by Rev. Dr. Rob Schenck (NAPSA)—Our greatest treasures are our loved ones. Many a sermon has emphasized the importanceof children, siblings and parenting. These are gifts from God, and more valuable than anything else on this Earth. Let’s not treat jewelry and cash as more important than our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms,dadsandfriends.Ifyou lock Hundreds of lives could be saved upyour baubles, surely you canlock up your firearms. if every gun ownerkepthis or her weaponsunloaded andlocked away. can save nearly 3,000 children and teens from being shotevery year. or maimingof a child or family mem- With a few simple steps, Americans ‘The frequentstories of preventable gun deaths are too much to bear: A ber harmsnotonly the victim and the shooter but the entire family. Anger, resentment, guilt, shame and blaming grandmother's gun and unintention- relationships completely. As a Christian, sister. A 3-year-old in Indiana found families, and the grief is compounded by the gun owner’ desire to keep the 4-year-old boy in Alabama found his erode family bonds andoften destroy ally shot and killed his 11-year-old a loadedpistolin the car and shot her pregnant mother. When a teenager grabbed rifle from his parent's home and wentwith his cousin to check on a possible intruder, he tripped and shot his cousin, whodied soon after. Onaverage,eight children and teens are unintentionally shot every day, one of which is fatal. That's hundredsofkids each year whodie dueto unintentional gunshots,not to mention the sometimes it grieves meto see the destruction of gunloaded andreachableto fend off an intruder,all the while putting his or her family at greaterrisk of harm. The Brady Center has coined the phrase “family fire” to denote the unin- tentional injury or death of a family member involving a loaded, unlocked gun that is improperly stored. “End Family Fire” is a national campaign to end this heartbreak. Safe storage will disfiguring, disabling and always trau- prevent Americans from burying a matizing woundssuffered by surviving loved one with the thought “If only I victims. These numbers don't include death andinjury to parents and other adults in similarsituations. Fortunately, we have the ability to stop this—and we must. had...” death are avoidable. Commonsensesafe storage practices—such asusing trig- gelical Minister’ Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love” (HarperCollins, June 5, Unintentional firearm injury and gerlocks andsafes, separating weapons from ammunition, and checking and rechecking to see that guns are stored unloaded—are simple, routine steps + Rev. Rob Schenck, D.Min., is an ordained evangelical minister and pres- ident of The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, located in Washington, D.C. He is the author of “Costly Grace: An Evan- 2018) andalso the author of “God and Guns? a part of Zondervan’ upcoming book “Christianity Engaged in Cul- ture”Rev. Schenck is the subject of the that can save lives. But saving thelife of a loved oneis not the only important factor whenit comesto gunsin the Emmy Award-winning documentary pastor,the unintentionalshooting death violence. “The Armorof Light” and a member of the leadership team for Survivor Sunday, a nationwide day of remembrance home, car orpurse. ‘As I have seen in my experience asa {for the 30,000 lives lost annually to gun
