The Great Smoky Mountains Study data reused to reveal if parents adjust their children's access to guns when they show symptoms of emotional or behavioral issues

Tong et al. studied whether parents modify their children’s access to unlocked firearms when their kids develop mental and behavioral problems. To do so, they conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal cohort data uniquely suited to examine this issue, collected in The Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS): Alcohol, Cannabis, Depression Disorders, North Carolina, 1992-2003, available from NAHDAP. The GSMS followed over 1,400 families who lived in 11 rural counties in the southeastern US, to understand how the parents responded to changes in their children’s psychological wellbeing. The study was particularly valuable to Tong et al. because it included repeated annual assessments of the parents about their children’s mental health symptoms, from age 9 to 16, and it asked questions that could be analyzed to indicate the parents’ patterns of providing their children access to guns throughout this time. Tong et al. found that about two-thirds of GSMS parents reported their child had in-home gun access or owned a gun at least once during childhood. Their main finding was that parents, in this US region with a strong gun culture, often were aware of and responsive to the safety risks posed by accessible guns when their children showed escalating emotional or behavioral issues like depression or defiance. However, this safety response was inconsistent. These parents were much less likely to prevent gun access in the first place, or to change that access when symptoms increased in younger children.

October 2, 2025