Voting, protecting children from guns

'One thing we know will make a difference and that many can agree on'

Early Bird readers, hello again. Newcomers, welcome! If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up here to receive it every two weeks, and join our conversation on issues facing North Carolina’s young children and those who support them. If you’re already a subscriber, please help us reach more people by sharing this with your friends and co-workers interested in early childhood education.

Election Day is this Tuesday. Polls open at 6:30 a.m. and remain open until 7:30 p.m. Find your designated voting location here, and the basics of what you need to know here. The results of the election will shape policies that affect the critical early years of children’s lives.

In case you missed it, I wrote about how candidates running for state and federal office responded to questions on education challenges — including early care and education.

What 2022 candidates have to say about early childhood and K-12 education

As we anticipate our state’s post-election reality, EdNC is starting to cover issues that will pop up during the state legislature’s long session, which starts in January.

Last week, the Child Fatality Task Force recommended the legislature fund a firearm safety initiative focused on educating adults on the importance of safe storage. Though gun violence has been particularly pressing on the minds of North Carolinians lately, the group has supported this recommendation every year since 2018 in light of increased firearm related deaths and troubling youth suicide increases. The effort made it into legislation last year that passed the House but wasn’t taken up by the Senate.

Firearm-related deaths in children younger than 17 have nearly doubled since 2019. More than 40% of adults in North Carolina have a firearm in or around the home, and more than half of loaded guns are also unlocked, said Kella Hatcher, executive director of the task force.

Task force on child fatality requests legislative funds for gun safety effort: ‘Adults need to lock up those firearms’

This is an issue that tragically affects the youngest children too. Just last month, a 2-year-old in Benson died from a gunshot wound while playing with a loaded handgun.

Detectives said the toddler “climbed into his dad’s pickup truck through an open door, and was playing with a loaded handgun that was inside the vehicle,” CBS17 reported.

“Although it’s going to take multiple prevention strategies to really make a difference here, one thing we know will make a difference and that many can agree on, and that this task force has agreed on repeatedly, is getting gun owners to safely store their guns,” Hatcher said.

We’ll be following this issue and many others affecting young children and their learning in the coming months. Stay in touch with your questions and ideas. As always, thank you for reading.