You never know what a child will say, and you never really know what they will do, especially when they find a gun.
But a new program called 'Aim for Safety' at Cook Children's Hospital is giving parents a chance to see for themselves what happens when their kids are left alone with hidden weapons.
The program was created by Dr. Daniel Guzman, an emergency room physician at Cook Children's who too often sees what can happen when kids find loaded weapons. They treat dozens of injuries every year which they believe can be prevented if guns are secured.
"Here in Texas, about one third of families do have guns in the home that are unsecured," Guzman said.
The program is not about the politics of guns. It's an experiment to educated families. They place three decommissioned firearms in a playroom that is equipped with hidden cameras. The guns are positioned in realistic scenarios, like a purse, backpack and box. Children are then allowed into the room and told to explore, with their parents watching the camera feed from another room.
More than a dozen families have participated in the program, and most of the time, Cook Children's said they see kids that would be putting themselves or others in danger if the gun had been real. That is true even for families that have stressed gun safety lessons at home.
"93% of the children that go through the program will find a gun, pick it up and manipulate the trigger," Guzman said.
WFAA was there on a recent evening as three families went through the lab. Even though the parents know the guns are safe, the anxiety is palpable as they watch their kids find a weapon.
The Porras family from Fort Worth keeps guns locked in a safe at home and they have taught gun safety. When their young children entered the lab, they were concerned about how their son might respond.
"He's nosy," Paul Porras said.
Eleanor Porras, 7, and her little brother James, 5, didn't discover the weapon until several minutes into the experiment. When James found the gun in a box, his eyes opened wide and he told his big sister. Quickly, she went and found an adult.
"Miss Amy, we looked in this box, and there's a gun in this box," Eleanor said on the hidden camera feed.
"They did what we wanted them to do," Paul Porras said.
But these families know that lessons about gun safety never stop, and Cook Children's hopes parents from different families will talk to each other about gun safety measures at home.
"It's something we need to address with our friends when they go to playdates or sleepovers, are there handguns or long guns accessible to the children?" Porras said.
Those are words that can save young lives, and Cook Children's hopes their experiment can help start the conversation.