UPDATE: U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s bill requiring safe storage of guns passed the House as part of a package mainly on partisan lines. The package now moves on to the Senate, where its future is uncertain.
The House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act, a bill to require gun owners to safely store their firearms when kids could reasonably access them. The bill will be taken up as part of the Protecting Our Kids Act.
Slotkin, D-Holly, introduced the bill in the aftermath of the November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School, which left 4 high school students dead. The vote on the House floor is set to take place just after the 6-month anniversary of the tragedy in Oxford, and in the aftermath of a number of mass shootings that have caused dozens of deaths across the country in recent weeks, including in New York, Texas and Oklahoma. The full House is expected to pass the bill. The full text of Rep. Slotkin’s Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act can be found HERE.
The bill would:
• Require gun owners to safely secure their firearm when a child could reasonably access the firearm.
• Impose a penalty of up to 5 years of prison time if a child does indeed access the gun, which they reasonably had access to, and uses the gun to injure themselves or others or uses the firearm in the commission of a crime.
Experts estimate that more than 4.6 million minors in the U.S. live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm. Data shows that there were at least 2,070 unintentional shootings by children between 2015 and 2020 — an average of nearly one shooting per day. Just last month, a 13-year old boy in Grand Rapids was accidentally shot and killed after playing with an unsecured firearm in the home of a friend’s relative.
Studies have also shown that between 70% and 90% of guns used in youth suicides, unintentional shootings among children, and school shootings perpetrated by shooters under the age of 18 are acquired from the home or the homes of relatives or friends.
