Ask legislature candidates: Will you hold adults accountable for keeping their guns out of children’s hands?

Five Kentucky children, 11 or younger, have been unintentionally killed or injured by a child with a firearm this year. Firearm injuries and deaths are a serious public-health issue across the country and, clearly, around the commonwealth.

I will debate the meaning of the Second Amendment. I will argue about the constitutionality of gun-control measures. I will reasonably discuss whether my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness outweighs your right to an assault rifle. However, I will not tolerate disagreement on whether the unintentional death of a child is an acceptable risk of gun ownership. It is not.

As gun owners, we have a responsibility to store our firearms securely. Yet too many Kentucky adults fail to keep their guns safely out of the reach of children. If we cannot trust adults to act responsibly, how do we prevent these unnecessary and devastating firearm related tragedies?

Child-access prevention laws are designed to keep firearms away from children. States with the strictest laws impose criminal liability for negligent storage of firearms. Unfortunately Kentucky is not one of those states. Under Kentucky’s ineffective child-access prevention law, enacted in 1994, there is no criminal liability for negligently storing a firearm.

Liability is imposed only if someone intentionally, knowingly or recklessly provides a handgun to a minor, leaving no one responsible for resulting unintentional deaths or injuries.

Last January, Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, filed a bill to prohibit the reckless storage of a firearm. The proposed bill penalized gun owners who failed to keep their firearms safely stored. However, an individual would be penalized only if a firearm was recklessly stored and a child gained access to it.

The bill imposed a penalty of a maximum 90 days incarceration unless a death or serious injury occurred from the unsecured gun. Under those circumstances the penalty increased to a maximum of 12 months incarceration.

Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, chair of the House Judiciary Committee refused to hold a hearing on this gun-safety bill, which could have prevented the devastating unintentional firearm deaths and injuries of three Kentucky children this year — and probably the intentional deaths and injuries of students at Marshall County High School.

Our legislature failed these children through its refusal to even consider a more stringent child-access prevention law.

We require that children be properly secured in a car and penalize parents who fail to comply. We charge adults who drive intoxicated and attach a greater penalty if they do so with a child under the age of 12 in the vehicle. Why is the legislature so reluctant to provide that same level of protection to our children when firearms are involved?

In next month’s election, there are 17 contested state Senate races and 92 contested state House races. We can change the narrative around firearm safety in the commonwealth. We can send the message that we want laws requiring responsible gun ownership.

We can elect representatives who will prioritize our children by requiring safe storage of firearms and, finally, put Kentucky in the restrictive gun-safety laws column.

If you share my concerns about our children’s health and safety, please research the candidates in your jurisdiction. Ask the difficult questions, and then on Nov. 6 head to the polls and vote for gun-safety.