3 shootings renew calls for stronger Utah gun laws

Gun-control advocates in the state are reacting by reiterating their desire for stronger legislation, while gun-rights activists say such shootings are rare and overplayed in the news media.

Marla Kennedy of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah said while no official statistics are available, the group's unofficial count puts at 67 the number of children younger than 18 shot by other children since 1988. The actual number, she said, is probably much higher.

Kennedy said no official numbers are available because the state has no central way of keeping track. Numbers from the state Department of Health's Bureau of Vital records, however, put at 11 the number of children 14 and younger killed by firearms from 1988 through 2001.

The statistics will now include 3-year-old Ryker Lambert, who was shot in the face Tuesday by his 4-year-old brother in their West Valley home. He was dead by the time emergency crews arrived.

"We have to do something about this in this state, and we've been trying to do something about it for 10 years," Kennedy said. "And every year we've been shot down up at the Legislature."

A bill was introduced but was defeated in committee during this year's general session that would have provided a criminal penalty for a gun owner who "negligently" stores a weapon in a way that allows a minor access to it. Opponents said it denied the right to self-defense.

Early this year, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave Utah a D- grade on its gun law as it applies to children. The group, named after former President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, Jim Brady, who was shot and disabled during an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, marked Utah down for not requiring child-safety trigger locks to be sold with guns and for not holding adults criminally responsible for leaving loaded firearms unsecured.

The center is seeking a so-called child-access prevention law, Kennedy said. Such laws, which provide for strong prosecution when a gun owner's negligence leads to an accident, have been supported by the National Rifle Association, she said.

"I am adamantly opposed to placing the responsibility in the hands of children," she said. "Children being children, by their very nature, don't have the impulse control" needed to safely handle guns.

Ralph Schamel, vice president of the Utah State Rifle and Pistol Association, the Utah arm of the NRA, agrees.

"You are always responsible," Schamel said he tells students in his hunter education and concealed weapons permit classes.

Schamel said he hadn't heard of CAP laws and couldn't comment on them, but he expressed concern that gun owners would be prosecuted if their safely stored guns were stolen and used in a crime. Gross negligence should be punished, he said.

Kennedy said she hopes the center's plans for more accurate statistics, which she expects to be much higher than the current 67, will drive Utahns to demand CAP laws.

Neither Kennedy nor Schamel would comment on Ryker Lambert's death because they had not yet heard about it.

The other shootings in the past week involved a 16-year-old Honeyville girl who was accidentally shot in the elbow Friday when two 17-year-olds pulled a gun as a prank, and a 14-year-old Minersville boy wounded Nov. 12 while collecting seeds with his older brother and an adult friend.

E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com

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