[Brizzo]

Firstly, if this is not the proper place for this question please move it administators. I apologize in advance if I posted this in the wrong place.

I write this because it seems that those with CCW would be more apt to experience this at some point. HOW do you or WHAT do you do to teach your kids, grandkids or nieces and nephews respect for a handgun, or even shotguns and rifles.

We are all human. As careful as we would like to think we are - EVENTUALLY we WILL make a mistake. Perhaps washing up or grabbing a quick shower... we are home alone and the wife comes home with the kid(s) or grandkid(s) etc unexpectedly. Our holster or shoulder rig is laying out or on hanging on the bathroom door on the OTHER side.

What steps have you done to help protect against mistakes?

I can honestly say my granddaughter has better gun handling skills than a lot of my family and friends do. From a small age she was taught to either leave it along or pick it up ONLY by the handle if need be. Her fingers wrap around the HANDLE or GRIP. She NEVER puts her fingers near the trigger. ALL guns are ALWAYS loaded. The same went for our daughter.

When our granddaughter was younger and living with us, after feeling she could be trusted from drilling it in her head ( she was less than 4 years old I might add) we would appear to leave the room and leave a small handgun on the kitchen table or end table etc.( UNLOADED and safety on if possible) with my wife in a room hiding but yet a field of view to her and also me in my den, or seemimg so, watching her.

She left it alone. Once when we had first gotten our poodle ( Hey in her mind the dog was a baby...didn't reason to her an animal is not like a human baby) she actually picked it up because neither of us appeared to hear her hollering and my den door was "closed" ( another issue of teaching) and took it to my wife. She picked it up off the table with both hands around the grip and backstrap only, held it out from her body a little bit, muzzle down, and carried it to her Nan who "was in the bathroom" .., because a baby doesn't know guns "can hurt you". She had to get it away from him.

We have also taken great pains to teach our nieces and nephews who visited us and even stayed with us for a night, or weekend, or a couple weeks in the summer. Now that we are seeing great nieces and nephews we will do the same with them, as I know their parents are doing so.

It is NOT something we like to think about. It is so easy to say "That will never happen to me." but it eventually DOES happen. Maybe no one was involved even while there were small children in the house. Perhaps it was upstairs and the family was downstairs. What would have happened if a small one snuck upstairs during that time?

I will bet if you have been in the gun world for any length of time, and you ARE honest with yourself. a mistake DID happen. Think about it.

Respectfully,
Brizz

 

[Xiphos]

I did the same exact thing with my boys, now both 8 and 9 years old. I told them about guns when they were around 4 years old, let them hold my rifles, and then left then unloaded in conspicuous places to see what happened. None of the guns were ever touched, there was no 'mystery' to them. They knew what they were and they left them alone. I told them never to handle guns, and I would try and hand them on of my handguns, to which they'd say, "we're not supposed to toucht them daddy". Damn I've got good kids. ;D They have been taught the same thing as I'm sure your little ones have, never point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill, and never have a finger on the trigger. When my kids have friends over, the guns get locked up. I trust my kids, it's other peoples kids I worry about.

I'm not saying this works for everybody, you have to judge the competence of you children on your own.

 

[joe sixpack]

well i dont have any small kids in my house.. i do have 1 or 2 that visit sometimes but i keep them in my room.. and everyone knows it's off limits unless im there.

if they're old enough to know what it is and the general operation (hey it's not rocket science)
then probably let them touch it and hold it (unloaded of course) once they get to (for lack of a better word) play with it for a little bit it might take a bit of the mystery out of it.. but every kid is different so this might not always be the best route to take.

btw it's always good to have a second set of prints on a gun anyhow.






for those of you with absolutely no sense of humor that last part was a joke.

 

[godadone]

I don't have children yet, but do plan on having kids someday.

When I was a kid, we used to play "guns" all the time like "cops and robbers" kinda stuff.

We were 8 or 10 years old in my collective group of friends. When my dad saw this, he took us all out with different actual guns, and trained us on them. How to handle them and such. And he was very firm when he told us all, that guns were not toys. They were to be respected. After a couple sessions at the range, which at first we were all very intimidated when dealing with the real thing. We had a new respect for guns. We knew my dad kept guns, open in his bedroom. And that room was off limits to us. We just respected it. Always.

I remember a situation, a couple years later where a friend of mine brought bullets to school. I not only told him it wasn't cool, I told my teacher what was up. We were about 12 years old.

Another situation with the same friend, I was at his house, and he brought out his dads .22 revolver and decided it would be cool to play with. I saw, with my expierence that my dad had taught me, that it was loaded, and left the situation immediatley. I just told my friend that I had to go home. When I got home, I told my mom about it and she waited for my dad to get home to take care of the situation. I don't know what became of it, but I wasn't allowed to go to his house anymore.

You don't kid proof your guns. You gun proof your kids.

 

[dbsoundguy]

Brizzo .....
Nice Post

btw it's always good to have a second set of prints on a gun anyhow.

lol.. Joe

You don't kid proof your guns. You gun proof your kids.

Very well said ...godadone

I am working on my grand kids right now..
My oldest is shooting more and more, he is 8..

When i taught my kids, it was a little easier..first thing i did after many discussions, was take them out and remove the mystery of guns :shooter: :thumb:
After that, they were not such a big deal for them and never had a problem..

My grand kids are a little different, they play a lot of video games(Grandpa plays the same ones..hehe) :devil:
My oldest grandson can tell you more about how all the guns work because of "Call of Duty" ...than most adults..lol

I had to go about things a little different with him..
We have gone shooting and now he also understands the difference between real and video games...
We play video games as a team and i use every chance i can to teach while we are doing it
He will ask questions on how the other characters in the game are using there guns and where they are unsafe with them..Now that is cool to me

I think taking the mystery out of a gun is very helpful..
My grandson went out with a bunch of us the other day and he was more aware of how to behave with guns better, than the adults...
These guys all commented on how well he did

I still keep all my rifles unloaded and the ammo locked up..because no matter what (Boys will be Boys), but not hidden..

