A Toddler Has Shot Someone Every Week For 2 Years

Sometimes you come across a headline that epitomizes the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, the truth is more horrifying than fiction: Statistics from the end of 2016 indicate that a toddler has shot someone everyone week for the last two years. That's not a typo; this is a disturbing reality that plays out in households all across America.

The U.S. already has the highest number of gun deaths in the world. In fact, no other country even comes close to the number of gun deaths that take place in the U. S. each year. With statistics that show toddlers accidentally shoot people every week of the year — for the past two years, no less — it's not inaccurate to say that gun culture is so accessible in the United States that even a child can be part of it. A substantive conversation about gun safety in this country would include how to keep guns out of the hands of children. What's strange is that the organizations like the National Rifle Association claim that our laws already do that. Why then, are statistics like these so alarmingly high?

The National Rifle Association has apparently even tried to prevent or block laws that would address the issue of children with unsecured access to firearms in the home. (The NRA did not immediately return Romper's request for comment.)

Let's put aside for a moment the broader issue of gun reform in America. Whether you believe there are too many guns in this country, or that every American has a God-given right to purchase and carry a firearm — is beside the point. Toddlers have accidentally killed siblings with guns, killed their own parents, and have even shot and killed themselves because of unsecured firearms in the home. At the current rate, that means there are at least 104 different stories of tragedy that could have been prevented.

This is an epidemic — and it has to stop. Toddlers should never have access to guns. The popular pro-gun owner argument is all gun owners are by and large responsible and that no one has the right to infringe on anyone's Second Amendment rights. The NRA has actively lobbied against legislation that would restrict gun owners' rights in any way. Apparently, this includes any legislation that would hold parents responsible if their children shoot someone with a gun that was unsecured in their home — like MaKayla's Law in Tennessee, which the NRA successfully lobbied against to prevent its passage. In an NRA legislative action alert about MaKayla's law on their website, the NRA told members:

If anti-gun legislators were serious about keeping kids safe, they would know that the key to reducing firearm accidents isn't about prosecuting after the fact, it's about educating children and parents about the safe use of firearms.

Education and training programs don't keep guns out of toddlers' hands. They are toddlers; many of them have barely learned to tie their shoes. The data is there and can't be denied: If more gun owners were actually responsible about the safe storage of their guns, we wouldn't have toddlers shooting someone every week for the last two years. The safest option, of course, would be no guns in the home at all. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics states this as their number one guideline about preventing firearm-related deaths and injuries in children:

The AAP affirms that the most effective measure to prevent suicide, homicide, and unintentional firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities.

And if there are guns in the home, which is an American citizens' right, then that gun owner should be held legally responsible for any unauthorized use of their firearm by someone who shouldn't be using it — especially children.

So far, there have been 165 gun deaths in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive online — and we're only five days into 2017.