The next step is to require that all guns be locked up in the home - as is currently required in Washington, D.C., and in Canada, whose gun laws President Clinton has fulsomely praised. That crime will give the Republican congressional leadership another opportunity to make concessions that will immediately prompt the Democrats to escalate their demands for further concessions. Contrary to the impression created by sensationalist media, fatal firearms accidents involving children are far from common. Yet according to the National Safety Council, in 1995 there were about 30 fatal gun deaths of kids aged 0 to 4 and fewer than 40 of kids aged 5 to 9. This shows that, even without legislation from Washington, the overwhelming majority of families with firearms already knows how to act responsibly.
Any parent knows that a single child's death is unspeakably tragic.
Yet the number of toddlers who die from gun accidents is smaller than the number who die from drowning in buckets. And it's much lower than the 500 who die in swimming pools. More generally, the total number of fatal accidents involving kids aged 0 to 14 in 1995 was 6,500, and fatal firearms accidents accounted for just three percent of the total. Yet the president is not scoring political points inveighing against bucket manufacturers, or demanding federal laws against unfenced pools on private property. Politics, not saving children's lives, is the foundation of the current anti-gun campaign.