Following the release of a controversial report by the Arizona Child Fatality Review Team (CFRT), State Representatives Quang Nguyen and Selina Bliss have made their opposition clear.
The CRFT’s report proposed that, to prevent firearm-related deaths among children, firearms should be removed from any household with children – an idea Nguyen and Bliss find unacceptable.
In a statement made by the Arizona House of Representatives, they argued that such a move is a “radical attack on the constitutional rights of Arizonans,” likening it to past attempts to restrict Second Amendment freedoms in other states.
Their case points to last year’s gun control order by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, which aimed to limit the carrying of firearms in public and was ultimately halted in court as being “insanely unconstitutional.” CRFT’s recommendation is seen by the Representatives as similarly extreme.
Directly from their letter to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), they critique the CRFT for not proposing the elimination of pools and hot tubs in homes despite a higher incidence of child drowning in such environments.
Instead, the CRFT suggested pragmatic measures like increased supervision and swim lessons.
— Steve Wilson in Arizona Representatives Criticize Proposal to Remove Firearms from Homes with Children as “Attack on Constitutional Rights”
first time i visited (long time ago) me brudda in (old) scottsdale the “news” was announcing that phoenix would now require minors to carry a permission note from their parents to possess firearms in public. so the easy solution here is for all the households with kids to just let the chirruns carry the gats outside the house.
with a note, of course.
Pools and hot tubs? You’d have to remove bathtubs and five gallon buckets if you’re gonna follow that inane logic…
Maybe what Arizona (and Nevada, Utah, Idaho – sorry Colorado, you’re already hosed) really needs to remove is the Californians from Arizona homes with children. Or at least administer some sort of entrance exam…
I am glad that someone shot back (pun intended) at the report with a statement that Arizona should also outlaw pools and hot tubs to ensure that children do not drown.
Everything you do (and even doing “nothing”) entails risk. We cannot eliminate risk from our lives. Rather than trying to eliminate risk in our lives, we should be actively acknowledging risks and managing/mitigating them.
I’ve lived in Az since 1981 and my sons were born in 1990s. We had firearms in the house. They were taught to shoot at 5 years old and to respect both rifles and handguns. Properly teaching safety and managing your kids properly as adults is really what needs to be done.