Parents, kids, and safety

A

aztec777

New member
I just came across this story. http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/1728.52686 Does anyone have any verifiable numbers to counter this story? I do keep all of my defense firearms with magazines loaded and some with chamber loaded. Everything is secure and cannot be accessed except for an authorized adult, two in my house. I also have two children in the house that are very exposed to firearms and shooting, but only under the close supervision of a competent adult. What about you?

Steve
 
Well, right off the bat I see Kellerman's name attached to it, so the "Credibility Index" starts plumetting immediately. Their idea of safe storage includes separate safes for guns & ammo (hey, that'd be a catchy title for a magazine - nah, never sell), and trigger locks to boot.

snip
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Parents were less likely to trust other children with a loaded gun than their own child. (Gee, could that be because you know your kids, but not someone elses?) Gun owners thought that children could be trusted with a loaded gun at an earlier age compared with those who did not own guns. (Perhaps because in the case of gun owners their children have been trained from an early age the proper respect guns deserve?) Gun owners were also more likely to endorse safe storage and close parental supervision as the best way to prevent accidental shootings (No! Really?), while non-gun owners thought the best prevention was not to own guns at all.(No comment.)
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end snip

Of course, if all children were taught proper firearms safety (ala eddie Eagle), we could reduce preventable mishaps (I refuse to call them accidents) even further.

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"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Luke 22:36
"An armed society is a polite society."
Robert Heinlein
 
Firearms that are primarily for defensive purposes need to be loaded and available to serve that purpose. Locking them up defeats that purpose. As for the kids, I think Eddie Eagle expressed my own feelings on the subject when he said, "Stop. Don't touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult."

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Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.
Nehemiah 4:17,18
 
Dec. 1, 1999 (Cleveland) -- Less than one-half of gun-owning parents report that they follow recommendations for safe firearm storage in their homes, according to these survey results published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Why would you divulge this information?

Of these gun owners, over half kept their firearms loaded and/or unlocked.

My guns are for home defense. They can't serve that purpose unless they are loaded and unlocked.

Survey results also showed that parents who own guns often mistakenly believe that their children can distinguish between toy guns and the real thing.

My three-year-old definitely knows the difference. Even so, he is expected to practice proper muzzle control with his toy guns.

25% believed their child could be trusted to safely handle a loaded gun.

Under what circumstances? My ten-year-old can be trusted if she is being supervised at the range. My three-year-old isn't allowed to touch them.

Their perceptions were not in line with the developmental abilities of children.

As a home schooling dad, I resent the fact that these "experts" think they know my kids better than I do.

Guidelines from various medical associations for safe firearm ownership are plentiful, and take a hard-line approach.

Do we doubt this, coming from people who only see the ugly side of the issue in their emergency rooms?

"Any gun you own is a potential lethal weapon…"

As is any car you own, any knife you own, any oven cleaner you own, any gasoline you own, any rope you own, any crowbar you own, any plastic bag you own...

Reynolds agrees with the study results that most gun owners seem to keep handguns, which are, in his opinion, the most dangerous guns of all. "The defensive weapon in the vast majority of homes is a handgun. If you feel it's mandatory to protect yourself in your home, please keep a shotgun there to protect yourself.

Shotguns are less dangerous than hand guns!?!?!?!?

Handguns have an extremely high appeal for young children because they see them used on T.V.

Whose kids are we talking about? Certainly not mine!


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Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.
Nehemiah 4:17,18

[This message has been edited by sbryce (edited March 02, 2000).]
 
sbryce-I understand and agree with your point of view about having a defensive firearm loaded. I don't necessarily agree with the unlocked part. I cannot, in good conscience, keep a firearm unsecured with young children around. Sure, it will take me an extra two seconds to get to my handgun, if I get the chance. But I know that there is the possibiliy of my son, daughter or one of their friends accessing that firearm. I cannot take the chance. Please realize that they are 10 and 11 and like to talk/brag about "their guns" to schoolmates. I know, they've done it in front of me. Those same schoolmates come over to play and just have to know more about the guns and "can I see it" or "can I touch it". That's when they ask me about it. I can only imagine how much pressure the give my kids. While I have spent many hours at home and at the range teaching them about firearms safety I know that at that age I cannot be too careful. I have taught them to respect the power of firearms while never forgetting the power of their curiosity. When and if the day comes where I am completely comfortable with their responsibility level when it comes to firearms, I will leave the firearm unsecured. Besides, I always carry. Even in the house. The only time I'm not carrying is when I sleep. My wife doesn't like it too much, you know.

Steve
 
Any loaded handgun in my home is on my hip.

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John/az

"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!

[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited March 02, 2000).]
 
I agree with John. I had guns locked up with quick access locks. However, when I'm awake
and wandering around, I have one with me.

Call me a little cautious. If I take a shower
and the kid was home, I'd lock it till I could get at it.

Am I over cautious? Well, the neighbor just got strangle in our nice neighborhood.

I once opened the door (think it was a pizza guy, me being in Condition Pepperoni) and it was a young man saying someone was trying to kill him.

Not hard to have some decent gun on you at most times.
 
I don't utilize safety locks or any other such non-sense. I live in a semi-rural area, and when I need my rifle to shoot a predator, I need it immediately lest I lose stock. My handgun is loaded, chambered and on safe when I am in bed. When I wake, the first thing done, is unload, and put it in my truck and I lock it there. The problem with kids and guns, is parents let their kids chase each other around shooting toy guns at each other, and then wonder why they do it with real guns. This latest shooting was intentional, and I can bet that the father was in jail for a probable non-violent offense like possession of narcotics. Now where would society be best served? Would it be better served by having a father in jail (draining tax dollars) or in the home to provide a minimal influence? I realize that this father probably didn't give a damn, but that is what we should be inforcing, a war on neglectful parents, not a war on drugs.
 
