Pistols are displayed in a New Jersey gun shop on Feb. 11, 2023. An Alabama House committee last week rejected a bill that would have required parents to secure firearms in households with children present. (Aristide Economopoulos for New Jersey Monitor)
The leading cause of preventable death for Alabama children is guns.
Let me say that again in active voice.
Guns kill Alabama kids more than anything else we can prevent.
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And we refuse to act.
Our lawmakers treat these dangerous weapons as props and charms. They pose with them in campaign ads, where they cosplay as hunters and militia members.
It’s all part of the deadly fantasy that justice comes from a gun and not the law or the courts. It leads to the fatal delusion that every American — no matter their inexperience or lack of training — can be trusted with a firearm. That’s led to Alabama lawmakers hauling down basic gun safety laws, making a state with an unacceptably high rate of firearm deaths even more dangerous.
We can start addressing the problem by keeping devices created to kill out of irresponsible hands.
But we don’t. And each year, thousands of Alabamians pay the price for this foolishness.
Sometimes I let myself hope legislators are waking up to this reality. But then they manage to find a way back into their fantasies.
On Wednesday, the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee rejected a bill from Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, that would have taken a small step toward addressing gun deaths in our state.
HB 103 would have subjected the parents or guardians of children who bring unauthorized firearms to a public school to a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $6,000 fine.
It was, in effect, a safe storage bill. Under the legislation, a gun owner with children would have to keep their firearm secured, either with a trigger lock or in some sort of secure container.
That’s something the American Association of Pediatrics supports, not only because it will prevent accidental deaths, but also because it will substantially cut the risk of suicide attempts with firearms. Guns account for about 70% of all suicide deaths in Alabama.
You can plausibly ask how the law would be enforced. My own sense is that having this penalty in place will encourage parents to invest in devices keeping their guns away from their children.
But that wasn’t the stated reason Republicans rejected Drummond’s bill. Rep. Ginny Shaver, R-Leesburg, a member of the committee, said she was concerned that the measure “applies a criminal offense based on another person’s actions.”
This is a reasonable objection. But then I remember the Alabama Senate was considering a bill earlier this month that would have imposed criminal penalties on those providing aid or transportation to a person without legal status. Fine to punish aid to the stranger. But sanctions for letting a child get a hold of a firearm? That’s an assault on freedom.
Perhaps Republicans didn’t want to advance a bill brought by a Democrat. Or maybe appeasing the gun lobby matters matters more than fixing this deadly status quo.
If they have legitimate concerns about the penalties in Drummond’s bill, then they should bring their own. Make it impossible to buy a firearm without buying some device to secure it. Put the onus on the gun owner.
There are some GOP proposals that could inch toward safety. The House last week passed HB 216, sponsored by Rep. Russell Bedsole, R-Alabaster. The bill would allow gun dealers to participate in a program allowing the voluntary surrender of firearms without fear of lawsuits. The Senate on Thursday approved a similar measure from Sen. Keith Kelley, R-Anniston.
Neither bill is a red flag law, where a court can order the seizure of firearms from a person who appears to be a threat to themselves or other people. Both count on a person who owns a firearm recognizing that he or she might do harm and acting before that happens.
Now, I admire a person who can tell that they can’t be trusted with a gun. Unfortunately, such foresight is rare. And if you’re trying to intervene on behalf of a spouse, a child or a parent, you’re out of luck.
So it doesn’t seem like the legislation be effective. The bills won’t be useless. Even a voluntary program will save someone’s life. But it’s hardly what’s needed in a state with a higher firearm death total than New York State. Which is four times bigger than Alabama.
It’s very hard to take the Legislature’s push for “public safety” seriously when they treat the single-worst threat to law and order — the firearm — as some kind of fixed and blameless object. Taking the firearm off that pedestal would go a long way toward saving lives in this state.
But we can’t have that. To legislators, the gun is higher and holier than anything else in Alabama. And its sanctity must be preserved.
Even if children needlessly die.
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