Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Talkback Live

What Should Your Kids Know About Guns?

Aired June 05, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY NEWBORN: I thought it was one of those pretend guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: But the gun Rudy Newborn found was real, and he shot himself in the eye.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLIE NEWBORN, RUDY'S MOTHER: He could not tell the difference between a gun and a toy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Would your child? Researchers left groups of boys aged 8 through 12 alone in a room where a real gun and toy guns had been concealed in drawers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. HAROLD SIMON, CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE OF ATLANTA: The families that were surveyed thought that most children in this age group would be able to recognize the difference between a toy gun and a real gun and would avoid touching them or playing with them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Even if they knew the difference, the real gun drew the boys' attention. They played with it, and in some cases, pulled the trigger. Few left the room to get an adult. What are you teaching your children about guns, and is it working?

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. Well, no matter what you tell them about firearms, chances are boys will still be fascinated, and if given the chance, will pull the trigger. That seems to be the message of a recent study of boys and guns.

Our first guest today, Dr. Mirna Farah, is co-author of the study called, "Seeing is Believing: What Do Boys Do When They Find a Real Gun?" She is assistant professor of pediatric and emergency medicine at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.

Thanks very much for joining us.

DR. MIRNA FARAH, STUDY CO-AUTHOR: Thank you.

BATTISTA: OK, so you took 64 boys ranging in age from 8 to 12 and you broke them into groups. Then how did you set the study up?

FARAH: In each group we had two to three boys, and we placed them in a room where there was a bed and some drawers and cabinets. And we had put a couple of toy guns and one real gun in the drawers. And we watched the kids for about 15 minutes through a one-way mirror from a different room. The health care professional watched the kids with their parents.

BATTISTA: And how many kids picked up or fired this gun?

FARAH: Three-quarters of the kids found the gun. And of those who found the gun, three-quarters of them played with it, half of them pulled the trigger with enough force to fire the gun.

BATTISTA: And it didn't seem to make any difference whether it was a toy gun or real gun, right? They didn't know the difference?

FARAH: That's right. Actually, nearly half of the kids didn't even know that it was a real gun. They couldn't tell the difference.

BATTISTA: And what did the kids in the study know about guns in general?

FARAH: The parents were surveyed before the study and were asked if the children were taught some gun safety measures prior to the study. And the majority of kids were actually taught to steer clear from guns. So 90 percent of them were taught to stay away from guns, but indeed what they did is played with it instead.

BATTISTA: And were most of the parents gun owners, or how did that break down?

FARAH: Actually, a third of the parents from that study were gun owners.

BATTISTA: And were these kids from all socioeconomic levels as well?

FARAH: Yes, yes, they were from suburban and urban areas, from high socioeconomic backgrounds and from more poorer neighborhoods.

BATTISTA: And only one of them, I think, actually went to an adult or, you know, one group of them decided not to touch a gun and to tell an adult about it. Only one?

FARAH: Right. They came out of the room and they told the doctors and their parents that there was a gun in the room.

BATTISTA: So what conclusions did you draw from this study?

FARAH: That children, if they find a gun, will likely play with it, and half of them will pull the trigger. So the safest thing to do is to keep guns away from areas where children live and play.

BATTISTA: There were some criticisms of this study particularly by the NRA. They, first of all, thought the size of this study was fairly insignificant, that it was only 64 boys.

FARAH: Well the sample size was adequate enough to show that three-quarters of children will play with the gun and half of them will pull the trigger. So statistically speaking, that was an adequate sample. We are actually doing a larger study looking at children who come from different backgrounds, from inner cities, suburban areas, from homes where there are guns, boys and girls. And for those, we will need larger samples to study the differences. But for this particular study, the sample size was very adequate.

BATTISTA: The also criticized the environment of this study in the sense that because the boys new this was taking place in a hospital, they may have been led to believe that these guns were safe guns.

FARAH: Yeah, in fact, the study took place in a clinic. And the room where the children were watched looked more like a bedroom with a bed and cabinets and so forth. And we actually would expect kids to explore less that environment and to behave better. But, in fact, they all tore the place apart, and three-quarters of them found the gun and played with it.

