People keep guns in their homes because they fear break-ins and assaults. In fact, if you keep a gun in your home you increase the odds of someone in your family getting shot by up to 1000%. No, I’m not talking about gun accidents. I’m talking about family members shooting themselves on purpose.

According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the grand total of gun deaths of any kind, including domestic abuse, criminals, gang fights, and flat-out murder was 18, 358 souls in 2005. Guess how many people committed suicide by shooting themselves? 17,002 in that same year. That means almost as many people shoot themselves as get shot. And because guns are so lethal, they’re the method of choice for suicide.

We’re looking at the wrong trees and missing the forest. We may have the best of intentions in wishing to defend our households, but we’re actually shooting our families in the foot-literally. The Washington Post quotes Matthew Miller, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health: “If you bought a gun today, I could tell you the risk of suicide to you and your family members is going to be two- to tenfold higher over the next 20 years. There are not many things you can do to increase your risk of dying tenfold.”

Every day we remove temptations from our children’s lives because we want to protect them. But we’ve been overlooking a big temptation. If you want your kids to grow up healthy, one of the best ways to ensure their safety is to sell your guns. Read the article by clicking here.

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Rev. David Code is an Episcopal minister and family coach. His published articles and a 2′ video of his seminars are at: http://davidarthurcode.com/bio-david/

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