Guns put 20 youth in to the hospital every day

[lunasun]

20 a day

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/mdmama/2014/01/guns_put_20_youth_into_the_hospital_every_day.html
Six percent of the youth who were injured died--that works out to one every day.

And the direct medical costs for all the injuries totaled more than $146 million.

Clearly, we need to do something.

For the kids under 15, we need to do a better job of preventing accidents from guns. The American Academy of Pediatrics thinks that children are safer in a house without guns, and I agree--but if there is a gun in the home, everyone is safer if the gun is kept locked up, with the ammunition stored (and locked) separately. Just making sure that always happens can make all the difference when it comes to preventing injuries and saving lives.

For the kids older than 15, solutions are likely to be more complicated. It's still important to keep guns locked up; as the Sandy Hook shooting showed us, bad things can happen when youth (especially troubled youth) have access to their parents' guns.

[Doctor_J]

1. Swimming pools!!!!!!