BATTISTA: Were you able to draw or did you draw any conclusions about the connection between education and guns?

FARAH: Yes. Actually, we found that really educating kids to stay away from guns is not reliable, and that truly to prevent firearm injuries, we need to make sure that guns are not accessible to children. And the safest thing to do is to keep guns away from homes since we can't rely on kids to stay away from guns.

BATTISTA: I have a question or comment from David in our audience.

DAVID: Yes, I think she hit the nail on the head. Just teaching our kids to stay away from guns will not do anything. What we need to do is to teach our kids, educate them on how to handle guns, on the safety features of guns, and to -- it's my responsibility as a parent to teach my kids gun safety and gun education. And that's a key factor that I think is dwindling from American society. I don't think we're educating our kids in our homes about gun safety. All we're saying is don't play with guns, and we're creating this entire aura around guns as, "Well, I can't play with that, so I want to play with it now." And it's my responsibility and I need to take my -- I need to take responsibility for my actions and to make sure my kids are educated in that regard.

BATTISTA: Dr. Farah, were any of the kids in this study, particularly those whose parents were gun owners, had any of them been through extensive education like that?

FARAH: We really didn't study the extent of the education in this particular study, but we are looking in future studies at particular programs that teach children gun safety and to see if they are effective. As far as we know right now is that, yes, it would make sense to educate children about gun safety, but we don't know if children will actually listen and go by our education.

BATTISTA: OK, we're going to take a break at this time.

Dr. Farah, thank you very much for joining us today. Appreciate your time.

FARAH: Thank you.

BATTISTA: When we come back: Do you think school should be teaching your children about gun safety? That's the question today. We'll talk about that a little bit later on.

But first, take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at cnn.com/talkback. And while there, you can check my daily note, drop us an e-mail, and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: E-mails. Owen in California says: "A child's natural curiosity and the lure of the forbidden easily combines to override our best educational efforts. There is no substitute for vigilance and parental involvement."

Ron in Tennessee says: "As soon as my children were old enough, I took them to the firing range or hunting with me. The safety of my children was mine and mine alone. Parents should familiarize children with where the no-nos are stored and make them realize that guns of any kind are off limits unless with the parents."

Joining us now are Penni Bacheler, Pennsylvania spokeswoman for the Second Amendment Sisters, and Jon Cowan, president of Americans for Gun Safety.

Welcome to both of you.

PENNI BACHELER, SECOND AMENDMENT SISTERS: Thank you.

JONATHAN COWAN, AMERICANS FOR GUN SAFETY: Thank you.

BATTISTA: Penni, let me start with you. First of all, do you have problems wit this study?

BACHELER: Well, as I understand it, there's little or no education as part of this study. This study appears to do very little education before throwing the children into that situation.

BATTISTA: Well, as I understand it, I think she said, what, half the kids had received education at home but not touching guns, that you should tell an adult, this sort of thing. Most of them just ignored that once they got in a room with a gun.

BACHELER: Right. I consider it sort of like a hot stove. You can't tell a child just once not to touch a hot stove. You can even be standing there and the child could reach for the hot stove, and you'd have to say, "Don't touch it," again. Same thing with running into the street. You can't tell a child that just once. You have to tell the child over and over and over again. It's repetition that makes information stick.

BATTISTA: Do you have children?

BACHELER: Yes, I have three children.

BATTISTA: And you're a gun owner. So how did you teach your children about guns?

BACHELER: We've been reading books about guns. And my oldest we've taken to the range. And we do keep our guns locked up because they're ages 6, 4 and 3. So they're very little.

BATTISTA: So your 6-year-old is learning to shoot already?

BACHELER: Yes.

BATTISTA: OK.

Jon, do we need do you think better gun control in this country or better parenting?

COWAN: It's a great question, Bobbie. Look, this study has a very common sense conclusion, which is: You can't trust kids to be safe with guns. It's not an either/or choice. We should be teaching children about guns so they know not to touch them, so they know that if they do touch them with an adult around, how to handle them properly. But responsibility for protecting our kids with guns does not fall on the kids, it falls on adults: parents, teachers, anybody who has a gun in their house.

