by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

Think your child doesn?t know where you store the family gun" Think again, a new study suggests.
Almost 40 percent of parents who think their kids don?t know where household weapons are kept are wrong, according to a report by Children?s National Health System. And almost a quarter of parents mistakenly think their children have never handled firearms stored in the home.
To come up with the findings, researchers analyzed several surveys on gun ownership and child gun access. They also examined data on the number of children who die or are injured by firearms each year, concluding that the problem is a ?national public health crisis.?
 
Guns are a leading cause of death and injury among children and teenagers. More than 4,500 youth under age 21 died from firearms in 2015, the report found. Injuries from guns are even more commonplace, sending 20,000 children to the emergency room each year. About half of kids hospitalized for a gun injury are discharged with a disability, the study showed. While homicide and suicide are the most frequent causes of gun-related deaths and injuries among teens, younger children are most likely to get hurt by guns unintentionally. These accidents tend to happen in the home, the review stated in the journal Hospital Pediatrics.
So what can you do to keep your child safe from firearms" Here are some tips from BabyCenter?s child safety checklist:
? Store guns ? unloaded ? in a locked and ...