Just curios

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buckit

New member
I have a somewhat unique situation, and I'm sure other people have gone through this also. I have been around guns all my life (43 yrs) and have been collecting and shooting for past 30 yrs. I raised my daughter to understand that guns are only dangerous when in the hands of an unsafe, untrained uneducated, or criminals hands. She gets it, and is a very safe gun handler, and loves target shooting.

Now I also have a 14 yrold son who is autistic. I catch myself going against my way of thinking when talking to him about guns. I tell them they are bad and its not safe to even go near them. I am not gonna change because it has been successful for 14 yrs. All my firearms are locked up or on my person at ALL TIMES no exceptions. My fear has been something happening in someone elses house when Im not there. Any how, just seeing how other people deal with this.
 
If your son's condition makes it so that he can't learn to safely handle firearms I don't see a problem with telling him that they're bad. His safety and the safety of those around him trumps all else.
 
Is your son capable of understanding the difference between what something is, and what people can do with it?

Got a few tools in the house/shop? Saws? Knives? How do you explain them to him? Are guns really any different? (ok, they have range, but other than that?)

Things are not bad. Things are just things. What people do with things is either good, or bad, not the things themselves. IF he can fully understand this concept (and surprisingly there are a number of college educated adults who apparently cannot), then he can be safe.

Otherwise, he should be protected, by not being allowed access to arms, or other implements that can cause injury. Matches and silverware are on that list, too...
 
Your situation is not unique. I've been teaching my daughter and stepdaughter about guns, and gun safety, and plan to take them out to shoot soon. However, my 19-year old stepson Nicholas is a different story. He has Angelman Syndrome, an autism spectrum condition. He is non-verbal (can't speak), mentally retarded (or developmentally disabled, as the politically correct people would probably say), has poor coordination, poor impulse control, attention deficit disorder, has the maturity level of a child, and generally acts without regard to the consequences of his actions.

So, while I will teach my daughters about guns and take them shooting, I will never teach Nick to load or fire a gun. I would consider it irresponsible to do so, since I can never be sure Nick adequately understands the consequences, or will restrain his behavior in light of those consequences. In fact, I do my best to make sure Nick never even knows I have handguns in the house. He has seen several of my long guns, especially the muzzle-loader on display, but the ammunition for those is secured, and I think they would be less interesting to him than my handguns.

A lot depends on the type of disorder the child has, how high-functioning they are, their intelligence and maturity levels, how well they can obey rules and restrain their impulses. I can't even get Nicholas to be responsible enough to turn a light off when he leaves a room, or trust him not to knock over a glass of soda on the table. So he can't be trusted to handle a gun responsibly.
 
Is your son capable of understanding the difference between what something is, and what people can do with it?
Click to expand...

That's a very difficult thing to know in some cases. In my stepson's case, he can't speak, so it's really hard to know exactly what he understands. You could ask him yes or no questions, but never know when he nods his head if it's because he really understands, or if he's just agreeing because he thinks that's what you want to hear.
 
I have to concur with 44 AMP. Now its just my opinion on what the OP supplied for info and how 44 AMP responded.
 
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