Here is another thread that was started on this subject, might find it pretty good

http://www.taurusarmed.net/forums/index.php?topic=2309.0

 

[Brizzo]

Mr. DB, thanks for the link to the other thread. Kids and respect for gun safety is a passionate issue with me.It's also great to read how others approach it, even those without children yet who are thinking ahead.

Brizz

 

[pioneer461]

As a cop, I always had a gun handy around the house. When my kids, 1 boy and 1 girl, were in grammer school, I took them with me to demonstrate what kind of dammage a bullet could do to watermelons, milk jugs, etc. I let them shoot, starting with a .22, up to a 9mm, and told them any time they wanted to shoot, to let me know. I kept any gun not under my immediate control, locked in a safe.

They took me up on it a few times, and my daughter lost interest. My son continued to show an interest in guns and now at 30 years old, he is a CCW permit holder.

 

[grouchy hippo]

I kept any gun not under my immediate control, locked in a safe.

I am with you on that one. If it is not on my hip it is in the safe.

 

[Robby]

Well my kids have always had a healthy respect for guns. We did shot 22's and pellet guns when they were kids. Not one ever got out my guns, or got in trouble with the pellet guns.

Their sure not angels, but were good in that respect.

Now they are all well grown adults. 34, 37, and almost 41. Each have their own guns, and are either military, or former LEO. So I guess I did OK by them when they were young.

I have a safe, too small for all my pistols and revolvers but I do have a lockable case for them.
I have only had one kid, not a relative that went bonkers when he saw one of the long guns, sneaky little twit went into my wife and I's closet. It was not loaded, no ammo even on the same floor with it. He went looking for it the next time he was here, but we had noticed his eagerness and had hidden totally all the long guns and the others prior to his arrival.

Better safe than sorry with kids like that.

 

[bmrtek]

I began the training of my six children by showing them the destructive force of firearms.
The next block of training included the ten comandments of firearm safey.
We also run through different simulations of possible situations they might encounter
outside of a controled enviroment.
I drill (teach) my children frequently on this subject so it will become second nature.
One of the few things in this country you do not need a license for is raising children.
Raising children is the most important endevor a father will ever do in his entire life.

P.S.
Where is the spell check on this infernal contraption.

 

[azsigman]

I let the kids hold the guns and look at them. Then I took them to a pit where shot and took my S&W Model 29. I said that if they played with daddy's guns, THIS was what could happen. They were standing right behind me when I fired a round at a tire rim. When I turned around, they were both back standing behind the car with big eyes. We looked at the rim and saw the damage. The combo of the noise and the damage made a huge impression and they never touched my guns at all.

 

[grouchy hippo]

Responsible people take extra care, as we seem to; but then there is always the twit down the street or across town who leaves a loaded rifle or pistol out for the kids to get at. Wish we could do the training in schools and make it mandatory to have at least at certain level of safety training.

Even that doesn't always help. When I was in the service I was sitting on a bunker reading a comic and some clown came by and yelled 'hah" while shoving an M16 with a bayonet on it right in my face. I slapped it away and chewed him out. He went about fiften feet further down and did the same thing to a guy sitting on the ground and shot him in the shoulder.

You would think that he had enough training to be safe with his weapon but he sure didn't.

 

[Xiphos]

Even that doesn't always help. When I was in the service I was sitting on a bunker reading a comic and some clown came by and yelled 'hah" while shoving an M16 with a bayonet on it right in my face. I slapped it away and chewed him out. He went about fiften feet further down and did the same thing to a guy sitting on the ground and shot him in the shoulder.

You would think that he had enough training to be safe with his weapon but he sure didn't.

I was a few weeks into basic training at Fort Lost in the Woods, Misery, back in '86, when we were introduced to the M-16. The first day we had them, a kid in the barracks with us comes at me with that thing pointed right at me. We hadn't been given ammunition or anything at this point, but I don't stand well with guns being pointed at me. To him it was a game, right up until the time I grabbed the barrel, swung it out of the way, and somehow his face hit my fist like three times, really hard, and really quick. People bleed ALOT when punched in nose a few times, DAMN!

 

[dbsoundguy]

P.S.
Where is the spell check on this infernal contraption.

bmrtek ..lol
I downloaded a toolbar from Google, and it has it in it..
I was so happy because i am the worst speller

 

[bmrtek]

I will give it a try
Thanks

 

[firemax]

I have one 4 year old daughter and a 15 year daughter in my home. On occasion, they are exposed to guns in simple ways, such as when I go to Bass Pro Shops to buy ammo, they can see the display cases filled with guns so they know what guns are. My 15 year old knows they are dangerous as I have spoken to her about them. I have explained to her what to do if she comes across an unattended firearm lying around, etc. (Note, I do NOT leave my firearms lying around, they are with me or in my safe)... but just in case, I teach her to never touch it and to notify an adult (me, my wife or the adult of the house she might be at).

As for my 4 year old, she hears me talk about guns from time to time. She is intelligent. She asks me about them sometimes (just from conversation, she has rarely seen any of my weapons). I talk to her about them since she asks. I explain that they are dangerous. I have taught her to never touch them under any circumstance. I have shown her what a bullet looks like, in case she ever comes across one. I have taught her to let me know or another adult know if she finds a gun or bullet lying around unattended, but to never touch a gun or ammo.

The main thing is, I teach them to respect guns and ammo and to understand that they are not toys.