A 1-minute gun safety video helped preteen children be more careful around real guns – new research

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Brad Bushman, The Ohio State University and Sophie Kjaervik, The Ohio State University

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The big idea

Children who watched a 1-minute-long gun safety video were more cautious when they found a real handgun hidden in a drawer in our lab compared to children who watched a car safety video, according to our randomized clinical trial published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. We observed this difference even though children saw the gun safety video a week earlier at home and even after they had watched scenes from a violent movie in our lab.

We tested 226 children ages 8 to 12. By the flip of a coin, children watched either a gun safety video or car safety video alone at home. Both safety videos featured The Ohio State University Chief of Police in full uniform. Younger children tend to respect authority figures, especially those in uniform.

Then a week later, pairs of kids – who were friends or siblings, for example – came to our lab at Ohio State to participate in what we told them was a study about what children do for entertainment.

First, the child volunteers watched scenes from a...