Time to pull the trigger on dangerous dressers

I guess there’s nothing wrong with looking out for our kids.

I know, those of us who survived asphalt playgrounds, helmet-free bike rides and belly flops off the high dive oft times look askance at the childhood bubble-wrap fostered by an ever-more intrusive nanny state. As a kid who grew up dodging bottle rockets and snacking on sugar-soaked, fat-drenched, mother-approved goodies, I’ve done my share of tongue clucking and head shaking as bit by bit the no-funski’s have turned childhood into an over-supervised padded-playpen, devoid of danger, adventure and fun.

So I suppose I’d be expected to be a bit skeptical to learn Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is co-sponsoring the STURDY Act – the ungainly acronym for Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth. The act calls for tougher testing standards for bedroom furniture to protect toddlers attempting to use open drawers as stepladders to see what’s on top from having the whole dang dresser topple over and squash them like bugs.

But then, who wants to stand up for kids getting killed? Not me. I don’t know what sort of design or regulation is going to protect our offspring from the combined ravages of angular physics, gravity and generalized misfortune, but if such a thing is possible, it’s not unreasonable to think it ought to be implemented. According to a federal Consumer Product Safety Commission cited by Consumer Reports, “between 2000 and 2019, 451 children were killed when a piece of furniture or a television fell onto them. That means each month, one to two children die from a tip-over incident. From 2017 through 2019, 11,300 children per year, on average, were treated in hospital emergency rooms for tip-over-related injuries.”

If it takes a federal law to keep two dozen kids a year from getting squished, who’s gonna be against it?

It sorta reminds me of lawn darts… Remember those? Banned since 1988, they’re pretty much reincarnated medieval battle weapons intended to be tossed at targets marked out in suburban backyards … sort of an edgier version of cornhole. The feds offered this justification for putting the kibosh on this source of family fun, “Three children — ages 4, 7, and 13 — are known to have died in lawn dart-related incidents. An estimated 670 lawn dart injuries are treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms. Three quarters of the injured are under 15 years old. The types of lawn darts associated with the three deaths will be banned by the CPSC action.”

And don’t get me going on car seats. I remember the kiddie seat my loving parents bought for me. It hooked over the front seat of our 1952 Studebaker between Mom and Dad to give me an unobstructed view out the windshield, all the better to use the red plastic steering wheel and gearshift attached to a sturdy steel mount – perfectly designed to send me on a high speed trajectory over the hood ornament should Dad hit the brakes, hit a tree or be involved in an impromptu automotive venison harvest. The only issue in question was whether my punkin-head would go all the way through the windshield and how efficiently that knife-steel steering wheel mount would gut me out as I sailed across it. Yeah, contemporary kid restraints are a pain, but the laws that make us use ‘em have cut the number of kids killed in car crashes by almost half. Most folks would say that’s a pretty good return on our investment … and worth the trouble.

Yeah, most folks would agree that laws that keep kids from being squished, skewered or eviscerated are a good thing. It’s really hard to imagine politicians – or anybody for that matter – arguing for knowingly putting kids in harm’s way, to be fighting tooth and nail against anything that would keep kids from getting killed and maimed -- for whatever reason.

Then maybe somebody can explain to me why we have nine children and teens killed by gunfire every day and five times that many wounded – and our politicians seem to be fine with that? They’re ready to take on tippy dressers and lawn darts, but Smith & Wesson gets a pass.

I guess IKEA is just no match for the NRA…