How Young/Old To Start Shooting ?

D

Dark Avenger

New member
My wife is uncertain about letting our son know that we have firearms and use the same. She is concerned with both the safety issues as well as the possibility of our son being shunned by kids who have anti's for parents.

I want my son to have the same positive experiences I had with relatives and Boy Scouts, but I don't want to have him spouting off about guns at every possible opportunity (like his dad). :D

I am soliciting TFLers for information for information about their experiences with raising children safely around firearms. This isn't pressing as our son is only 9 months, but I am interested in hearing your opinions.

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"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seeknot your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
 
I wish I would of had parents that would of even considered that option for me. I am now 19 years old. I have started shooting like 6 months ago. Before that my mother would of never even let me look at a firearm. I feel that into days time. If a kid is raised to respect a firearm from day one. He or She will not have a problem with it. And from the day he is old enough to handle one. He will be taught not to point one at people. He will never have a problem. I feel alot of the shootings is caused by parents that didnt want there kids to know what guns are or what they can do. If you start now, By the time he or she is my age. They would know, Hey this gun is for certain purposes only. But you know you can teach them at levels dont try to force it on them all at once. Maybe even a toy gun. Teach them with a toy. If they can learn it with a toy, they can learn it with the real thing. I have a little brother and law, he is 4 and he points toy guns at everyone. They are just now starting to teach him NO! I feel, if it was my kid I would of taught him from the day he got a toy. <DONT POINT IT AT PERSONS> Well enough of my rambling. I got a kid on the way. And my feelings as of now, From the day he can hold a toy gun, He will Be taught with that toy just like it was the REAL THING.

DJ
 
I was taught to shoot a shotgun at the age of 13, a rifle the next year. Realy taught when i went in service in 76'. Anyway, i wish i had been taught earlier. my youngest child is 8yo. i bought her a Ruger10/22 this summer and take her to the range every time i go. Now i aint a super-shooter by no means,but she can hit a NRA target at 100yds with open sights. MOA? well she hits the target more than not!.Ive also taught her gun safety at the range and at home. She understands a rifle is a tool just like a knife or a set of wrenches. Everytime we shoot,when we get home she helps clean her rifle and my AK's. Before every shoot i make her check and clear her weapon and identify each and every part of her rifle ,she loves the term BUTT STOCK!
i guess what im getting at is if you teach yer kids about the proper use of guns and let them SEE an be AROUND them at an early age,the temptations to PLAY with them just arent there. My rifles are left out, not in a closet (MMM's will love that)i dont worry about her and my guns, she knows that the fire will get her butt real fast!
Yeah, teach kids early,expose them to firearms and they will make you proud! To hell with the PC crowd do what you heart tells you

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how many times do we move the line
 
my thought is in agreement with the
saying "you cannot kid safe the guns but you can gunsafe the kid." i started mine out at 5
first with home safety instruction then out to the range, even made up a section of wall
(2/4 and wall board) and put some 16ga through it.
she is 12 now ... really likes shooting steel plates.

rms/pa
 
A neighbor took my nine-year-old and me to the range Sunday afternoon. I let my son shoot a BB gun, but he has never shot a real gun. This neighbor shoots black powder guns and let us shoot his revolvers, and long guns. The club we went to is big and has several ranges. I saw no children other than mine. I suppose many kids are too undiscipined to have around a place like that.
If you teach them young, it will take some of the mystery and temptation out of it for them, I think.

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"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain that build it:
except the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." (Psalm 127:1)


"Freedom is given to the human conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility."
(Alexander Solzhenitzyn)
 
While it's been advised many times to never use the words never and always in reference to a particular person, or experience with a person.

I would make an exception in reference to shooting, including and especially on the matter of how young, or old to start shooting.

Many things to weigh out in defense on this.

How old should the child be before you risk allowing them to walk to school by themselves?
How old before they can go over to the neighbors to play with their kids?
How old are they before you're secure that they cross the street after looking both ways first?

Never take candy from a stranger, never mind Halloween huh?
Don't get into a stranger's car.

All the things you can drill into their heads about the necessities of survival, and avoidance of the pitfalls of our "world".


So, how old should the little one be, before being exposed to shooting? Good question.

