Do you believe that your child is safer when he/she plays at a friend’s house where there are guns in the household for self protection, or when he/she plays at a friend’s house where there are no guns in the household? If guns made us safer, wouldn’t our children be safer when playing at a friend’s house where the parents own a gun for self protection?

Many parents are concerned about school violence. The recent shooting at Red Lake High School in Minnesota in which a 16-year-old student killed 7 and wounded 7 before killing himself increased these fears. But the fact is that school age children are far more likely to be killed or injured with a gun at home than at school.

Less than 1 percent of all gun deaths among school-aged children occur at school or on the way to and from school. On the other hand, approximately 80 percent of gun deaths and injuries to school-aged children occur in the victim’s home or the home of a relative or friend.

The reason more school-aged children are killed or injured by guns at home should be obvious. That’s where the guns are. If guns made us safer, there would be fewer gun deaths and injuries at home than at school. But that is not the case.

If guns made us safer, then one thing is clear. States with the highest rates of gun ownership would have the fewest number of gun deaths and injuries. But this conclusion is contradicted by the facts.

According to a 2003 study ¹ by the Harvard School of Public Health, the firearm death rate of children age 5-14 was 6 times higher in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership compared to the five states with the lowest rates of gun ownership. In the 10-year period covered by the study (1988-1997), 704 children age 5-14 died firearm-related deaths in the high gun ownership states compared to 123 in the low gun ownership states, even though the populations of the two groups were approximately the same. On the other hand, non-gun homicides and non-gun suicides in the high gun states and low gun states were comparable.

Overall, children age 5-14 who live in the high gun ownership states are 7 times more likely to die from a gun suicide, 3 times more likely to die from a gun homicide, and 16 times more likely to die from an unintentional shooting (see table below).

The Harvard study provides compelling evidence that rather than protect, guns in the home increase the danger to children living in the home.

The five states with the highest rates of gun ownership are Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and West Virginia. The five states with the lowest rates of gun ownership are Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware.