As a funeral director, Karen Hardy has provided services to a child whose life was cut short because another child got ahold of a gun.
The co-owner of the Andrews & Hardy Funeral Home didn’t want to speak more about the incident out of respect for the family’s privacy, but she said tragedies like that are “totally different” — even as someone who faces death as a regular part of her job.
“That's what makes it so devastating,” she said. “When you have children who don't even get to be teenagers. We just expect them to be able to live out their life expectancy without having a tragedy come into and invade their homes and their lives like that.”
She urges gun owners to safely store firearms to keep children and young people from facing life-altering or life-ending consequences.
“Along with owning a gun is a responsibility…of being safe with it,” she said. “And that's why I say don't wait until something happens. Be intentional.”
With more than 30 years of experience as a funeral director, Hardy said she first noticed an increase in the accidental shooting deaths of children and teens 10 or 15 years ago.
Guns are the leading cause of death among children in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. A recent law in Michigan might have helped reduce firearm-related deaths among children in the state.
Safe storage law
After the Oxford High School school shooting in 2021 when a teenager killed four fellow students with a gun his parents purchased, advocates called on the state Legislature to pass stricter gun storage laws.
“Adults created this problem for our kids, and it’s on us to solve it,” said Lauren Jasinski, a former Oxford teacher and a board member at End Gun Violence Michigan, at a press conference on Sunday alongside funeral directors and law enforcement officials.
In 2023, Michigan lawmakers passed a law that holds adults accountable when children access guns that aren't properly stored. Twenty-eight people have been charged under that law since then and it may have also deterred injuries and deaths, according to analysis by the advocacy organization, Everytown for Gun Safety.
In the ten years before the law passed, Everytown found that there were an average of 16 incidents in which children unintentionally fired guns. In 2025 — the first full year that the law was in effect — only 10 such incidents took place.
State health and law enforcement officials also began distributing information about safe gun storage and providing free gun locks as part of the law, distributing more than 60,000 since February 2025.
In April, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) launched a map that features 150 locations across Michigan where residents can pick up free gun locks.
“Safe firearm storage is one of the most effective ways to prevent tragedies such as unintentional shootings, youth access to firearms and suicide,” MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel said in a statement. “By expanding access to free gun locks and making it easier for people to find them in their communities, we are helping Michigan families take practical steps to protect themselves and those around them.”
