Bill holds adults responsible if kids shoot others with unsecured firearms

'Codifies common sense'
Bill holds adults responsible if kids shoot others with unsecured firearms

Tucson, Arizona Wednesday, 31 January 2001
M. Scot Skinner
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/10131GUN2fRESPONSIBILITY.html

Arizona teen-agers die from gun-related injuries and suicide at a higher rate than teens in any other state, yet Arizona is not among the 17 states that hold adults criminally responsible for harm caused by minors who gain access to unsecured firearms.

A bill introduced in the Senate yesterday would deal with adults who recklessly maintain firearms.

Meanwhile, several Tucson families devastated by gun violence say they are seeking to enforce responsible gun ownership through civil lawsuits.

It's all part of a national movement that seeks a reduction in gun violence by promoting a simple message:

Keep your guns away from children or be prepared to pay the price.

As always, when the issue is gun violence, the proposed remedies are contentious.

The answer is not legislation requiring secured storage, said Ken Rineer, president of the Firearms Action Committee of Tucson, a 10-year-old nonprofit group that teaches about the right to bear arms.

"A firearm locked up in a safe or with a trigger lock is of no use when it's needed for self-defense,'' he said. "The more sensible measure would be firearm safety training.''

With the proper training, he said, here's what is likely to happen when young children find a loaded gun:

"The kid with training would say, 'Hey, don't touch that. Put it down,' and then he would go get an adult.''

But that leaves children with the burden of responsibility, said Mary Judge Ryan, chief deputy in the Pima County Attorney's Office.

"It's the adult who should be responsible,'' she said. "Leaving a loaded gun accessible to children is not responsible.''

That's why Ryan described Senate Bill 1549 as an essential way to help prevent tragedy.

The bill would amend state law to hold adult gun owners criminally accountable if a child gets hold of a gun and hurts someone. The gun owner would not be guilty of a crime if he or she made a reasonable attempt to protect the child by locking the gun or installing a trigger lock.

"The hope, of course, is that it codifies common sense,'' she said of the bill sponsored by Sens. Susan Gerard, R-Phoenix, Andy Nichols, D-Tucson, and Chris Cummiskey, D-Phoenix.

The legislation also is supported by
the nonprofit group Citizens of Arizona to Prevent Gun Violence, said board member Sean Hammond.

"I agree with Ken Rineer that firearm safety training is important,'' he said. "But part of firearm safety is to keep your firearm stored properly. On top of a dresser or in a bedside table is not proper, and society is paying a price for it.''

Also, he said, "You or I can walk into a gun store, even a federally licensed dealer, and we can buy a gun without showing that we have any training whatsoever.''

Hammond pointed out that he went through six months of driving with a learner's permit before he was given a license to drive at 16.

While Rineer opposes the state law, he called the lawsuits a valid way of determining responsibility.

"Civil court is where these sorts of cases belong, so a jury can decide whether someone was negligent or not,'' Rineer said.

Lawsuits are increasingly being filed against the gun manufacturers. The families of two of the three employees shot to death at an East Side Pizza Hut filed suit this month against the manufacturer of the gun used to kill them.

The wrongful-death suit seeks unspecified damages from Glock Inc., alleging the gun maker was more concerned with selling guns than with ensuring the "lawfulness, reasonableness or carefulness of the sales."

A Tucson mother, Carol Gaxiola, filed suit this month against another mother who had given her 16-year-old son the gun used to kill Gaxiola's daughter, Jasmin. And a Marana mother who lost a son to suicide sued the family in whose home the boy found the gun he used to kill himself.

"Eventually,'' said Hammond, "we're hoping lawsuits will force the gun industry to create safer firearms, just like they can create more deadly and powerful firearms.''

In time, Hammond believes, the courts will compel gun makers to design guns that can't be fired by children.

Last year, five accidental shootings occurred in Pima County as a result of children gaining access to firearms.

* March: Two-year-old Johnathan Wright-Smith found a handgun left by his father under the seat of a truck. He shot himself in the leg.

* April: Anthony Adam Ortiz, 15, accidentally killed his 17-year-old sister with a handgun found in the home.

* April: Ernie Valenzuela, 16, shot himself in the head with a handgun found in the home. Police determined the shooting was an accident.

* July: Cedrick Jones, 15, accidentally killed his 16-year-old friend while the two waited in a drive-through at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant.

* November 2000: Six-year-old Jesus Tarango accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun he found on top of his grandmother's dresser. He died two days later.

Dr. John B. Fortune, director of the trauma programs at University Medical Center and Tucson Medical Center, said hospital workers never get immune to seeing kids die from gunshot wounds.

"It doesn't take a hell of a lot of effort to kill somebody,'' he said. "You get a gun, pull the trigger and you kill someone. The consequences are so tragic, and so needless.''

For every gun-related death seen at the city's two trauma centers, there are five or six injured, Fortune said.

And many adolescents just don't understand the ramifications of a gunshot wound, he said.

"When they get hurt with a gun, it's always a big injury,'' Fortune said. "No matter where you are struck, you end up with a wound that will be with you for life. It's a tremendously life-changing experience.''