"Texas rarely prosecutes people who fail to secure their guns from children, according to a newspaper review of Department of Public Safety statistics.
Gun owners can be charged with a misdemeanor in Texas if they fail to secure their firearms or leave them in a place that a child can access. But the child access prevention, or CAP, law is rarely applied in Texas, the Austin American-Statesman (http://atxne.ws/1I3zIB8 ) reported Friday.
Authorities have arrested more than 200 people accused of making a firearm accessible to a child since 1995, when that section of the Texas penal code was enacted, but there have been only 61 convictions, DPS figures show."
In part, this may be because someone close to the adult was killed or injured by the child's misuse of a gun, and that may be deemed enough punishment. (e.g. child killed brother with parent's gun).
Although there are frequent media reports of such misuse, the number and rate of accidental firearms deaths of children has fallen significantly over the last 25 years.
How do you criminally charge parents not directly involved with their child's misuse of the parents' inherently dangerous product like a firearm, automobile, Rx pain medication, etc.? Civil liability makes sense. But criminal?
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