A firearms instructor urged parents to store guns in their kids’ bedrooms as a safety precaution during the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, Think Progress reported Monday.
“Why would you consider staging a firearm inside a child’s room?” Rob Pincus, owner of firearm instruction company I.C.E. training, reportedly asked the audience during a seminar on “home defense concepts.”
“It’s the first place I’m going to go!” he continued, as quoted by Think Progress. “As I’ve said…many times, if your kid is going to break into the safe just because it’s in their room, you have a parenting issue, not a home defense issue.”
At least 265 people under the age of 18 accidentally shot either themselves or someone else in 2015, according to a comprehensive study by gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety.
While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that families who own guns keep them locked, unloaded and separate from ammunition, Pincus reportedly advised making weapons easily accessible in the case of an unwanted intruder.
“I’m going to say we have an obligation to try to prevent unauthorized access,” Pincus told a woman concerned about her duty to “ensure” unauthorized people don’t get ahold of her weapons, according to Think Progress.
He reportedly added that keeping firearms hidden, instead of locked or secured in a safe, was an appropriate mode of storage.