Hi, Mrs. sbryce here. Hubby said earlier in this thread that our children don't see guns used in violent acts on tv. This was not sarcasm, but truth. We watch no tv. (Except when the office building he was in was being shot up by a nut--we watched it then.)

I think it's important to consider the total picture. If children receive proper training from careful, responsible gun-owning parents, and are kept from seeing lots of mis-use of guns, they'll follow their training. Proverbs says that if you train a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he'll not depart from it.

If the training children receive is to be left with a sitter a lot, watch violent shows on tv and in movie theaters, and see guns glorified in this violence, then they'll follow that training. -- Denise
 
Aztec, John, Glenn,

As I write this, the only loaded gun in my house is on my hip. I certainly can't argue with you about the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of kids. If I had any guns that were simply for sporting purposes, I would keep them unloaded and locked. I own two guns. Both were purchased for personal protection-either to carry or to have available in the house. The key word is "available." It is important to find a way to keep the guns available for home defense, but not available to curious kids. I couldn't live with myself if one of my kids found a gun in the house and fired it. I also couldn't live with myself if my house were ever broken into and the best tool to stop the intruder was locked up.

So how was it that in the frontier days almost every home in the west had a loaded shotgun by the front door, but you never had problems with kids shooting each other? Maybe there is something to be learned from that.


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Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.
Nehemiah 4:17,18
 
Perhaps we define "kids" differently. When my daughters were in their mid-/late- teens, I kept loaded handguns available for ALL family members.

Frankly, I was not going to leave my daughters unable to protect themselves to please some body-guarded bureaucrat. If I had to go to jail so they could defend themselves against rape, torture and death - that's a good trade-off.

They knew what to do, where to go, and how to call for help within our home.

They also knew never to shoot through an unbroken door. However, if an intruder started to break down the door to the room they were in, wait to see a valid target (probably a face) and put a .44 Special right there.

I'm not advocating this for anyone else. For example, I would not dare do this with my grandson.

Since they've grown up and left home, my wife and I have heard about a LOT of things the girls "got away with" when Mom and Dad weren't around. But, in their words, they always knew, "Guns aren't toys! Guns are to save your life!"

(Chest swells with pride....)

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Either you believe in the Second Amendment or you don't.
Stick it to 'em! RKBA!
 
Dennis -

Sounds very familiar...

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"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Luke 22:36
"An armed society is a polite society."
Robert Heinlein
 
Well, Joseph! If I *must*! ... POP! glug, glug, glug. Aaaaahhhhh!

Give a friend a Shiner! :D

Um. About age. I still have a bit over a year before I hit sixty. Then I can talk with Uncle Art like an equal (age-wise). (tee hee!)
 
I teach my kids the 4 rules, even though they may not understand them at their age. The older ones have had a demonstration of the destructive power of a firearm, and the oldest has shot all of my guns (he's 6).

I believe that education is the finest key to safety, and the first ingredient of disaster prevention.

My dad kept a 30-30 a pump 12 guage and a .22 in his closet with the ammunition within reach on the shelf. NEVER did I get them without his permission, or EVER think of shooting those kids that teased me extensively in school.

All my kids will recieve their own gun at the age of 7, after extensive training in proper handling and care of their weapon. :D

Start'em when they're young...

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John/az

"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
 
I want to congradulate all of you on how you are teching your kids. :) Good Job!!!!
When I was young guns were not to be spoken about. Guns were a kin to lying, cheeting and criminals and nothing more.
Which leads me to say on thing. (Just a small warning)

Mrs. sbryce said -
'Proverbs says that if you train a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he'll not depart from it.

If you knew me and my family you would know that this proverb is not always correct. Please dont take this as a front to your religion. In most cases this is true, just not in mine.

When I was young and at a friends house he pulled out his fathers handgun and was playing with it and showing off.
I left! And in a hurry too. With no formal traing on guns beside what tv had to offer I knew it was dangerouse to be in that room so I went home.
Yet when another friend pulled out his .22 that his father had given him and trained him in using I was not hesitent about playing with it.
Point is. You have to know your children! And you guys sound like you know your children very well. All kids are different and I'm very glad you know what you can and cant trust your kids with.
I have no kids but am planning to get the 'Eddie Eagle' videos for my neices for their birthdays, but I refuse to let my nephew around anything of that nature becuase he's already wacked me a few times with anything that was not tied down <shiver> That kid scares me!
Again congrats... you sound like great parents!
Humm.... Does this post make sense... Or did I lose you? (Maybe I need to sleep more then once a week)

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Freedom by its self is just a word. To have freedom we must protect our rights to be free.
 
I'm another exception to Proverbs 22:6. Was raised in an "FDR Democrat" home with regular exposure to church (Christmas & Easter), yet here I am an Evangelical Christian Goldwater Republican gun nut. Go figure...

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"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
Luke 22:36
"An armed society is a polite society."
Robert Heinlein
 
We don't have kids, but firearms (some loaded, some not) all are kept locked in a heavy steel locker except the 'gun of the day', which is on my person. In addition to the locker in my office (I work from home a lot), I have a GunVault in the master bedroom within arms reach. Part of the rationale is to keep mine, mine. The other part is that my wife is concerned that a loose gun could be found by a BG and used against us. I'd prefer to keep it on the nightstand, but there are some arguements you just can't win. M2
 
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