty firearms, and help teach children that, "guns are not toys, that violence on television or in the movies is not real, and that guns in real life can cause injury or death." Second, they must be told never to touch a gun and to assume a gun is loaded and can be fired. If they find a gun anywhere, or encounter someone handling a gun, they must leave the area at once, go to a safe place, and tell an adult what happened as soon as possible.

Brody, J. (2006, August 1). "Is your child a split second from disaster?" The New York Times, D7. This is also available from The New York Times online (@ $4.95)

Contributed by Michael Kalinowski

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