BACHELER: I would agree with that.

COWAN: If we want to solve this problem -- and it's a fairly serious problem -- hundreds of kids are killed and thousands are injured every year accidentally. If we want to solve the problem, we have to do two things. First, adults who choose to have a gun in the house -- and that's a personal and totally valid choice -- need to make sure those guns are properly stored where children cannot get access to them -- your children or other children.

And secondly, as a country, we need to make sure we are both enforcing the laws on the books and have tougher laws on the books that make it harder for kids and criminals to get access to guns.

BACHELER: May I respectfully disagree?

BATTISTA: Yes, Penni, go right ahead.

BACHELER: Criminals don't obey laws. They don't now and they still won't. The children that are being shot by accident are living in crack homes, are living in basically homes with people who already don't obey several laws.

COWAN: Well, actually, Penni, that's not true. For example, when I was coming over here today, I went and did a quick search on the Internet, and there was an article about a child in Atlanta where this show is coming out of in one of your counties. A 5-year-old boy named Leslie, who sometime in the last week was over at his aunt and uncle's house, went into their bedroom. They thought he was playing with Nintendo. He found a loaded, unlocked handgun in a dresser drawer, pulled it out, shot himself in the head, and he's now critically wounded. Again, those parents were good parents, they -- that aunt and uncle. But they unfortunately made the mistake of not making sure that gun was inaccessible to their child. You can't just write this off to people living in certain neighborhoods.

BACHELER: We agree.

COWAN: The problem of guns is not one that should pit gun owners against non-gun owners. The problem is a very simple one. We have gun rights in this country, but we should also have gun responsibility from everyone who chooses to own a gun and everyone who's concerned about gun safety laws.

BACHELER: Right, we agree on responsibility. The only point that we disagree on is whether or not there should be a law, because the law will only punish the law abiding citizens. For example, in Merced County, California, there was recently a pitchfork murder. The three children were home alone. The 14-year-old was in charge, and she had two younger siblings. She is competent with a gun. She's been trained and educated and been taken to the range on multiple occasions.

Her -- in the house, the criminal cut the phone lines and came in -- came -- got a pitchfork from the barn, came in and started pitchforking the kids. She tried to call 911. The phone line was dead. She tried to get access to the gun safe, but according to California's laws, guns must be stored in a way that children under 18 cannot access them. She did not have the combination to the safe. She tried to escape, the killer grabbed her. Her wounded sibling held on to his leg while he was pitchforking the sibling so that the 14- year-old could get away next door and get the neighbors. And the neighbors came back. By then, he was gone.

COWAN: Penni, you can drag out a lot of stories like that. These are individual choices up to individual parents. If a parent...

BACHELER: The parents were following the law.

COWAN: If the parent hearing the story I told about the child, Leslie, in Atlanta says, "You know what? I want to make sure I lock up my gun so my kid can't get it."

BACHELER: Yes.

COWAN: Or a parent hearing your story says, "You know what? I want to make sure my kids have easy access to guns no matter what age they are in case somebody comes in the house... BACHELER: Oh, no, no, certainly not. She was 14 years old. She was competent with a gun. She was a good shot.

COWAN: ... with a pitchfork, that's their choice."

BATTISTA: If there isn't a law.

BACHELER: She was well educated.

BATTISTA: If there isn't a law about keeping your guns secured, because I really can't imagine having a household with children in it and having guns in it that are not heavily secured.

COWAN: Well, you know, Bobbie, millions and millions of families in this country do say in survey after survey that they do have a gun in the house, and they don't keep that gun loaded -- locked even though they actually had kids there. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible. We should be clear about that.

BATTISTA: Then who -- I was going to say who holds them responsible when something happens?

BACHELER: What you're trying to legislate is you're trying to legislate people being responsible, and that's not going to work. What you're finding...

COWAN: Well, that's not true, actually, Penni. That's not true, Penni and you know that that's not true.

BACHELER: ... is that you're making a law that's going to cost the people who are responsible, but it's going to do nothing about the people who are irresponsible.

