After several accidental shooting deaths and injuries, the DeLand Police Department is getting ready to release a video made by officers with a message authorities hope will keep guns out of the hands of children.
The agency is moving cautiously out of fear the message could get lost in the national debate over the right to bear arms.
"We have not glorified the gun, we have not demonized the gun," said Randel Henderson, the deputy chief of the DeLand Police Department. "I think that this is such a neutral educational awareness video that I think a reasonable person who watches the video can understand what we're trying to accomplish with it."
Leaders within the DeLand Police Department hope the video will bring an end to accidental shootings like the one that happened a little more than a week ago, when a 9-year-old found a gun inside the home and shot her 8-year-old brother in the head.
The boy continues to recover from the shooting, but several children were left inside the home alone when the shooting happened, police said.
That wasn't the first accidental shooting in the city, though. And Henderson said that's why the video was produced. It was funded by a grant from the Department of Justice.
The eight-minute-long video shows viewers how easy it is to fire a gun — even if it's fired unintentionally — and the damage it can cause.
"A gun is a tool with no mind of its own. It fires when it's told and hits what its pointed at," said Bill Ridgway, DeLand police chief, in the video.
Even a graphic on the video said, "Never carry a gun."
With such overt messages about not carrying guns, Henderson said he's aware the video may stir controversy regarding gun control — an issue he said is not the true reason the video was produced.
The agency hopes to play the video for Volusia County students, but no date has been set for the video to make an appearance in classrooms.