As Democrats celebrated their return to power for the first time in decades in Harrisburg, some were already eyeing a menu of new gun bills to introduce that have long been blocked by Republicans.
Lawmakers deny any claim that their intent is to infringe on the Second Amendment. Rather, they said they’d target “common sense” reforms like universal background checks and so-called “red flag” laws.
Another item for consideration is a safe storage law, which is promoted by researchers as an effective way of lowering the number of children who accidentally shoot each other or themselves.
11 Investigates, along with Cox Media Group partners from across the country, researched and tallied the number of shootings for the first time ever, and found that thousands of children have been injured or died as a result of these shootings.
In Pennsylvania alone, 38 kids were killed and 57 more were injured across 95 different accidental shootings from 2016 to 2026.
The count only included children 12 and under as both the shooter and the victim, and did not include incidents of gang violence, suicides or hunting accidents.
When teenagers 12 to 17 were included under the same conditions, the numbers rose to 69 killed and 104 injured.
Most often, it was either a toddler or a teenager pulling the trigger.
Many of the guns were found unsecured and loaded on surfaces like tables, cars or couches.
In general, states without safe storage laws have higher numbers of accidental shootings than states that do.
“The reasons behind that could be because it does motivate people to more securely store,” Kennesaw State University Professor Melissa Osborne said. “We would want to make sure that parents were educated on laws where that was passed so that they knew about the expectations.”
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