COWAN: So you would repeal, for example, laws that make it illegal for somebody to drive drunk because you're legislating responsibility.

BACHELER: I'm sorry, I don't see the connection. What I'm saying is that a law...

COWAN: Well, it's an obvious connection. Look in Georgia where this happened with this child...

BACHELER: You cannot make a law that says parents should be responsible. People who obey that law are always responsible.

COWAN: Look, where this...

BATTISTA: OK, let's look at it this way. Let's look at it this way. If my child, for example -- let's say they go -- my child goes over to Penni's house, OK, and my child is accidentally killed in a gun accident there despite the fact that your child's been educated and your gun was fairly secure.

BACHELER: No, my guns are locked.

BATTISTA: Well, what if it isn't locked, like a lot of parents don't do that? So who's responsible for the death of my child?

COWAN: Look, Bobbie, I believe that it's a sad state in the country that we should have to ask that question. People who own guns should take responsibility and lock them up. But, for example in Georgia where this happened with this small child, there's a law in Georgia that says if you are negligent in storing your gun and a child gets access to it, you are responsible for that. I think that's reasonable. Again, you have to look at it...

BACHELER: There's already criminal negligence. You can't -- there's no point in adding more laws to criminal negligence.

COWAN: Well, so you're agreeing then, Penni, that we should have laws for criminal negligence if you're not responsible with your gun.

BACHELER: Right, there is criminal negligence. But what I'm telling you is that your laws will not protect all children.

COWAN: So if you don't properly...

BATTISTA: Well...

COWAN: Again, Penni, what you're skirting is you want gun rights but you don't want gun responsibility.

BACHELER: No, I want gun responsibility.

BATTISTA: Is there a law that holds those parents responsible if my son is killed?

BACHELER: No, Penni, in Georgia, if you didn't have the law that's in place now, the law that Penni's opposed to, there would be no law to hold those parents responsible.

BACHELER: What I'm telling you is that the people who don't obey the law now won't obey a new law later. People who don't secure their guns now will not secure their guns after the law. It's like seat belts.

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: I'm sorry, you guys, I've got to take a quick break here. I'm sorry. Pushing it. And we'll take a break and we'll come back to the audience and continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Maryland governor Parris Glendening vetoed a plan to make his state schools the first to make gun safety education part of the curriculum. The governor was unhappy with the compromise reached between gun rights groups and gun control advocates which would have allowed students under some circumstances to visit firing ranges and handle guns.

BATTISTA: We're back. This is a short segment, so let me just do some interactive stuff, and I'll start with the audience. Shawn, go ahead.

SHAWN: Well, I think that the fundamental aspect of this is parental responsibility. You have to wait three days to buy a handgun but you don't have to wait three days to have a child. The laws that we enact are after the fact, after something terrible has happened. We have to take responsibility as parents, and we have to know the maturity levels of our children before we allow them to come in contact or even bring a gun into the house in an unsafe situation. It falls down to mom and dad.

BATTISTA: And back here to Sheryl (ph).

SHERYL (PH): We seem to be very focused on the parent's responsibility to teach their children about guns and how to use guns and what's safe about guns. How about the parents' responsibility and society's responsibility in general about teaching our children about violence, and that shooting somebody is a bad thing. We need to contextualize violence for them so that they understand that when you shoot somebody they die, and that this is unacceptable.

(APPLAUSE)

BATTISTA: Some e-mails here, Clark in Alberta, Canada says: "Guns and kids don't mix. It is time for the NRA and parents to grow up and realize that the only safe guns are the ones that are never manufactured."

Chris in New York says: "Thank God for the Second Amendment. It makes all of our other amendments protected, but we should teach respect for firearms at a young age."

Annette is on the phone from Massachusetts. Go ahead.

CALLER: Hi.

BATTISTA: Hi.

CALLER: Bobbie?

BATTISTA: Yeah, go ahead.

