In the span of one month, three Utah children unintentionally shot themselves after getting their hands on an unsecured firearm. Two of the children died.
On Aug. 2, a 3-year-old boy in Magna shot himself in the foot, after a shelf that was storing the gun fell, according to court documents charging the mother with with aggravated child abuse, a third-degree felony, in 3rd District Court. The child survived and underwent surgery for his injured foot. His parents told police they have multiple guns in the house, which they keep on a pantry shelf, charges state. They said they do not have a gun safe or locks.
On Aug. 22, a 5-year-old boy died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Santaquin, after police say he found a 9 mm handgun in his parents’ bedroom and shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene and police don’t expect any foul play.
And on Sept. 2, an 8-year-old boy shot himself in a car while his mother was in a gas station in Lehi. The child was taken to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Currently, 26 states have some kind of law mandating secure firearm storage in the presence of a child, often referred to as secure storage or child-access prevention laws. But attempts by Utah lawmakers to pass similar legislation have failed, repeatedly.
Is a slight inconvenience to gun owners, many of whom are already doing this, worth saving a life? Absolutely.Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Millcreek
Rep. Andrew Stoddard, D-Millcreek, tried in both 2023 and 2024 to pass a law requiring the safe storage of firearms — both bills died in committee meetings, meaning they never made it to either the House or Senate for a full vote.
His 2023 bill would have imposed a criminal penalty on adults if a child or restricted person uses their gun and injures someone or commits a crime. After that failed, Stoddard came back a year later with a bill that instead levied civil penalties, but that also failed in committee.
“It sucks,” said Stoddard. “I’m not saying my bill would have necessarily fixed this. There’s still going to be people who don’t comply. But we do have good data that backs this up … Is a slight inconvenience to gun owners, many of whom are already doing this, worth saving a life? Absolutely.”
Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, sponsored a similar bill this past legislative session, which would have made it easier to take legal action against a firearm owner if an “unauthorized individual” takes their unsecured gun and uses it to harm someone. According to the bill, an “unauthorized individual” is defined as anyone who does not have permission to use the firearm, including a child.
Weiler clarified his bill was focused on holding negligent adults accountable if a child takes their gun and shoots someone intentionally, like what sometimes happens in school shootings or gang violence. The bill does not mention self-inflicted shootings.
After speaking to other senators, he realized it didn’t have the support needed to move forward, and the bill was never heard in a committee meeting.
“People feel very strongly about the Second Amendment and they feel like it’s under attack,” said Weiler, who thinks his bill was perceived as a barrier to gun ownership. “That was not my intent at all. In fact, I think the Second Amendment is strengthened if we emphasize to the public that this is a special right, and that we need to be safe with our guns.”
Stoddard said he’ll likely run another bill in 2025 to tackle gun storage. Weiler said he won’t, telling Utah News Dispatch “if my colleagues have said, ‘No,’ I’m not going to come back year after year and ask them the same question again.”
“These recent tragedies are horrific, but at the end of the day, the Second Amendment is enshrined in the Constitution … adults are either going to be responsible or they’re not. I’m not sure that my bill would have changed any of these adults’ behaviors,” Weiler said.
Firearms and ammunition are stored inside a safe at a Salt Lake City resident’s home on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) A growing trendThe three recent incidents make at least 32 unintentional shootings in Utah by children since 2015, according to the gun safety group Everytown. It’s part of a growing, national trend.
Per Everytown, 2023 was the worst year on record, with 411 unintentional shootings, the first time that number surpassed 400 since the group started collecting data.
“This is a problem that happens across the country. We know that approximately every day in America, one child gains access to a loaded firearm and unintentionally shoots themselves or someone else,” said Kelly Drane, research director for the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention organization started by former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot in the head during a 2011 constituent event.
Drane offered a few explanations for the increase. For starters, there is an unprecedented number of guns in American hands, starting with a massive spike in ownership during the coronavirus pandemic. Since 2020, data from the FBI shows more background checks for firearm purchases are being conducted than ever before — it’s now normal for the agency to report between 2 to 3 million background checks in a single month nationally, numbers that were rarely seen before the pandemic.
Because some of those purchases include first-time gun owners, Drane said there are likely more people with firearms who might not understand the importance of safe storage.
For Drane, and other policy experts and activists, secure storage laws are low-hanging fruit to combat the trend. And data suggest they work.
In July, the Rand Corporation released a report analyzing several studies that showed secure storage laws resulted in a decrease in unintentional firearm injuries and deaths among children. Another 2020 study published in the National Institute of Medicine found that firearm negligence laws resulted in a 15% reduction in firearm homicides, a 12% reduction in firearm suicides and a 13% reduction in unintentional firearm fatalities, all among children under 14 years old. An older but often-cited 1997 study, also published in the National Institute of Medicine, found unintentional shooting deaths among children younger than 15 years old decreased by 23% after states passed a secure storage law.
Plus, public opinion seems to lean toward safe storage policies. A 2023 survey from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that 72% of respondents support some kind of child access prevention law, requiring gun owners to secure their firearm when it’s not in use. Although support was slightly less among gun owners and Republicans surveyed, about 58% of both groups still supported secure storage laws.
Still, lawmakers in Utah have been hesitant to let these laws gain traction. Stoddard said the gun lobby in Utah makes some politicians shudder at the thought of doing anything that might be seen as anti-Second Amendment, despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller that found storage laws don’t violate the Constitution.
“You’ve got a system that gives a ton of power to a very small, vocal group of people who don’t necessarily represent the majority interest,” said Stoddard. “You’re going to get representatives who oftentimes, either carry those extreme views themselves, or aren’t willing to go against those views because this small group of people has the power to get rid of them.”
Stoddard pointed to HB119, a law passed last session intended to give firearm training to teachers who wanted to carry in the classroom. The bill required some kind of secure storage, either directing the teacher to keep the gun on themselves at all times, or reimbursing their purchase of a biometric gun safe.
“They recognize the value of it. They’re literally just not willing to do anything about it, and that’s what’s most frustrating,” he said. “People unlock their phones a million times a day using a fingerprint. Why can’t you spend $150 and buy a biometric safe that does the same? That could save a life.”
Neca Allgood, who works with the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah and spoke in favor of both of Stoddard’s bills, said a secure storage law aligns with Utah’s reputation for a “family-friendly” state.
“This does not interfere with Second Amendment rights. Along with the right to bear arms comes the responsibility to keep those guns out of the hands of children. Family values are so important to Utah — I hope that every adult can spend a minute putting themselves in the shoes of the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles of these families who have had a child get access to a gun and shoot themselves or someone else. It would just rip a hole in their family,” she said.
Nationally, more children are killed by firearms each year than anything else. The rate of children killed by firearms — whether it’s a targeted incident, suicide or an unintentional shooting — has increased steadily since 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In 2020, 2,270 children across the country died from firearms, surpassing motor vehicle deaths for the first time in decades. That number continues to climb, hitting 2,571 in 2021.
This story was originally published by Utah News Dispatch, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
