Are Gun Locks Like Aspirin Caps?
“Childproof” will never mean completely childproof.

By Dave Kopel
Mr. Kopel is research director of the Independence Institute.
un control advocates often analogize proposed laws requiring gun-makers to
build internal locks into handguns to current federal law requiring
?childproof? caps on medicine bottles. This is a very good analogy, and it
shows the lethal dangers of mandatory locks.

As Harvard?s Kip Viscusi has detailed, federal laws requiring ?childproof?
safety caps appear to have led to a documented increase in child poisonings.
Lulled by the presence of the federally-approved safety device on medicine
bottles, many adults have been leaving dangerous medicines within easy reach
of children. Although the caps may be ?childproof? to some three year old,
they can never be completely childproof. The cap may be put on improperly by
the consumer, or the child can simply break open the bottle, or cut through
a plastic bottle with a knife.

Mandatory seat belt laws have a similar effect, increasing the deaths of
innocents. Seat belts make it much more likely that automobile occupants
will survive a crash. And for decades, safety-conscious drivers and
passengers have worn safety belts voluntarily. But in recent years,
governments have began imposing fines on auto occupants who choose not to
buckle up. This strategy increases seat belt use ? but it also increases the
deaths of innocent people. Studies have shown that when forced to buckle up,
reluctant bucklers drive faster. Recognizing that they are safer with the
seat belts on, these drivers compensate for the increased safety by driving
more dangerously. As a result, innocent, non-risky pedestrians and occupants
of other automobiles end up being injured or killed in accidents caused by
the extra risk-taking which resulted from mandatory seat belts. In essence,
the government increases the safety of careless people ? by decreasing the
safety of careful people. Even if this policy results in a net saving of
lives, it is immoral to kill (indirectly) innocents in order to protect
fools from their folly.

With firearms, the consequences of the lulling effect will be much deadlier
than with medicine caps or seat belts. If the government claims that a gun
is ?childproof? (because it has some device which the government mandated),
then firearms safety training will be severely undermined.

The National Rifle Association, and every other organization that conducts
firearms safety training, teaches the first rule of gun safety: ?Treat every
gun as if it?s loaded.? The second rule is: ?Always point the gun in a safe
direction.? And the third rule is: ?Keep your finger off the trigger until
you are ready to shoot.? People who follow these rules will never cause a
gun accident.

If the gun is ?childproof,? than some parents will violate the firearms
safety rules, and they will let their children do the same: they and their
children will point the gun in a dangerous direction; they and their
children will put a finger on the trigger even when not ready to shoot; they
will store the gun loaded even when the gun is used only for sports.

All this behavior might not cause harm, as long as these ?childproof?
devices work properly. But what happens when these adults and children ?
conditioned to ignore gun safety rules ? come across a gun that does not
have one of these devices? Whatever laws are enacted today, there is an
existing supply of 80 million handguns in American homes, virtually none of
which have built-in locks. It is terrifying to imagine what will happen when
people think that guns are ?childproof? because the government told them so.