After reading several of the incidents where kids have been punished because some administrator has decided to get to the community(read parents) through the children. I mean the things where a lid brings a gun key ring to school, and is made an example of. Yet the same school administration sees fit to teach kids about diversity(homosexuality), and planned parenthood(birth control), War on Drugs(teaches them to make a portable lab).
I can possibly see where you and your wife might be apprehensive about the "other" dangers involved with firearms. Including what to teach the child if somone else has a firearm at their school. Can't cover every contingency. But there are several you can cover very well.

Yes, how young, or old, should a child be before being taught how to correctly handle, and discharge a firearm?

Never too young to start, and should always be taught safety first. Oh, and that shooting can be a lot of fun as well.

[This message has been edited by Donny (edited October 03, 2000).]
 
Non-parent answer...

Each child is different. But you should think about progressive set of responsibilities: Make bed, clean room, laundry, dishes, riding lawnmower, weed eater, firearm handling (age progressive from air guns thru .50BMG), starting car on cold mornings, crossing the street, walking to school, dating, military service.

Creat an environment for success, and don't push so hard that they get discouraged, but hard enough to learn how to overcome failure. Measure cost of failure too, especially with deadly issues such as firearms or handling garden chemicals.

I have seen many children at 9-10 on the range, and they are VERY well behaved and give me less concern about gun handling than many adults. Start as early as you can, based on how well they do at other responsibilities.
 
Mine started learning about guns and gun safety at age 3. Started going to the range at age 4. Started shooting (under CLOSE supervision) at age 6.

So far, no propensity on their part for mass-murder...

BTW, the boys are 17 and 14 now, and have NEVER "played" with our guns. They respected them from age 3. As a "test", we would leave an UNLOADED pistol on a table, and "pretend" to leave them alone. Once they had been trained and the "taboo" nature had gone away, they never, EVER touched one, unless on the range. The guns became just another piece of furniture to them.

Never too young.

[This message has been edited by Dennis Olson (edited October 03, 2000).]
 
concerned with both the safety issues as well as the possibility of our son being shunned by kids who have anti's for parents.... don't want to have him spouting off about guns at every possible opportunity (like his dad
1. If she is really concerned about safety issues, show him the guns, tell him they aren't toys, take him shooting and show him they are powerful tools only to be used under adult supervision, and keep them locked up, not so much for his sake, (he should know to leave them alone) but for his friends, or neighbor children who come over to play.

2. Shunned by kids who have anti's for parent? do you wan't your child hanging around these threats to our freedoms? Children are very impressionable at a young age. I would't want my kid at an anti's house, anymore than at the Una-bombers. Nor would I want him playing with there kids.

3. And as for spouting off about guns....I'm afraid that I got that illness too, but it don't effect kids as much, because they go out with you and shoot "a shotgun" or "a .22" and though the may know the caliber, they won't know all the makes and models, and specialties and all the little braggable parts for quite some while, and if he does, who cares if he brags about his FAVORITE sport a little, other kids brag about pokemon, and there isn't a damned thing to be ashamed of.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I've been shooting longer than i can remember. I believe children whose parents take them shooting at a very early age are going to be much better citizens and patriots. Teach them what's right before the public school system has a chance to attack them.

I would suggest that you introduce firearms to your children as early as possible. In a controlled, instructional, and safe environment.

I would also suggest that you introduce your children to Hunting and Fishing culture, again, as early as possible. Little children have an explicit need to know where food comes from. They need to know about life and death from the point of view of a responsible use of resources. These are important ideas that cannot be learned in any other way.

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~USP

"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
 
Start with a Crossman 760 air rifle (available for under $35 at any Wal Mart, K-Mart, or Oshman's) as soon as the kid can understand sight picture and trigger squeeze.
Demand absolute attention, and stress rules of safety (see link, top of page). I genuinely believe that 4 years of age is not too early for THAT kind of practice, which naturally will point out to you whether your child is ready to move on to a .22 LR. I would say that with careful attention by the teacher (the parent, usually the dad), there is no reason why a reasonably intelligent and responsible child shouldn't be able to move up to .22 LR's by 6 years old. But that's with a great deal of care on the part of the parent. We are NOT talking about 5 or 6 episodes with the pellet gun before moving on to firearms! We are talking about a minimum of once a week for a couple of years. Some can't do this. I was lucky. I got that kind of attention, and it was STILL my 11th birthday before I got my first .22 (still have it.).

