As former chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), I had seen children kill people every year using their parents’ guns. And though I was charged with keeping products safe, I was powerless to act.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that guns killed 3,597 children in 2021. In 2020, that number eclipsed children’s deaths from cancer or car accidents. And 2022’s numbers are almost certain to be worse.
Let me be clear: I am not writing about guns to pin blame on the National Rifle Association for mass killers in classrooms, though it bears plenty of responsibility. And there are many reasons for the rise in gun deaths, including rates of gun ownership, the unsettling effects of the pandemic on young people’s mental health and, yes, crime rates.
But who should receive most of the blame? Congress.
My agency exists to protect consumers by making products safe. When it comes to children, Congress happily lets the agency regulate thousands of products, including toys, strollers, cribs, refrigerators and bicycles. I’m proud of the way our little agency has made these items safer.
But notice what’s missing from that list: guns. Why? Isn’t a handgun or rifle a consumer product? Of course. Don’t consumers buy them? Of course they do.
But when crafting the 1972 law that created the agency, the Consumer Product Safety Act, Congress created a carveout for firearms because of pressure from gun lobbyists. As a result, the CPSC has never been able to touch them.
I will never forget how furious I and others on my staff were when we learned members of Congress refused to let us regulate firearms. “There are two products you can’t touch,” one lawmaker told me when I became CPSC chair. “Cigarettes and guns.”
What a disgrace. There are many things CPSC could have done to make guns safer without the tiniest threat to Second Amendment rights. For example, every year, roughly 150 children are killed accidentally using guns. Gun locks are a simple, cheap and effective tool to prevent deaths. Why not make them mandatory? That act wouldn’t prevent anyone from owning a gun. It would simply force gun owners to put a cheap lock on the trigger so that a 3-year-old boy couldn’t accidentally fire it at his sister.
Thanks to Congress’s prohibition, CPSC can’t do that.
We have seen the result: A survey found that more than half of gun owners reported not storing their guns safely. More than 5 million children live in those households.
It still makes me furious. We need to make gun locks mandatory. And we need more: We need to ban assault weapons. We should outlaw guns at polling places. We need dealers to enforce a waiting period before customers can buy a gun.
Last year, Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) went to the House floor and attempted to read the 665 names of children under the age of 11 killed by guns in the first half of 2022. In the time allotted, he could read only a few. But he had time to tell listeners the point: “There are over 600 names on this list. I can’t read these in a minute,” he said. “Are we going to act? Or are we going to throw up useless thoughts and prayers?”
There are reasons to hope. I hope Congress passes meaningful gun laws this session, including finally empowering the CPSC to treat firearms like any other consumer product. I hope the Senate steps up and approves them. I hope President Biden signs them.
We owe that to the thousands of children who die each year. We owe it to the heroes such as Abigail Zwerner.