Millions of children in U.S. live in a home with an unlocked and loaded firearm

Rural residents are more likely to own firearms than
their urban counterparts. (Photo by S. Bauman, Unsplash)

Among the roughly 32 million children in the U.S. who live in households with firearms, almost 7 million are in a home that has "at least one gun that's unlocked and loaded, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open," reports Rhitu Chatterjee of NPR. The study's tally may be more concerning for rural Americans, who are 24% more likely to own a gun than their urban counterparts.

Study results highlighted how many children have easy access to a loaded gun. Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon who works to prevent gun violence, told NPR, "Many of these families don't know the risk of having that gun not being locked up."

To uncover how households with firearms were storing their weapons, the study "surveyed 900 parents of kids under 18 who own guns," Chatterjee writes. "Nearly 35% said they stored them in the safest way possible — unloaded and locked up. But 21% had at least one firearm in the house unlocked and loaded — the least safe way possible to store a gun."

Children's ages seemed to be a factor among some survey respondents. Chatterjee explains, "Parents of children under 13 were more likely to keep their firearms unloaded and locked away compared to parents of teenagers."

Matthew Miller, who led the study, pointed out that "teenagers are more likely to commit suicide, and school shooters are also more likely to be in their teens than younger kids," Chatterjee adds. "So parents of teenagers should take just as much care to unload and lock away their firearms."

Sadly, many American families have lost children to gun deaths that may have been prevented if the firearm had been locked up or at least not loaded. Chatterjee reports, "Since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death among children and teens." While nearly 3 in 5 child firearm deaths were due to gun assaults, almost a third were suicides.

Quick hits: USDA plans fertilizer production in U.S.; farmers' 'stops' that aren't seasonal; curiosity builds community

Brooke Rollins

The Department of Agriculture plans to use tariff dollars and trade renegotiation resources to help fertilizer production in the United States. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the "USDA is focused on helping move fertilizer supplies more quickly, but cautioned it will take time for crop nutrient prices to begin falling," reports Kim Chipman of AgriPulse. "Rollins said she hosted a meeting with executives of four top fertilizer companies and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett." The Trump administration hopes to roll out its full plan to move fertilizer production back to the U.S. sometime this week.

The University of Maine's Fort Kent campus will provide dorms,
 a lounge and a cafeteria for recovering teens. (UofM photo)

Just like some adults, preteens and adolescents can end up with severe drug and alcohol addictions that can end in an overdose or many failed recovery attempts. Recovery advocates in the tiny town of Fort Kent, Maine, will "use new funding to try a novel solution to the problem: a public boarding school for high schoolers in recovery," writes Lanan Cohen for The Hechinger Report. The new approach will "focus on abstinence and mental health to help students overcome their substance abuse problems." Educators hope the boarding school structure will allow students time to solidify new choices and coping strategies while remaining in school.

Graphic by A. Dixon, Offrange

It's not a farmers market. It's a farmers "stop," and it's open all year long. Farming advocates hope the concept continues to catch on. "The Argus Farm Stop model is built on a consignment basis with a 70/30 split: Farmers set their own prices and keep 70% of every sale, while Argus retains 30% to cover operating costs," reports Heidi Roth for Offrange. "A café inside each location accounts for roughly a third of sales but about half the profit, effectively subsidizing higher farmer payouts while creating a community hub where farmers can gather, and customers can meet producers." Not all farmer stops have the same elements, but all aim to support local farmers while fostering community spirit.

Musical talent from far-flung places often took center stage at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. "The festival is rich with rural tradition, pulling in rural musicians from across the states and every continent except Antarctica (as far as I know)," reports Phillip Norman of The Daily Yonder. "I caught an ambient country jam by Setting in the backroom of Boyd’s Jig and Reel Scottish Pub, and hit the Knoxville Art Museum to witness the electric saxophone wizardry of Sam Gendel. . . . Big Ears is a festival for music nerds who are interested not only in how a concert sounds, but also how it reflects the lived experiences of the people making the music."

Beth Howard (Illustration by N. Nichols)

As an activist and community organizer for Appalachia and the broader South, Beth Howard hopes her memoir, Song for a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Anti-Racist Solidarity From a Coal Miner’s Daughter, helps readers see Southern differences through a lens of curiosity that they can apply to their daily interactions with other people, writes Nhatt Nichols of Rural Assembly. Howard said, "I think one of the biggest lessons for me when I was learning to organize is the importance of listening and asking really good, open-ended questions." Nichols adds, "Howard advocates for getting out into your community and finding other people who are doing organizing work that resonates with you, and offering to lend a hand, to learn more about your community without centering your own ideas."

Drug overdose deaths don't just happen to adults; dozens of teens die each month, and boys are especially vulnerable

The U.S. continues to see overwhelming numbers of drug overdose deaths, but one of the most jarring statistics is the number of adolescents dying from overdoses every month, reports Ty Schepis for The Conversation, a journalistic platform for academics. "Drug overdoses are killing young Americans in unprecedented numbers: The monthly total rose from 31 in July 2019 to 87 in May 2021, the period with the most recent data. As a scholar of substance use who focuses on patterns that vary between age groups, I’m struck by how adolescents’ overdose deaths differ from adults’ in terms of gender, race and ethnicity and the drugs causing these fatalities."

The Conversation graph, from CDC data

Who is dying? "When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined data for Americans 10 to 19 years old, it found that, as is the case for adults, most adolescents dying from drug overdoses are male. However, the share of girls among these fatalities is larger than the share of women," Schepis writes. "More than twice as many boys who are tweens or teens are dying of a drug overdose for every girl in that age group."

Which drug is most involved in teen overdose deaths? Fentanyl. "For teens, 84% of fatal overdoses involved fentanyl, and 56% of all overdoses involved only fentanyl," Schepis explains. "Many adolescents accidentally take fentanyl when they ingest counterfeit pills that they believe are prescription opioids or stimulants, or other illicit drugs that are laced with the drug. . . .In 67% of adolescent overdose deaths, a bystander was present who could have intervened. Naloxone was administered in less than half of cases where a bystander was present."

Is there a common thread among adolescent overdose deaths? Schepis reports, "Little or no prior drug use. Only 1 in 10 teens and tweens who died from a drug overdose had a history of treatment for a substance use problem, and only 1 in 7 had ever experienced a prior nonfatal overdose. . . . This pattern underscores the importance that all parents proactively talk with their children about substance use by the time they are 12 years old."

What can parents and extended family do to help change this pattern? "Having naloxone available can also be important. It prevents fentanyl and other opioids from causing an overdose by blocking access to opioid receptors in the brain," Schepis writes. "Think of naloxone like car insurance: You don’t want to use it, but it’s important to have in case something goes wrong. . . . There’s also a strong link between mental health conditions and drug overdoses among adults. . . . I recommend that all adults – whether caregivers or other people in an adolescent’s life – check in on their mental health regularly and recommend or seek treatment for any concerns as early as possible."