What does it mean?

Laws that hold adults responsible for failing to properly store firearms in the home to prevent access by children are known as “child access prevention” laws. Research has shown that the presence of unlocked guns in the home increases the risk to children of both accidental gun injuries and intentional shootings.¹ Storing guns to restrict children’s access is a critical factor in preventing unintentional firearm deaths and injuries, as well as suicides, by children and young people.² Child access prevention laws have been shown to be effective across the U.S. at lowering the incidence of unintentional firearm deaths among children.³

What would it really do?

Current law in Illinois makes it unlawful for a person to store or leave a firearm unlocked and accessible to a minor under the age of 14 if that person knows or has reason to believe that the minor is likely to gain access to the firearm, and the minor causes death or great bodily injury with that firearm. Strengthening this provision to apply to homes with older teenagers and to apply whenever children are likely to gain access to firearms, regardless of whether the child uses the firearm to kill or injure someone, will help lower the incidence of gun-related deaths among children.

What does the public think?

• Eight in 10 Illinois voters, 82%—strongly favor requiring gun owners to lock their guns if there are children under the age of 18 in the household. Even 61% of those with firearms behavior (including voters who are gun owners, members of the NRA, hunters and/or FOID cardholders) strongly support such a measure. To read more polling results from the 2007 Voter Survey on Gun Regulations, click here.
   
• 76% of Americans support child access prevention laws.⁵
   
• 57% of U.S. gun owners support requiring guns to be stored in a locked container and 50% of U.S. gun owners support requiring guns to be stored with a trigger lock.⁶

 What are the facts?

• About 35% of American households have a least one gun and nearly one in four homes contains a handgun.⁷
   
• In U.S. homes with children and firearms, 55% were reported to have one or more firearms in an unlocked place, and 43% reported keeping guns without a trigger lock in an unlocked place.⁸
   
• In 2002, over 1.69 million children under 18 were living in homes with loaded and unlocked firearms.⁹
   
• From 1999-2005, 1,223 children and youth aged 0-19 were killed unintentionally by guns in the U.S.¹⁰
   
• In Illinois, from 1999-2005 there were 37 unintentional deaths from firearms for children and youth.¹¹
   
• The U.S. Secret Service published a study of 37 school shootings in 26 states that found that in more than 65 percent of the cases, the attacker got the gun from his or her own home or that of a relative.¹²

Have Other States Enacted Similar Legislation?

More than half of the nation’s states have some kind of child access prevention law, including Illinois. However, only Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and Texas have enacted laws which impose criminal liability for allowing child access to the firearm, regardless of whether the child uses the firearm or causes injury.¹³ Child access prevention laws in California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah apply to children under 18.¹⁴ Illinois communities with child access prevention laws that apply regardless of whether the minor uses the firearm to kill or injure include Aurora, Grayslake, Gurnee and Park Ridge. Laws in Aurora, Gurnee and Park Ridge all define “minor” as children under 18.¹⁵

Final Thought

Strengthening Illinois’ current child access prevention law will help prevent children and youth from accessing guns and intentionally or unintentionally killing or injuring themselves and others.