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REMARKS BY:  DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE: "'STOP 2' PROGRAM" PRESS CONFERENCE, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
DATE: JUNE 30, 1998

Thank you Sarah. I'm happy to join you today to support efforts like the "Stop 2" program.

Gun accidents in the home are a major public health concern -- no less than polio or polluted water. In the world of theater, they say if a gun appears in the first act, chances are it will go off in the third. There's a similar risk in a child's world. Because with a child's curious mind, a gun in the home can be a disaster waiting to happen.

Each day, fourteen children and adolescents die in gun-related suicides, homicides and unintentional injuries that destroy families and devastate communities. Fourteen children, every day, are killed by guns. A recent study by Centers for Disease Control concluded that we lead the industrialized world in rates of firearm-related deaths among children. And for every instance that a gun in a home is used against an intruder, there are 43 fatal shootings of family or friends through accidents, suicides or non-justifiable homicides.

We know that there are no simple solutions to firearm safety. But we do know we must treat this public health concern with public health solutions. Like any public health problem, firearm tragedies have reasons that can be understood, risk factors that can be identified and outcomes that can be controlled. We must focus on preventing violence and injury before it occurs.

And we must involve a variety of individuals to get the message out. That's why STOP 2's strategy of enlisting health care providers is a good one. Who better to be messengers of firearm safety? I think most health care providers would agree -- it's a far, far better thing to protect children from gunshot wounds than to fight to save their lives.

We must all pit our wits and our wills to the challenge. We all need to find new ways to keep the national spotlight focused on the public health problem of firearm injury. And we all need to get the message into every household and through to every parent --If you want to keep a gun in the house, the only way to keep it is unloaded and locked up. For your peace of mind. For the sake of your children. For the health of our nation.