In addition to the academic research on curious children and the importance of gun safety, there have been episodes of popular primetime news magazine shows that explore the subject as well.  Both ABC’s 20/20 and NBC’s Dateline have conducted hidden camera experiments that even after undergoing gun safety training, many children will still pick up and handle guns if they find them.

In addition to the academic research on curious children and the importance of gun safety, there have been episodes of popular primetime news magazine shows that explore the subject as well.  Both ABC’s 20/20 and NBC’s Dateline have conducted hidden camera experiments that even after undergoing gun safety training, many children will still pick up and handle guns if they find them.

“My Kid Would Never Do That”
Dateline  NBC
2015
What’s the best way to educate young kids and teens about gun safety? Kids are tested as their parents watch on hidden cameras. 

“Young Guns”
20/20  ABC
2014
Diane Sawyer and David Muir take a sharp look at kids and guns in a special report. 

Academic Studies on Gun Safety Training and Safe Storage

Programs that Promote Safe Storage and Research on Their Effectiveness
United States Government Accountability Office (2017)
Key findings: Children who received instruction in gun safety were no more likely than those who did not to heed basic rules about what to do if they came across a gun — like leaving the room, not touching the gun or notifying an adult. Informational sessions or videos “did not instill consistent safe firearm habits in young children.” The NRA’s Eddie Eagle program did succeed at getting children between the ages of 4 and 6 to verbally repeat rules on what to do when they encounter a gun. But those same children were not significantly more likely than others who hadn’t gone through the Eddie Eagle training program to actually follow through with those behaviors when they encountered a gun.  

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Teaching-Safety-Skills-to-Children-Prevention-of-Firearm-Injury-as-an-Exemplar-of-Best-Practice-in-Assessment-Training-and-Generalization-of-Safety-Skills
Raymond G Miltenberger, Ph.D., BCBA
Behavior Analysis in Practice (2017)
Key Findings: A behavioral skills training approach, in which the child receives instructions and modeling and then rehearses the skills with feedback in response to a variety of simulated situations, is more effective than an informational approach that does not have the active learning component. In situ assessment is the only way to determine if the child will use the skills in response to a seemingly real safety threat. Skills learned through BST do not always generalize to the natural environment.In situ training is the most reliable method for producing the generalized use of safety skills across a number of skill domains.