Effort to Push National Mandatory Storage Law Misguided at Best

Yes, there is something tragic about any unintentional death by gunshot, especially when it’s a young person. While you can look at an adult that dies in such a way and chalk at least some of them up to someone being an idiot, but with kids, it’s different.

So someone who loses their child to such an incident is undoubtedly someone who has experienced the kind of loss that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

But that doesn’t excuse them trying to trample on the Second Amendment, which far too many do.

Take Connecticut’s Ethan’s Law, which is their mandatory gun storage law. Now, the parents who pushed for that and their activist allies want to inflict that on the rest of the country.

A Connecticut teen’s tragic death is prompting change for the country’s gun control laws.

The memory of Guilford 15-year-old Ethan Song has once again reached the national level.

“I won’t stop fighting until this law goes national,” said Ethan’s mother, Kristin Song, following the state passage of Ethan’s Law. “I really stared into his eyes and I was like this kid is going to make this huge impact on the world and I can’t wait to see what it is and I just never in a million years thought it would be this type of impact.”

The bill is in memory of Ethan, who died in early 2018 in an accident involving an unsecured gun, and now, his mother is trying once again to make safe storage laws apply in every state.

Since the accident, the Song family focused their mission on preventing unnecessary death. Just one year later, Ethan’s Law became the law of the land in Connecticut, passing with overwhelming bi-partisan support.

Understand, I’m sympathetic to their loss. I’m also a proponent of guns being stored when not in use.

However, the problem with this proposal is that it’s a one-size-fits-all approach to a situation that is anything but universal. Ethan was clearly someone with little knowledge of firearms, probably someone who grew up seeing them on TV and in movies but had no actual exposure to them. He wasn’t raised around them and taught to respect them, most likely.

So, when he found an unsecured gun, he did what a lot of kids do and started playing with something that was likely considered “forbidden” in his day-to-day life.

Yes, kids are stupid. You were and I was, so I’m not faulting Ethan for that.

But not every kid grows up that way, and this idea of mandating every gun be locked up will actually put a lot of people at risk.

Earlier this month, Cam wrote about a kid in Kentucky who protected himself with a firearm against two armed bad guys who opened fire on him. Under this proposal, either that kid would have ended up dead or his parents would have been charged.

Personally, I’d take the charges if my kid was mature enough to be trusted with a gun, but a lot of people wouldn’t want to risk it.

I get that the Songs feel like they have to do something to honor Ethan’s memory, but this ain’t it. Further, while I’m sympathetic to their loss, there’s no way in hell I’m bending over and just taking this simply because they have a sob story that, while tragic, indicates a lot of failures on their part as well that led to their son’s death.

They’ll just need to get used to disappointment, which is what they’re likely to see for at least the next couple of years.