Title
Amending Section 10-834 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Responsibility to Avoid Possession and Discharge of Firearms by Children," by requiring safe storage of firearms and ammunition; all under certain terms and conditions.
Body
THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA HEREBY ORDAINS:
SECTION 1. Chapter 10-800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Safety" is amended to read as follows:
CHAPTER 10-800. SAFETY.
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ยง10-834. Responsibility to Avoid Possession and Discharge of Firearms by Children.
(a) Legislative Findings. The Council of the City of Philadelphia finds that:
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7. In 47 states, a parent can leave a loaded, unlocked gun on a dining room table or a nightstand and face no legal consequence for leaving that gun within a child's reach.
8. According to a January 13, 2014, report by Diane Sawyer entitled Kids and Guns: By the Numbers, 31 percent of U.S. households in 2012 had at least one child and one gun in the home.
9. The American Academy of Pediatrics adds that guns cause twice as many deaths in young people as cancer, five times as many deaths as heart disease, and fifteen times as many deaths as infections.
10. Several states have taken steps to protect children from tragic gun accidents by requiring guns to be stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock anytime they are not in use.
11. Massachusetts, California, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia have passed laws criminalizing the act of leaving a gun where a child may access it.
12. Statistics and research prove that these laws are effective. States that have enacted these laws substantially decreased the number of unintentional child firearm deaths.
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(c) (1) All firearms kept in a home in which one or more individuals younger than 18 years of age reside or regularly visit shall be kept unloaded and stored in a locked container, excep...
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