Kids and playdates

Sierra280 said:
Yet, when a child gets a parents gun and something bad happens, suddenly the parents are not responsible? I don't understand the logic (or maybe there is none). Holding the appropriate party responsible does not make you an 'Anti'. For the record, neither am I.

If you disagree, you're saying parents aren't responsible for their children's actions; your actions show you don't believe that.
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My apologies for suggesting you were an "anti". I do disagree that parents are to be responsible, its their job to teach but there is no guarantee the children will learn. Putting the blame on the parents does not teach children accountability.

Nathan said:
It is hard to just walk up to every parent and say, hey, do you have guns laying around....
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This is one reason I started this thread. I've never asked and the thought of asking didnt come tactfully easy if the family didnt lock up their guns. But its important to know until you get to know that family well. My wife and I have become good friends with all the parents of our children but we moved over the summer to a new school district and so its like starting over. I have a hard time starting "I like guns, do you?" conversation because while Oregon is generally a pro gun state Portland is inundated with gun haters and I am just used to keeping my guns in the closet (pun intended...).
 
I've never asked other parents whether or not they had guns or locked them up. I DID have one parent ask me one time when a bunch of kids were staying for a sleepover birthday party at my house.

At first I was a bit taken aback, as I think of gun ownership as a more private thing. Regardless I explained that all guns in the house are locked securely in a safe that only my wife and I know the combination.

Later I got to thinking about it and realized that the parent I was just speaking to was being every bit as responsible by asking as I was by locking them up.

IF I asked (which I never have), and they said something like "no, we don't lock them up. we teach our kids not to mess with guns", then I probably wouldn't let my kid go over. You can feel confident that your own kids won't touch someone else's guns due to your training, and MAYBE you can feel confident that some other parent has taught their kids not to play with guns, but there's no way I'm going to feel confident that EVERY OTHER KID that might come over has been taught the same.


I look at it this way. As gun owners (and often daily gun carriers), we OFTEN say "I wear a gun every day, because of I MAY need it (just in case, worse case scenario)". We often use the argument that everyone else should too (just in case, worst case scenario). I'm fairly sure I don't want my kid going somewhere that the only thing between my kid and a worst case scenario (dead child) is that everyone in the room has both been trained well by their parents not to play with guns AND has the right mindset at that minute to mind that training. That just in case scenario seems a heck of a lot more likely (TO ME) to happen than needing a firearm while out and about running errands.
 
we teach our kids not to mess with guns",
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It is far better to teach them not to mess with anything that does not belong to them. At our house, the principle is taught when they are still very small, as "If it is not yours, DON'T FOOL WITH IT."

This applies to anything. It it the foundation of property rights.

You can feel confident that your own kids won't touch someone else's guns due to your training, and MAYBE you can feel confident that some other parent has taught their kids not to play with guns, but there's no way I'm going to feel confident that EVERY OTHER KID that might come over has been taught the same.
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I assume that other kids are in fact kids, and irresponsible until proven otherwise - and irresponsible kids don't get to come over unsupervised. Some of my own kids don't get to stay in our own house, unsupervised...... they have not proven to be that responsible yet.
 
When I was 12, I was at my grandparent's house. I used to play with the neighbor boy when I would stay over there. I didn't know him real well, but we had hung out. He invited me up to his room to show me something cool and pulled a 12 gauge single shot out from under his bed. He didn't point it directly at me, but he was not at all muzzle aware and I'm pretty sure he swept me several times. I asked him if he kept it loaded and he said he did, just in case. So I made an excuse to go back next door and tell my grandparents.

We heard a lot of "but we taught him much better" and they even told us he didn't keep it loaded (not sure who was wrong or lying). They told us later they took it away from him.

If my grandparents had asked and they knew they had guns in the house, they would have been OK with me being over there if they were secured. As it was, me having not touched a firearm in my life to that point and him demonstrating an obvious disregard for firearm safety, I could have easily become an accidental gun death statistic used by the antis.

I never played with him again.

It's one thing to have faith in your own child that they will be responsible with a firearm -- it's another altogether to ask somebody else to have that same faith. Sure, you can say "Firearms aren't locked up in my home and if you don't like it you're welcome to leave," but the parents do, in my opinion, have a right to ask. My parents wouldn't let me play at a house with a pool unless there were parents around. Guns are the same thing and can be enjoyed responsibly.
 
My parents wouldn't let me play at a house with a pool unless there were parents around. Guns are the same thing and can be enjoyed responsibly.
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Children should not be unsupervised. Period. Your house, my house, does not matter .....

By the time they are teens, and they demonstrate they can be responsible, then they may be allowed to do certain things on their own .... the goal is, as parents, to put them in the driver's seat, on a closed course, with giant guard rails and a governed motor ..... gradually increasing the performance level and reducing the safety factor until they have the skills to navigate any road they choose to take .....

If you allow them to go "hang out" with Tommy, and Tommy pulls a shotgun out from under his bed, and sweeps them, their first reaction should be to jump in Tommy's stuff for the Rule 3 violation and then to leave, and tell you about it ....
2 outa 3 ain't bad, dakota ...... You'll be kickin' yourelf for not knwing Tommy better than that, but now you know ....
 
I never ask other parents if they own guns. It really doesn't matter to me. My 10 year old has been around guns all her life and would never touch one without me being present. Also, she is not permitted to go to anyone's house unless there is going to be direct adult supervision.

Other than my carry gun, which I keep with me, I keep all of my guns locked up, with one exception. I have an old Remington 1858 that I keep in a display case on my fireplace. I recall one little girl commenting on it "oh, that's a gun" once. I just said "it doesn't work", and that was it. I suppose I lied - it does work, but I don't have any of the supplies to make it work and explaining what you would need to do to make an old cap-and-ball gun work was too complicated for a little kid to understand.

This did make me think, however, that the little girl could go home to her parents (who were non-gun folks) and say that she saw a gun lying around. I've never done anything about it, like move the gun. I figure that if the parents are interested enough in asking me, I'll explain it to them in more detail.
 
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