Gun locks are one important tool in preventing violent deaths, Penn trauma expert says

Registered nurse Sunny Vespico Jackson has always worked with trauma patients.

What that means, she said, is that “gun violence has affected every day of my career since coming to Philadelphia.”

A few years ago, she got her dream job — injury prevention coordinator with the Trauma Center at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. So instead of responding to injury, she works to prevent it.

While neutral about gun ownership, she remains passionate about gun safety.

Recently, she received funding from Penn Medicine CARES, a grant program for employees, to buy 200 cable locks to give to gun owners in the city.

There are various designs, but basically, the device includes a locking cable that can be threaded through the barrel — or other opening, depending on the particular firearm — to block the action of the gun so it cannot be loaded or fired.

We spoke to Jackson recently about gun safety.

Gun locks are good at preventing injuries when a child finds a gun in their home. Anecdotally, several times a year we hear about a child being injured or killed after discovering a gun in the house, in Philadelphia alone. It’s been even worse during COVID-19. One national study showed that accidental gun shots by children increased 31% during the first months of the pandemic.

A gun lock is the least-expensive, most effective way to prevent a firearm from being used. If a child comes across a gun in their home, and it’s locked, they’re not going to be able to hurt themselves or anyone else with it.

In a recent study, researchers interviewed gun owners and their children ages 5 to 14. They asked the parents if their child knew where their gun was or had ever handled it. Of those who said the child did not know, subsequent interviews with the children showed that 39% of the children actually did know. And 22% had handled the gun.

I was one of those kids. Out of pure curiosity, I touched the handle. It was my father’s. I think it was a revolver. I knew I wasn’t supposed to do it. I was scared of it, but still curious. That’s what kids are.

I didn’t grow up in a world where we saw as much gun violence on TV, and owning or carrying was not normalized. But now, I’ve had little kids, maybe 5, ask me if I want to play Grand Theft Auto. They are maybe desensitized. There is maybe a little less fear.

It’s OK to touch the gun on the video game. There are no real consequences. But kids aren’t mature enough to make that distinction between a video game and real life harm from a gun. So, a real gun in your home and a curious child are a bad combination.

Suicide often is impulsive. A person can be depressed and even be suicidal. But the decision to actually take that step and end one’s life is often a moment of impulse. If you have access to a loaded, unlocked gun, you might use it.

But what if, in that impulsive moment, you have to unlock the gun, get the ammunition and take the time to load it? Even that short amount of time can be enough to make a person think, “What am I doing? Do I really want to do it?”

There are basic rules of gun safety. Whenever you see a gun, assume it’s loaded. Treat it like it’s loaded. That means, when you’re handling it, never have your finger on the trigger until you’re actually ready to fire it.

Never point it toward anything you don’t intend to kill or destroy. We just saw that with Alec Baldwin. His finger was on the trigger, and for acting out a scene in a movie, does his finger need to be on the trigger? He didn’t treat it like it was a loaded weapon. And somebody died.

Store ammunition separately from the gun. The farther the better. So if your child did find the gun, hopefully it’s locked and the ammunition is somewhere they would not guess.

Parents need to teach their children that if they see a gun, they should never touch it, and they should tell a responsible adult. That would be their parent if they’re at home, or their teacher if they’re at school. Just recently, a student at a Delaware County school was found to have a gun. In this case, someone did the right thing. They told their teacher. It turned out to be a BB gun designed to look like a Glock, but it could have been much worse.

Parents should know about the homes their kids are visiting. Is there a gun? Talk with the family to find out how they handle their gun. Is it locked? If not, consider whether it’s a good idea for your child to be there.

Still, the most important thing I would want, if my kids were at a friend’s house and saw a gun, would be to not touch it. Get as far away as possible. Come home, or call me so I can come get you.

This is devastating. It’s proven that in areas with more resources, there is less gun violence. So, clearly, we need more resources.

As individuals, we can fix our outdoor lighting. Light and bright spaces deter crime. Use security cameras. We can clean up our properties and adjacent properties, if they’re vacant. Studies out of Penn’s Injury Science Center have shown that green spaces and clean spaces deter violence.

Take ownership in your own space. Walk your neighborhood in the evenings. Be present. Acknowledge people on the street. It makes a difference. If someone was walking up your street intending to do something wrong, they know that you saw them and may be deterred.

In our city, we need educational opportunities, after-school programs, employment that pays a decent living wage, affordable housing, affordable mental health resources.

For that last one, we’re at a crisis in Philadelphia. If I have a patient who I want to get connected to mental health resources because they’ve grown up with violence, or they may be victims themselves, it might be six to 10 months before a therapist can see them. And then the therapist may or may not be affordable. They’re hurting. They want help. But they can’t get it.

Talk to them about what they see on video games and on TV. Talk to them about what they’ve seen in their neighborhoods. Talk about how they can make a difference for their generation. Hopefully, our kids can be the ones to break this cycle.

The shooting victims we are seeing are younger and younger. So we’re not that far off when we’re telling a 10-year-old he or she could be the next victim.

Monitor your child’s social media. Talk to them about how to properly resolve a problem. This is so different from decades ago where kids handled things with their fists, and they were all fine the next day.

Tell kids that guns are not the solution to their temporary problems. What’s happening right now may seem really big, but talking through it with a parent or a trusted adult before acting on it with a gun might lead to the positive change we’re all looking for.

In the end, talking to kids openly and honestly about what to do if they see a gun and how to handle situations with guns that they may encounter, could save their lives.

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To obtain a gun lock from Sunny Jackson, with the Trauma Center at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, email her at [email protected].

Several other groups in the city distribute gun locks for free, although not all of them have locks all the time. For some, it depends on intermittent grant money. The Philadelphia Police Department has a program, but it is on hold because of supply issues related to the pandemic.

Here are other resources:

Temple University Hospital’s Safe Bet program has distributed more than 8,000 locks to families that have young children and firearms. To obtain one, go to https://www.templesafetynet.org/request-a-gun-lock

Philadelphia Sheriff’s Department offers locks at the front desk of the Sheriff’s Office on the 5th Floor of 100 S. Broad Street between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., or call the hotline number at 215-686-3572 and leave your name, number and address.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has two initiatives. Behavioral health patients are being offered gun locks through social work. The Family Connects program contacts families during or after an emergency department visit to offer resources, including gun locks when requested. In both cases, CHOP’s Center for Violence Prevention provides them.

Many suburban police departments distribute gun locks through Project Child Safe, a national safety education developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry. Go to https://projectchildsafe.org/ and click on “Find a safety kit.”