CALLER: Yes, I'm calling from Massachusetts. Just a quick comment, going back to our frontier days and the Waltons and so forth, I think every household had some sort of a firearm behind the door, for Dad to go hunting or for self-defense against Indians or whatever. The children, I don't think there were any cases ever reported of a child shooting itself, him or herself, in those days because that was Daddy's gun, it was for a certain purpose -- any more than our children today would be playing, running around the kitchen with a carving knife at 7, 8, 5 years old because they've been taught by the parents -- or getting into Daddy's car. They get onto their own little tricycle or pretend motorcycle, but they're not going to hop on Daddy's car or Mommy's car and go driving off down the street. It's a matter, basically, of education.

BATTISTA: Yes, although I'm not sure we're living in the same world today that we were, you know, 30 years ago or so.

Go ahead, Jeff.

JEFF: I just had a comment that, you know, trying to keep this in perspective, one death from guns is too many, of course. But when you look at it in the perspective of how many deaths occur from teenage suicides, how many deaths are occurring from drug use and other things, I mean, we're not having a show on those other topics right now. And that's really a much larger issue, in my opinion, than these few children that are unfortunately getting a hold of guns and taking their lives, or taking other children's lives.

BATTISTA: All right. We'll take another quick break and return to our guests in just a moment. And we'll also tackle the issue of whether students should learn about guns and gun safety at school. You might be interested to hear what our next guest wants schools to teach children about guns. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Penni and John, I want to ask you a little bit more about educating children. I know the NRA has specific programs that they use for educating children. But how do we know that those programs work? And just as a follow-up question, Penni. If you're a non-gun owner and you're not comfortable with them, then how do you educate your children?

BACHELER: If you're a non-gun owner it's especially important to educate your children because, again, you can't prevent your children from coming in contact with guns from other sources. Here in Philadelphia we had a criminal ditch a gun under a car and a 7-year- old child found the gun, picked it up and shot his 7-year-old friend. Safe storage laws would not have affected that. Only education would have affected that. If the child knew that that was a gun that would kill somebody, then tragedy might have been averted.

COWAN: Penni's right, and a number of your callers and audience members are right. Gun safety begins with individual personal responsibility, and part of that is teaching our kids what a gun is, to make sure they understand that it's not like it is in movies. It can be very deadly. And they need to treat guns responsibly. But it's important to remember that gun safety is not about what we teach our kids. Gun safety is about the parents and the adults who own the guns, making sure kids cannot get unsupervised access.

BACHELER: And how are you going to prevent criminals from throwing guns in allies, under cars, into snow banks -- how are you going to prevent that with a law?

COWAN: Right. So, for example, we...

BACHELER: We agree that it has to be at the child. You have to teach the child to be responsible.

COWAN: Right. now in movie theaters across the country we have a movie trailer running starring Senator John McCain that has a very simple message about gun safety. It notes that there are tens of thousands of kids who are bringing guns to school every year -- and those are the most conservative numbers out there -- and says, No. 1, if you're a parent, make sure you're locking up your gun. And if you're a kid and you know someone who's got a gun who shouldn't have it who's going to use a gun against someone else, make sure you tell that to an adult.

We -- again, in this country we have gun rights, but there's a lot more we could do to be responsible about guns as well, starting with the individuals who own them.

BATTISTA: And I think this is where parents can start getting confused, because, you know, you say if you're not a gun owner, you're not comfortable with guns, you have an even greater responsibility to educate your kids. This all turns -- this, you know, educating your kids is subjective. We don't know that all kids are getting the same facts, are getting the same education.

COWAN: I think that's right, Bobbie. We can't -- look, it's a cop-out to rely on training our kids. You should teach your kids it's a deadly weapon and they should know not to touch it, and if they are touching it, it should only be with a supervising adult around. But we can't take the easy route out. This is about adults, adults who have a gun, being responsible that that gun is in their possession. It's not unlocked when kids are around and they make sure it never falls into the wrong person's hands.

BATTISTA: Penni, should it be taught in the schools? Should the schools be helping out with this or is that another burden?

BACHELER: I think it should be an individual parent's choice, same as sex education. It should be an individual parent's choice. What I was going to say was that the safe storage laws have already proved to be a problem. In 15 states that have enacted safe storage laws, they've seen no statistical change in the number of accidents. But they have seen a 9 percent increase in rapes, a 9.9 percent increase in robberies, a 5.6 percent increase in burglaries, which means 9,000 extra rapes, 23,000 extra robberies and 25,000 extra burglaries...

