Pediatric hospitals give out free GUN LOCKS amid skyrocketing gun deaths among ... trends now
Pediatric hospitals across the country are doling out gun safety locks as firearms become the leading cause of death among children.
More than 4,000 under-19s were slain by guns in 2020 alone, meaning firearms now claim more lives than car crashes and drug overdoses for the first time.
With many of the gun deaths a result of intentional and accidental self-inflicted shootings, hospitals such as St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri have begun setting out bowls of free cable gun locks available to parents who own firearms.
The pediatric department at Boston Medical Center and Comer Children’s Hospital in Chicago have also set up gun lock giveaway programs.
Cable gun locks work like a padlock. A metal cable is fed through the chamber and out the part where magazines are inserted, holding the trigger from being pulled and blocking ammo from being released
Gun violence is now the leading killer off American youth, a research report finds, surpassing motor vehicle crashes
Dr. Lindsay Clukies, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital told CNN: ‘We’ve had employees as well as patients take our locks, also their families and even a grandmother who took one for her grandson. It’s for anyone who needs them.’
The ‘No Questions Asked’ program is designed to remove the stigma around gun ownership, an extremely divisive topic that drives many a political conversation.
Healthcare workers from across the country have become all too familiar with treating critical gunshot wounds in children caused by violence, suicide, or accidents.
So far, the hospital’s program has proven successful. About two-thirds of caregivers who took free gun locks used them and there was a ‘statistically significant decrease’ in those who didn’t store their firearms safely, as well as an increase in those who kept their firearms unloaded.
The cable gun locks are a simple way to shrink the flow of patients entering emergency department doors.
Designed like a padlock, one end of the cable is inserted through the gun’s chamber and out the area where
