It was the most awkward and divisive of questions that I would ask of other parents, usually new acquaintances, but also of old friends. We’d be on the phone, discussing our young children, laughing, and the subject of play dates would come up. The other mom might say, “Can Chloe come over here tomorrow to play with Maddie?” I would ask, “Do you keep guns in your house?” Always it would lead to the most illuminating of answers, whether yes or no. If the response was negative, the parent would answer immediately, following up with something like, “No, never. We don’t believe in having firearms.” In the other cases, there would always be a pause preceded a simple, “”Yes.” I would follow up, “Do you have a gun safe?” Usually, then came the “No.”
I’m not quite sure what compelled me to ask about guns when my children were small. I just added it to the litany of things I would tell parents – we have a dog, we have a pool that’s fenced, we don’t keep guns. It seemed that if a parent told me about their child’s food allergy, I could and should ask if they kept guns.
Experts say that 1 in 3 families with children have at least one gun in the house, but somehow, I never thought those statistics would include the parents at my child’s progressive pre-school. Though it is known that nearly 1,500 children will die from shootings each year, no one knows how many of those are children dying in their homes, or in the homes of friends, playing with a firearm. No records are kept on that by any government bureau; the numbers are just mixed in with gang killings, suicides, and school shootings.
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