COWAN: Well, look again, I would really...

BACHELER: ... that wouldn't have happened if the laws had not been in place.

COWAN: I would really -- I would really caution people listening to Penni today. She is drawing a correlation there that obviously doesn't fit. Just because you have child access storage laws in a state, and gun crime goes up doesn't mean they are related.

But here is the more important point, which is...

BACHELER: They are related...

(CROSSTALK) COWAN: ... let me finish. Every possible solution that one might put on the table Penni is going to be opposed to, and that is basically saying there is nothing in America that we can do about 30,000 Americans a year who are getting killed with guns and 60,000 who are getting injured.

BACHELER: I think you have misrepresented me.

(CROSSTALK)

BACHELER: Education is important on a personal level.

COWAN: We don't need to throw up our hands...

BACHELER: Education is important on a personal level.

COWAN: ... let me finish, Penni. We don't need to throw up our hands. Again, what Penni wants is gun rights but not gun responsibilities.

BACHELER: You are wrong.

(CROSSTALK)

BACHELER: ... individual responsibility.

COWAN: Good, I'm glad we agree on that. You need responsibility from individual parents, but we also need responsible laws as a country. Look...

BACHELER: No. Laws...

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: Hold on -- hold on, let me -- I have got to go to a break here in just a minute, you guys. Let me get to the audience quickly. Steve, go ahead.

STEVE: I think one of the problems is we are asking our school system to do too much. First of all, we have -- we're teaching our kids sex education, now gun control, you know, alcohol or drug use or whatever.

I think it's time that parents started parenting their own children, and this is an issue that doesn't have to become a school issue or a social issue, this is an issue -- gun control -- that can be controlled at home, and don't ask our schools to do this. Ask our schools to do what they are meant to do, teach our kids English, science, math, and you know, the stuff that we are actually funding them to do.

BACHELER: You are absolutely right. Asking the schools to teach all this is a cop-out. The parents are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the lives of their children, the lives and the safety of their children. BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break here. We will talk to a New York state senator about teaching about guns in school. We will be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Between 1985 and 1994, the risk of dying from a firearm injury has more than doubled for 15-to-19-year-olds. In 1995, one in 12 students reported carrying a firearm for fighting or self- defense at least once in the previous 30 days.

More e-mails. I have got so many, I'm trying to get to as many as I can here. This is always a volatile subject. Jenny in Florida says: "While growing up, my dad kept his gun collection in my bedroom, all loaded. I never touched them, and neither did my siblings. We were just taught you don't touch things that are not yours. So, what is different about kids today?"

Then Don says: "Parents who choose to own a gun are making a choice that their children will eventually have access to it, and someday their children will perhaps be injured by a gun."

Joining us now on the phone is Eric Schneiderman, a Democratic New York state senator. He is sponsoring a bill called the Gun Violence Prevention Act.

Senator, thank you for joining us. What you are proposing exactly?

SEN. ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN (D), NEW YORK: Well, the Gun Violence Prevention Act would require -- if it's really response to an NRA bill to place the Eddie Eagle curriculum in schools throughout New York state, and this would provide funding to develop alternative curricula and provide resources to school districts on a voluntary basis that do want to teach about gun violence and gun safety.

BATTISTA: So, are you saying that the Eddie Eagle, which is the education program sponsored by the NRA, is currently in the schools there?

SCHNEIDERMAN: No, and I was fascinated to hear the statement that the NRA or its supporters believe that this should be a parental matter and not in schools, since in New York and 20 other states the NRA has attempted to pass laws, as they did in New York and we defeated them, requiring schools that want to teach about gun safety to use the Eddie Eagle curricula.

So, this is a bill that provides a much broader range of options for school districts, and there are other programs out there that many of us believe are far more effective than the Eddie Eagle program.

BATTISTA: What don't you like about the Eddie Eagle program?

SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, two things. One, it doesn't work, and the only -- there is very little evidence -- there is no evidence supporting the proposition that it does work, and to extent we have any examination of it, as with the pediatrics study and the North Carolina School of Medicine study and the investigation that was done by "20/20" in 1999.

