Should parents ask other parents about guns in the home?

For the record, the question I lob at parents of my kids’ friends is not a disqualifier. It shouldn’t cause the sort of controversy that bubbled up around a Missouri bill requiring parents to notify a child’s school that they own a firearm. It’s not meant to shame them or serve as a public name-check of the sort that transpired in December when The Journal News in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley published the names and addresses of pistol permit holders licensed by Westchester and Rockland counties.

It’s simply intended to get moms and dads thinking about how they store weapons in their home. We can preach to our own kids about gun safety and how to act around guns, but if their friends don’t have the same rules in place at their homes, all the preaching in the world won’t do any good.

Maybe it’s the company my kids keep — or maybe fellow parents aren’t being truthful — but I’ve had only one parent cop to having guns in her home. Even that mom — our daughters are in the same kindergarten class — seemed so taken aback by my question that she initially said no. Within a millisecond, once what I’d asked had sunk in, she quickly changed to “yes,” followed by an unprompted: “We keep them locked in a safe.”