The Problem of Relying on a Gun Seller as an “Expert” on Gun Safety

According to the original report, police concluded that an Independence, Missouri eight-year old found a gun in his family’s home and shot himself. He was transported to the hospital where he later died. “We are just trying to put all the pieces together and figure out what happened,” said an Independence Police Department spokesperson.

Days later, police concluded that a younger sibling had found the gun and shot his older brother. No determination has been made about charges.

A local television station turned to Stephen Brackeen of Blue Steel Guns & Ammo and Raytown Indoor Range, a purported “gun expert,” for comment.  Sadly, he expounded a mix of accurate, incorrect, unworkable and incomplete safety advice. 

To begin, Brackeen accurately advises gun owners that locking their guns up is the first step in preventing accidents like this. “It’s always a tragedy when children get a hold of firearms,” he said. “Unfortunately, guns lay around houses, and the children always pay the price in anything because they don’t know better, and they are playing with something they don’t know nothing about.”

He continues with partially correct advice:  “Nothing should be reloaded except for that firearm that you’re going to use to defend your home if necessary, and it should be locked up so only you can access it,” Brackeen said.  This not only implies that guns, if unloaded, can safely be left around, but that the guns can be safely loaded and locked up around children.  For safety, all guns should be locked up and unloaded. Ammunition should be separately locked up, particularly since so many gun locks are easily breached.

But Brackeen then adds that a firearm should be accessible at night in case someone has to defend their home.  “Your firearm should be locked up while you are in the house all day long, no threats,” Brackeen said. “When you go to bed at night, it should be accessible in case someone comes in the house late at night. Other than that, you can leave it locked up.”

Brackeen’s advice ultimately ignores that children are often up at night, that they can find guns while you sleep, that family members can be mistaken for intruders, and that guns sometimes go off even when you don’t intend to fire them.  In addition, gun owners who unlock their guns every night will sometimes forget to lock them up again in the morning. 

Brackeen concludes, “[l]ock it up, don’t even tell the kids you have it until they are old enough to understand the devastation that can be caused with a firearm,” Brackeen said.  This implies that you can leave your guns around once you’ve concluded that your children are old enough to be educated about them.

If you must have a gun, it should always be locked up and stored separately from ammunition unless it is within your complete (alert and awake) control.  The chance that you can prevent a home invasion is much smaller than the chance of a tragedy if your child finds your gun. 

In addition, any safety advice should include the importance of limiting your gun ownership to guns that have safety features like a loaded chamber indicator, a magazine safety disconnect, an external manual safety and/or an integrated gun lock.  Guns around small children should also have a high trigger pull weight that make them difficult for a child to fire.

Finally, teaching children about guns, no matter how old, is no substitute for extensive protections against gun accidents and gun theft.  Even the most responsible and well-educated children may find your guns tempting to pick up, to examine and to show off to their friends.  Many accidents happen when children want to share the excitement of finding a gun in their homes with other kids.

Every year, many hundreds of children are shot and killed or injured due to an adult’s lack of attention to gun safety.  The resulting trauma affects not just children who are shot and injured, but their friends, their family, their schoolmates and the community where the accident happens.

Sources:

Jackson Hicks, Nick Sloan, “8-year-old boy Killed in Accidental Shooting in Independence,” KCTV5 (October 9, 2021).

Leslie DelasBour “’It’s Always a Tragedy When Children Get a Hold of Firearms’: Gun Expert Talks Gun Safety,” kshb.com (October 9, 2021).

Katharine Finnerty “Independence PD Says Sibling Shot, Killed Older Brother in Saturday Accidental Shooting,” kshb.com (October 13, 2021).