A device designed by a college student could reduce shootings by kids

Type "child" and "accidental shooting" into any search engine and one horrific headline after another will appear.

2-year-old dies after shooting herself with family-owned gun

3-year-old girl kills 4-year-old sister in accidental shooting

8-year-old boy accidentally shoots himself in the face

Many people hear about those incidents when they happen in their communities, but Kayla Austin reads about them every time they occur somewhere in the country. The Howard University student receives an email alert each time another story is published about a child who grabbed a grown-up's gun and fired it at themselves or at someone else, and it's not unusual for her to receive multiple notifications a day.

"These accidental shootings are a lot more common than people think," she told me on a recent afternoon. "Firearm owners will put their guns under the bed or in drawers or on shelves, and they think that children don't know where they are. But kids and teens are curious. They know where everything is in the house."

They know to look in that box at the top of the closet. They know to open the nightstand drawer. They know to reach toward the back of that cabinet.

At 19, Austin is in many ways a typical college student. She is majoring in TV and film and minoring in political science, and she recently spent two weeks focused on final exams.

But the sophomore also spends her days working to get a device on the market that she believes will help save lives.

"I'll be in class and then have a marketing meeting, and then I'll go to class again and then have a product development meeting," she said. "But I wouldn't have it any other way."

The device she designed — and hopes to make available within the year through the My Gun's Been Moved website — is a smart pad that uses technology to detect when a gun is placed on it and when a gun is removed. If a child moves the gun, an alert is sent to the gun owner.

The device, of course, requires gun owners to care about keeping firearms out of the hands of children. But Austin believes plenty do. She also plans to raise awareness of the need for safe gun storage through a podcast and educational outreach.

"In the fight against gun violence, what I really want to do is add to the conversation what it looks like to be a safe gun owner," she said. She said she wants more people to talk about how they can make sure that "while protecting their homes, they protect their families and the people they love."

Few issues are more divisive in the nation than guns, and I have written plenty about the lasting ways gun violence hurts communities and individuals. But at the core of Austin's effort are two undeniable facts: People across the country aren't getting rid of their gun anytime soon, and too many children are grabbing those weapons undetected and hurting themselves or others. She describes the device as not only potentially preventing accidental shootings by children but also suicides and intentional shootings by them.

Earlier this month, this headline appeared in The Washington Post: "Mother charged in case of Va. 6-year-old who shot teacher at school."

The 6-year-old's mother, Deja Taylor, who owned the gun, was charged with one felony count of child neglect and one misdemeanor count of recklessly storing a firearm so a child could gain access to it.

There is no way to know whether the family would have used Austin's device if it had been available, and if they had, whether that gun could have been retrieved in time to stop that child from sending a bullet into his teacher's hand and chest. But in talking about that case with Austin, she brought up an interesting point. She said she learned through research that many people don't realize they can face charges for not storing their firearms properly. (I mentioned in a previous column how safe storage and child-access prevention laws vary between states and how Virginia has some of the weaker ones).

"When you're protecting your kid by storing your firearm safely, you're also protecting yourself," Austin said.

Austin was 12 when she came up with the idea for the device.

She was participating in a program that asked her to think of a problem in her community and come up with a solution. She looked around her Chicago-area suburb and decided not enough was being done to address shootings among children.

She then learned that she had a personal connection to the issue. A close family friend she calls her aunt showed her the scars on her hand and told her how she got them.

Jackie Clark was 4 when she and her sister climbed into their grandfather's truck and found a gun tucked in the middle console. Clark picked it up, held it under her arm to support its weight and pulled the trigger. A bullet tore through her left hand.

Clark said whenever she sees headlines about children shooting themselves or others accidentally, she thinks about how differently that day could have ended for her family.

"I just thank God that I didn't kill myself, and I thank God that I didn't kill my sister," she said. "There's so many children and parents, they just have so much guilt for the rest of their lives — should've, would've, could've."

Austin described Clark's story and her parents' encouragement as reasons that pushed her to go further with her project. At 13, she started the patent process, and in recent years, she has worked on raising funds. Last year, she won $25,000 through singer and producer Pharrell Williams's Black Ambition Prize.

"When I'm out of town, I know when someone is ringing my doorbell," Clark said. "If we know if people are ringing our doorbells, we should know if someone picks up our gun. I just pray she can bring this to market because I know it's going to save lives. I just know it's going to save somebody's child."