[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11014-11015]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NATIONAL ASKING SAVES KIDS DAY

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, yesterday was the second annual National 
Asking Saves Kids Day or ASK Day. ASK is a national public health 
campaign that urges parents to ask their neighbors and community 
members if they have a gun in the home before sending their child over 
to play. The ASK campaign helps to enable parents to protect their 
children from the danger of a gun that is not safety stored. This is a 
sensible step toward preventing gun violence. According to PAX, a non-
political organization that promotes solutions to the problem of gun 
violence and sponsors the ASK campaign, over 40 percent of American 
homes with children have guns. Many of these weapons are kept unlocked 
and loaded. Child access to these firearms is one reason why children 
in the U.S. are more likely to die of gun violence

[[Page 11015]]

than from all natural causes combined. In recognition of National ASK 
Day, parents, children, community leaders, and neighbors across the 
nation planted flowers as a symbol of the more than 3,000 children that 
PAX estimates could be saved through the simple message of the ASK 
campaign.
  It is critical that we do all we can to keep children from gaining 
unsupervised access to firearms. That is why I cosponsored Senator 
Durbin's Child Access Prevention Act. Under this bill, adults who fail 
to lock up loaded firearms or an unloaded firearm with ammunition could 
be held liable if a weapon is taken by a child and used to kill or 
injure him or herself or another person. The bill also increases the 
penalties for selling a gun to a juvenile and creates a gun safety 
education program that includes parent-teacher organizations, local law 
enforcement and community organizations. This bill is similar to 
legislation President Bush signed into law as Governor of Texas. I 
support this bill and hope the Senate will act on it.
  I know my colleagues will join me in recognizing National ASK Day, 
and I urge them to support Senator Durbin's common sense gun safety 
legislation.

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