Olympian joins local officials in pushing gun safety

Appearing alongside local shooting sports Olympic gold medalist Jamie Corkish, Kalispell Mayor Mark Johnson drew on his own gun experience to highlight the importance of firearm safety at a Project ChildSafe event in Kalispell Wednesday.

“For 40 years, I have shot competitively in some form or fashion,” Johnson told a handful of attendees at the Red Lion Hotel Kalispell. “I take their safety and their security as my personal obligation to protect my family and my neighbors.”

Sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Professional Outdoors Media Association, the event featured local law enforcement officials urging responsible gun ownership and announcing the availability of free firearms safety kits for local gun owners.

Corkish, a Kalispell resident who won the 2012 Olympic gold medal in the women’s 50-meter rifle three-position event, gave remarks that centered on personal responsibility as her motivation for keeping firearms under lock and key.

“It’s my responsibility,” she said. “It’s something that I commit to when I represent my country in this activity.”

Brian Heino, patrol commander with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office, explained how to use the safety kits’ cable gun locks, which loop through the gun’s action and into the magazine, preventing it from being loaded or fired.

The kits also include literature on gun safety and options for securing firearms in the home.

“Even though there is a lock on the gun, store it somewhere where people you don’t want to have access to the gun don’t have access to it,” he added at the end of the demonstration.

Bill Brassard, a communications director for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the free kits are intended to get more gun owners thinking about everyday gun safety.

“This is really to remind people that there are storage options beyond just the lock,” he said, adding that the program has to date distributed 37 million free gun locks.

Along with gun safety technology included in most newer firearms, he credited the organization’s program in part for a nationwide decrease in lethal gun accidents in recent years.

Statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm that trend, although accidental gun deaths made up less than 2 percent of over 33,000 gun deaths reported nationwide in 2014.

Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset said that even one preventable death is worth the investment.

“The bottom line is, when it comes to our children and the people in our homes, we want to prevent a loaded firearm from being accidentally found and played with,” Nasset said. “That is a tragedy waiting to happen, and it is one easily prevented if we try.”

Johnson added that despite the event’s focus on child safety, securing firearms can benefit the community in other ways.

“It also helps to prevent at-risk individuals and anyone legally prohibited from possessing a firearm from having access to them,” he said.

Residents can pick up free firearms safety kits from the Kalispell Police Department and the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office.