The biggest factor is going to be the amount of time you dedicate to teaching your child, and what you observe the child doing, when charged with the responsibility of maintaining The Four Rules of Firearm Safety.
 
I wanted to refresh this and ask for more input on dealing with the parents of my son's friends.

Thanks for the input so far.

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"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seeknot your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
 
Yep. Depends upon the kid...

Started my girls on .22 rifle when they were too small to hold it. I believe they were 3 & 4. Seemed to work out just fine for us.

My grandson, however, would have been a different story.

The kids that "listen" can start younger than the ones that must be told things repeatedly and/or refuse to cooperate.

It's a mighty serious judgement call, fer sure. ;)
 
I remember playing with airguns at 5 years of age. Dad taught me how to shoot real rifles at 6 years. I learned from Dad to shoot .22 LR's and shortly there after I moved up to a 300 Savage. I shot competition .22 from 8 to 14. I lost interest in guns and picked up golf and stayed with golf, camping, girls, etc until I turned 30. At 30 I picked up trap and skeet with a 12 gauge shotgun. I limited my gunning activities to trap and skeet until I turned 45. That was when I moved into pistols. I now bulls-eye shoot .22 and .45 ACP. Eventually I will move to PPC and whatever else I can find.

Some of the fondest memories I have of my father are the times he and I spent on cold, cold Saturday mornings laying on the ground shooting 1 foot square targets with a 300 Savage. I was so cold I had a hard time feeling the trigger. Would I quit? H*ll no! Would I change any of that? No.

Safety? My father was positively anal in his concern with safety. To this day I have a difficult time shooting at a BG target. Why? Because it was drilled into me from the early stages to never, ever point a gun at a person.

Start your kids early in shooting, but not for shooting's sake. Start your kids early for the time you will spend with them. Give them a chance at memories before life interferes. Just remember, what sticks in your mind may or may not be remembered by your children. What is insignificant to you may be of tremendous importance to your children's memories. Give them a chance, give yourself the chance.

Stay the good father. You've got 4 years of their uninterrupted attention. After that, you timeshare.

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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater--1964
 
Both my daughter (7+yrs old) and my son (3+yrs old) both go out shooting with me and shoot themselves. In the case of my son the majority of his `shooting' has been done with me providing the majority of the `support' for whatever it is that's being shot at the time. My daughter, OTOH, has her own "Davey Crickett" single shot .22 and is becoming a veritable little `Annie Oakly' getting closer and closer to literally `punching out the center' of the target. From the time they were old enough to crawl about the house we taught them about the safe handling of firearms. (IE: In the begining if they saw even a spent shell they were to come and get an adult to do something about it and not to try and handle it themselves. As things progressed all of the other `rules' concerning firearms safety we `impressed' upon them and now they even remind *me* whenever I may slip up!) Personally *I* feel that it depends *more* upon the parents and their willingness and ability to take the time to do the task of teaching the various aspects than the age(s) of the children. (The `kids' are more than willing to learn! {GRIN!} They'll soak up all that we can give them and then come back and ask for more. {CHORTLE!})

As for worrying about what they might say... Hmmmmmmm... I've found that, at least with mine, they can be *a lot* more `close lipped' than a politician trying to hide campaign contributions. {BSE GRIN!} I've had very little problems and the few I've had have been more of *my* causing than theirs.





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Doleo ergo sum,
-HALFPINT-
 
My thought is that as soon as they show an interest, teach them proper handling. This will keep the curiosity out of their heads and keep them from trying to play with your firearms when they shouldn't be. Never deprive them a good shoot when appropriate!
 
My four year old shoots my MK II at steel plates and loves it. I have full control over the gun except for the trigger and sights. This does a couple of things. The more she shoots the more she likes it. The plates are positive reenforcement. One of the first phrases she spoke was "no touch daddy's gun" as she pointed to my duty holster. I broke her in by cleaning guns. She has her own cleaning stuff. She loves it.

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When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
 
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