The evidence is that it doesn't work. It has no effect, and in fact, and I am saying this as a...

BACHELER: The study was very flawed, by the way, they only showed it once.

SCHNEIDERMAN: ... I'm saying this as a father of an 8-year-old. In fact, the Eddie Eagle curriculum, like other NRA material for children that have been criticized in other studies -- such as their coloring books -- actually portray guns as very cool objects that adults like a lot and can use, but that are off limits to children. It doesn't ever show violence, death, injuries, because the NRA is not going to talk about that aspect of guns.

And while I think it's good to tell kids not to touch, the actual underlying images and messages in the Eddie Eagle program are things like beautiful grandmother with a snowy bun on her head caressing her shotgun after Eddie Eagle comes in and tells the kids not to touch it. The message that this is a cool, adult thing that they shouldn't have access to doesn't work with my 8-year-old, doesn't work with the kids I know. I don't think it works with other kids.

COWAN: Look, I -- look, state senators should be complimented for this. I mean, if we are going to try to provide some kind of education for children about guns and gun access and gun safety, we need to first take a serious look at what is out there and really test it, and figure out whether it works.

Secondly, if it does work or could be made to work -- doesn't work or could be made to work better, we should develop programs to do that. But -- and this is important -- we should not pretend that the burden of protecting our children falls on our children. The burden for protecting our children falls on individual gun owners, and many -- most gun owners make the responsible choice to properly store their weapon, but the who don't are putting their own kids and other people's kids at risk, and that's what we should be focused on.

SCHNEIDERMAN: I don't disagree with that. I'm also the sponsor of a child access prevention law, which would require gun owners to safely store their weapons. And I think that the two, education goes together with the laws to require responsibility and handling of guns.

COWAN: Absolutely.

BATTISTA: Penni, a lot of people might make the comparison that the Eddie Eagle Program is a little bit like Joe Camel. I know that comparison's been made. Do you think that's fair?

BACHELER: I don't think that's fair. The Eddie Eagle Program does use a song to teach kids stop, don't touch, leave the area, tell an adult. My preschool, for example, anything they want to teach the kids, they will teach them as a song. And then they repeat the song every day, and then it sticks. BATTISTA: But why would that teach kids to stay away from guns, unless they know the damage that a gun can do? I mean, wouldn't that work even better?

BACHELER: Not necessarily. The kids see guns going off on television every day. They are kind of numbed to it.

COWAN: It's quite a bit different. For example, and it's not a direct parallel, but it's close enough. When I was a kid in school, there was a movie we were all shown called "Red Asphalt," and that movie -- we were shown when we were pretty young. And it was to teach us that driving drunk had serious consequences.

And it was a fairly graphic movie, it was fairly disturbing -- I'm not sure you had to have a parental consent form to see it or not -- but it drove home the message that irresponsible driving had serious real-life consequences.

If we are going to, either out of schools or in schools, teach our kids about responsible gun measures and gun safety, we have to make sure -- and that is why I think the senator is doing exactly the right thing -- we have to make sure that we really know what we are teaching them works. And it gets through to them. And it is going to have an impact. And even once we do that, we still can't say it's up to the kid. It's still up to individual adults. Gun rights come with gun responsibility.

BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break. We will be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: All right. We are back. Barbara is on the phone from Florida, go ahead.

CALLER: Yes, I'm a former law enforcement officer. I would like to just add a couple things: one, government should not be involved in mandating or legislating behavior of children, but rather, I think we really need to focus on the parent teaching responsibility and accountability in the home.

Further, I don't believe, absolutely disagree, that schools should be the place. We have had DARE programs that have been a failure. We have expected schools to try to change behavior. However, that is never shown or demonstrated that it's been the answer.

BATTISTA: That I think will have to be our last word today, because we are out of time. But we thank all of our guests today: Jonathan Cowan, Penni Bacheler, Senator Eric Schneiderman, thank you all very much for joining us. We will see you again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern for more TALKBACK LIVE.

There's a quick look at the poll as we go. We will see you tomorrow.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com