Across Memphis Tuesday, hundreds of people took steps to make their homes safer, with a simple pick up and quick click. Memphis is handing out thousands of free gun locks through the ‘Project Child Safe’ program.
Local 24 is a media partner at one of six locations for this campaign’s first wave, arming parents with those locks, and peace of mind.
Each person picked up one or a few of the free gun locks, and also get information on how to talk to children about gun safety.
This issue is as urgent as ever after six Mid-South children were accidentally shot in recent weeks, including two in Memphis who died.
“Knew I had to be safe than sorry, had to jump on this,” said grandfather and gun owner Andre Guy-Reed. “I consider myself to be a responsible, but I have to be honest, a lot of time they come over, you don’t think to go lock the gun up, you know, because of they here, tragedies happen.”
Guy-Reed watches the news and is well aware. Since August 18, six Mid-South children were accidentally shot, including the deaths of 4-year-old Gavin Settles in east Memphis and 8-year-old DeAundre Shannon in southeast Memphis the same weekend.
“What really got us going here was the news over the last several weeks with the number of accidents,” said Bill Romanelli with Project Child Safe. “We were thinking about doing this maybe later in the year, but clearly based on the recent events we thought it was time to come here and get involved right away.”
“I thought about my own grandchildren, I thought about what if an accident happened and I had to go through that and I don’t think I could get by that because you’ll forever second guess yourself,” said Guy-Reed.
With 21 young grandchildren, Taurus Williamson knows there’s little margin for error, the second she turns her head or goes around the corner.
“Children ramble, they find things, sometimes we are in a hurry, we don’t do things we are supposed to like put the gun back in the box,” said Williamson. “I don’t have to worry about it going off because the gun is going to be locked.”
That’s why this ‘Project Child Safe’ campaign in communities across Memphis is so important. These locks, and literature, could save one curious child’s life.
“A lot of what we do at city hall is trying to help children, protect children,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. “This is something we can all do together, but we have to keep the message up.”
The program was made possible through a federal grant. 10,000 gun locks will be given out in Memphis the next two years.
“Clearly you can see the success of this program across the country, other cities have done this and we know it is saving lives,” said U.S. Attorney Mike Dunavant of the Western District of Tennessee.
If you weren’t able to pick up a free gun lock through this program Tuesday, don’t worry. Gun locks are available at every Memphis police station and nearly every law enforcement station in the Mid-South.
