The clearest lesson that emerges from the tragedies reported in this journal is that we all can do more to make guns safe.   

 Some recommendations:

• Better and More Frequent Safety Training.   

Many gun advocates and gun organizations like to say that all gun accidents are caused by the shooter.  According to these activists, the person using a gun should always ascertain, by opening the chamber, whether their gun is loaded.  In addition, they make a point of saying that guns should always be pointed in a safe direction. The NRA’s Gun Safety Rules, for example, take this approach.

As this journal demonstrates, it is clear that these important safety rules are often forgotten or ignored in a variety of contexts, including by law enforcement officers. Comprehensive pre-purchase safety training and live shooting practice should be required for all gun owners, rather than just for law enforcement officers.  Periodic requalification should also be required.  If safety rules are to be effective, everyone should know them, rehearse them and observe them.

But stressing individual responsibility is not enough. Important public safety concerns require that we do more than train gun owners because the NRA’s rules, even if uniformly followed, will not prevent most accidents. Even with knowledge and training, people make mistakes.

• Mandate Loaded Chamber Indicators, Magazine Safety Disconnects, and Effective Manual Safeties on all Guns Sold. 

While it is certainly true that the best way to learn whether a gun is loaded is to do a visual check for a bullet (or round) by opening the chamber, this journal shows that there are nevertheless many accidents that occur when the shooter was unaware, for one reason or another, that their gun was loaded.  There is every reason to believe that many of these accidents could be avoided if every gun had a clear and obvious loaded chamber indicator as well as a magazine safety disconnect (so that the gun cannot be fired when the magazine is not present).  

Similarly, every gun should have a straightforward manual safety.  It should be necessary to consciously switch the safety off for any gun to fire. Thus there would be three conscious choices required to fire any gun – one to draw the gun, one to disengage the safety, and one to pull the trigger.

•  Safe Storage Laws.

All states should require safe storage of guns when they are not under the control of a licensed user.  If the gun is not being used, it should be unloaded and locked up.  More gun designs featuring integrated gun locks would simplify common sense safe storage of firearms.

• Child Access Prevention Laws.

In addition to safe storage, gun laws should protect against accidents that inevitably occur when children gain access to guns.  Protections should include not only criminal sanctions for allowing an unsupervised minor access to a gun, but also requirements that manufacturers make guns that cannot be fired by small children.  Put simply, trigger pulls should be heavy enough on all guns to prevent a small child from pulling the trigger. In the alternative, choosing a firearm with an integrated gun lock would serve a similar purpose.

• Government Supervision of Gun Safety.

Regulation of consumer product safety is an appropriate government function.  It is essential to repeal the exemption that guns currently have from consumer product safety regulation so that government officials can take a role in setting standards that will make guns safer.  All new gun designs should be properly tested before they come to market. No gun should ever fire accidentally when the trigger is not pulled. 

Similarly, a government entity should have authority to investigate reports of defective guns that fire when being holstered or when dropped or which tend to go off, for any reason, when the trigger is not pulled.  The government should have authority to mandate, when there is sufficient evidence, recalls of defective guns.  Recalls, when necessary, should be properly supervised and adequately publicized.

• Allow personalized guns to come to market.

Gun buyers should have the option to buy a gun with biometric or other similar controls that prevent anyone other than the owner (or a designee of the owner) from firing that gun. Existing designs need to be tested and laws preventing sale of such guns should be repealed so that those who want safer guns can get them.  Personalized guns would prevent children from firing guns they find in the home.  They would also make guns useless when stolen or found by someone other than the gun owner.

Conclusion

Gun accidents that cause injury or death cause immeasurable grief, pain and trauma.  As a society, we must commit ourselves to taking the steps necessary to make all firearms as safe as possible.

Additional recommendations with links to daily reports can be found here.