Reply #29: dead kid [View All]

Would you post this if a parent left the basement stairs door unlocked? Or some water in a bucket? Or some water in a bathtub? Or the hot tub cover unlocked? Or a bottle of bleach accessible? Or a knife block on the counter

Children take baths. Thousands of baths, over their childhood. Children are exposed to water in bathtubs most days of their lives, for reasons having to do with the children's own well-being. The number of children who drown in bathtubs, as a proportion of the number of child/bathtub exposures, gives us a virtually unmeasurably small ratio.

Toddlers should never be exposed to firearms. Period.

All of the other situations you mention (and how many children have ever accidentally knifed themselves to death?), along with pots of boiling water, staircases, vehicles, and on and on and on, are situations that children are exposed to as part of ordinary household life. Yes, measures should be taken to protect them from adverse outcomes of exposure.

But there simply should be no exposure to firearms.

Leaving a loaded handgun on a windowsill is not remotely comparable to leaving water in a bucket.