Yolanda Androzzo and Paul Nestadt: Safe storage of firearms would save Illinois teens' lives
There's a quiet moment — a pause — that can mean the difference between life and death.
We have watched too many families suffer devastating losses; we've learned how powerful that pause can be. It's the moment between a fleeting, impulsive thought and a permanent, irreversible action. And when a firearm is locked, unloaded and stored separately from ammunition, that small pause becomes a chance to think, to breathe and to live.
One of us is a psychiatrist specializing in suicide prevention; the other is an advocate working to keep children safe from gun violence. We see the consequences every day in our communities and emergency rooms. We know a moment of anger can end in murder. We know an impulse can end in suicide. And we know an effective policy can help prevent these situations and protect young lives.
That's why Illinois must pass the Safe at Home bill (Senate Bill 8). The measure is an improved child access prevention law that would increase the age of children, from 14 to 18, that would require their parents or guardians to store firearms securely. The law would reflect what we already know: Teenagers are kids. They act on impulse. When a gun is left unsecured, that impulse can turn fatal.
The examples seem endless. A 15-year-old Aurora boy was arrested by police after authorities say he stole his mother's car and gun. The 10-year-old daughter of a Cook County corrections officer brought her mother's loaded gun to school. A 14-year-old left their parents' loaded handgun in the bathroom of a DuPage County high school. An 8-year-old boy was killed and his 5-year-old brother shot when they got ahold of a loaded gun in Chicago.
These stories prove that the problem is not theoretical. It's urgent. And the research shows the solution is safe storage.
Paul is a psychiatrist specializing in suicide prevention who has studied this issue closely. In a recent study, he found that child access prevention, or CAP, laws, especially those expanded to apply to older teens, significantly reduce suicide, unintentional shootings and even homicides. When states require parents to safely store firearms for kids 16 and younger, youth suicide rates drop by up to 14%. Raising that age to 18, as the bill would do, has the potential to save even more lives.
In Illinois, we desperately need that protection. The state has the third-highest Black homicide victimization rate in the country, and 91% of firearm homicide victims are Black. Firearm suicide rates are rising among Black teens, while Black children and teens already die from gun violence at a rate 18 times higher than their white peers nationwide. These are not abstract statistics: They are lives cut short, futures stolen and families shattered.
We know how this happens. One in three children live in a home with a gun, but over half of gun owners don't lock all their firearms securely. And more than 80% of adolescent firearm suicides involve a gun belonging to a family member. This is not just about access. It's about a moment — a pause — and the chance to survive it.
Too often, families believe it won't happen to them. That their child isn't struggling. That their firearm is out of reach. But there is no immunity to impulsive decision-making, especially in adolescence. No family is immune from the public health crisis of gun violence. Everyone needs to store guns safely.
Safe at Home is about protecting our children and communities. It's a straightforward, evidence-based bill that reflects the values we all share. But we need action, not just awareness.
That's why Yolanda and others are heading to Advocacy Day in Springfield on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. The impact of this law would be felt in every neighborhood in Illinois. Especially the ones already grieving too many young lives lost.
Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in Illinois and the U.S. We can't accept that. We don't have to. By safely storing firearms, we create a pause, a breath between impulse and tragedy. We offer every child, and every family, the chance to keep their story going.
Yolanda Androzzo is executive director for One Aim Illinois. Dr. Paul Nestadt is a core faculty member at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions and medical director of the Center for Suicide Prevention at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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