Kids and Guns
Katie: Guns, Parenting and Risk: Do You Let Your Child Visit Homes With Firearms?
Life is risky. Katie wonders if they ask about pools, chemicals, and hot tubs.
A lot of gun owners stay in the closet and don’t admit they own guns, depending on the area where you are. Here, I pretty much presume that most households have guns. And I choose to educate my kids on guns. My kids know that any time they want to shoot a gun, just ask. And I’ll take them. It eliminates the curiosity if they can do it when they want. And, of course, they know the rules.
Prior to Junior’s first shots:
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| From Kids |
January 19th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Unfortunately, your method does not allow overburdening the law-abiding gun owner with regulations, investigations, possible arrest and conviction, and penalties. Or is there some other purpose to restricting your kids’s activities to gun-free zones of which I am unaware – like demonizing guns?
January 19th, 2011 at 11:26 am
There was a study done 3-4 years ago after this line of questioning was put out by anti-guns types (via the school systems), and it was discovered during the study, you should be asking more about your child’s friends parents substance abuse issues (statically higher that guns)
January 19th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
You forgot cars…. no one ever asks about the driving record of whom ever is doing carpool that day. “Has Suzy’s mommy has ever had a DUI?” is a question no parent is ever even thinking about asking.
How bout asking if there are elevated beds in the house before letting their kids do a sleep over…. also more deadly then guns.
Its all a bunch of drummed up fears that have no basis in reality. But hey, lets not let facts come in the way of the agenda.
Yes, educating your kids is the best solution for the problem. A generation ago loaded guns used to be kept behind the bedroom door and kids knew better then to touch it. Fast forward and we are raising a generation that that dont understand gun safety and we wonder why there are so many accidental shootings.
Yes, I use gun vaults for my defensive guns and the rest are in a safe because its the only way to be 100% sure… but my kids know not to ever touch a real gun unless I am there and say that it is ok.
January 19th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
What a cutie-pie! Exposing her picture on the %#*damn Internet is more dangerous than her exposure to guns. Guns can make her safe, the Internet can strip-away that safety.
January 19th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
You mean you “gun proof” your kids? So that if they are at someone’s house and find a gun that is ready to fire, they know how to keep themselves safe until an adult can correct the situation. So your kids aren’t dependent on the responsible habits of others to keep them safe when they are away from you.
Like drown proofing teaches kids how to keep their head above water until someone helps them out.
January 19th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
AWWWWSUUUUUME! There has to be a Disney movie in that photo.
January 19th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
I am heavily involved (coach, director) in youth sports in our small California town. I tend to not mention guns much around the the girls I coach or their parents. If the topic comes up I don’t hide from it, I just usually don’t bring it up.
Sunday we were at a tournament and during some slack time several parents and I were talking about our weekends. When one of the parents asked if my family objected to the all the time I spent with other peoples kids, I told them that I had spent most of Saturday at a shooting event with my son and daughter.
This led to several raised eyebrows and a few tentative questions that eventually led to me describing in detail all about Cowboy Action Shooting. The guns, clothes, the atmosphere, etc. Most of the parents were very receptive and inquisitive. One Mom said “That sounds like a blast – when is the next shoot, I want to go watch.”
One other Mom was really giving me the stink-eye until her daughter popped up with “Mom, that sounds like fun, can we try it?”
Eventually I ended up offering to take four different girls out to teach them to shoot (as long as Mommy and/or Daddy goes with us). And ended up listening to several other adults relate tails of their youthful explots with guns – shooting with Dad or Grandpa, hunting, etc. Most of them in the end didn’t seem to remember why they didn’t keep shooting or hunting. Just that they used to do it, liked it, but just haven’t done it for years.
One Mom left determined to have her husband “dig out his old guns and take her and the kids out shooting…”
I guess that even in California there are a lot more guns and gun owners, even if they are inactive shooters, than people might think.
Finally – cute kid – does she play volleyball?