Gun safety in the home with children

[MarineOne]

I've got two boys, 13 and 10, that I trust with guns more than I do most adults. The jury is still out on whether I should be happy that I've taught them well or if Darwin needs to cleanse the gene pool. Again.

Kids are curious, its in their nature. What I've done is removed the curiousity that my kids had about guns first, and then taught them gun safety. If you don't remove the curiousity then you won't be able to teach them. They go from "ooooh... gun" to "wow, that will hurt someone". Once you have that amount of attention teaching them is easy.

I started with BB guns for Christmas a few years back (this Christmas makes 4 years). My little guy got a Red Ryder and my oldest got a Crosman pump. I took them to the local shooting hole and shot up some clays. The bright orange keeps their attention and makes a good cheap target. My youngest has shot all my rifles, while my oldest just started shooting my handguns this summer. He's a big kid for being 13 (he's 5 foot 7) but handles my .45 XD almost as well as I do, and he loves my XDm 9mm.

Most of my stuff I keep locked up, with the exception of my HD weapons for the wife. The kids know not to touch anything unless they ask or if it's in a case, not to remove it from the case. The best part is they treat their BB guns just like they treat my AR-15.


Kris

[annabelle]

I grew up knowing I was not to touch my fathers weapons.........what use are they if they are locked up?..........I would keep the handy but out of reach of the youngest ones........however, by 5 or so, I knew better than to play with real weapons.......they were available to me if I indeed needed one........I was taught to respect and fire weapons at a very young age.

[usairlinesletter]

Originally Posted by cincydiesel

Agreed, teaching children from a young age about gun safety is one of the most important things a responsible gun owner can do..

That's one of the safest way to keep children safe- knowledge.

[Jay]

Originally Posted by MarineOne

I've got two boys, 13 and 10, that I trust with guns more than I do most adults. The jury is still out on whether I should be happy that I've taught them well or if Darwin needs to cleanse the gene pool. Again.

Kids are curious, its in their nature. What I've done is removed the curiousity that my kids had about guns first, and then taught them gun safety. If you don't remove the curiousity then you won't be able to teach them. They go from "ooooh... gun" to "wow, that will hurt someone". Once you have that amount of attention teaching them is easy.

I started with BB guns for Christmas a few years back (this Christmas makes 4 years). My little guy got a Red Ryder and my oldest got a Crosman pump. I took them to the local shooting hole and shot up some clays. The bright orange keeps their attention and makes a good cheap target. My youngest has shot all my rifles, while my oldest just started shooting my handguns this summer. He's a big kid for being 13 (he's 5 foot 7) but handles my .45 XD almost as well as I do, and he loves my XDm 9mm.

Most of my stuff I keep locked up, with the exception of my HD weapons for the wife. The kids know not to touch anything unless they ask or if it's in a case, not to remove it from the case. The best part is they treat their BB guns just like they treat my AR-15.


Kris

This ^ works. Excellent post. If you make firearms a mystery, or "forbidden", youngsters WILL find a way to gain access to them......

[Chip]

Kids are all grown up now but when they were living at home they were educated on all weapons, projectile and edged. I started the education as soon as they could understand (age 3) I kept the wheel guns locked up, the clip guns were not loaded but they could have been in under 5 seconds. As the children grew, so did their education by me on weapons. the first trip to the range sank the definate damage home to them. I never had a problem with any touching with out permission. The always had me unload and lock the chamber open when they were allowed to touch, cause as they told me "it's the only way to know it's safe to handle daddy". the also never pointed a muzzle in anyone's direction, not even the pets. But they also knew that if they wanted to go shooting, all they had to do was let me know. They also stayed far away from the reloading equipment. that first poweder burn off they saw, taught them just how dangerous that stuff was. And they knew that part of the garage was off limits with out me there with them. (It had a cage with a locked door around it just for my peace of mind too.) They even learned a bit of gun smithing at the work bench.