Children and gun safety

no2gates said:

It all depends on the kid. Some are more mature than others. Personally, I would assume by 8 years old?

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Right on. I know some fellow 60+ year old who should not have a knife let alone a dreaded gun of the hand.

Bikenut said:

A bit of a rant...

At what age did you teach your kids not to play with the stove? At what age did you teach your kids not to play with electrical cords? At what age did you teach your kids not to play with the kitchen knives? At what age did you teach your kids not to take the car keys and drive off? At what age did you teach your kids about sex?

I'm going to guess that your kid's education about all of those things began when they expressed an interest of some kind in each of those things at the exact time they were first interested in those things. When your kids express an interest.. any interest of any kind... that is the time to begin their education about those things.

It's not rocket science... it's just ordinary everyday.................. parenting.

And trying to pretend the parents don't have the responsibility to teach their children about everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING! the kids show an interest in is nothing less than the parents themselves trying to evade their responsibility to be.............. parents.

Frankly... I do believe the current state of affairs where our youth have no values and have no idea what values even are... is the direct fault of parents who have not stood up to their responsibility to be........... parents.

End rant... please continue discussing...

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So let me get this straight; you're advocating that parents not only monitor their children but actually be active in the forming of their values and morals? What a novel concept.

~sarcasm has been shown to rear it's head in my posts at times. :smile:

This was my 15yo daughters target shooting her S&W .22 Sport (pistol), 50 rds each at 7, 10 & 12 yds.
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I took her to the range because I am having elbow surgery on my shooting arm and needed to practice with my off hand. I convinced her to shoot my LC9, but she's not fond of the recoil so she only shot 6. I told her to aim at the "7" so she could see where they hit, hers are the shots circled. The first 2 shots were the ones that cut the "7".
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I'm basically just a proud dad, but don't discount the fact that shooting is a way to spend quality time with kids. Finding something in common and spending that quality time can be challenging when you're talking about a teenage girl, so start young before boys become a factor!

My wife isn't a fan of firearms but she understands why. Before introducing my girls to guns both my wife and I were in agreement how, when, where and how often. Every so often I would test them by leaving spent brass around the house and wait for them to call me saying they found ammo and it should be in the safe. In our house, the rule is firearms are either in my hands, in the safe or on my hip. Otherwise daddy is in big trouble with mommy. Good luck.

whodat2710 said:

If they are old enough to understand the difference between "toy" and "not a toy" it is a good time to start teaching gun safety, starting with "If you see one of these it is dangerous and you are not to touch it." Remember, they may be at a different house at some point where a gun owner is not used to having kids around.

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So true . Better they know about guns and what they do than find out on their own. I always told mine to go get an adult if they happened to find one anywhere.. I kept my duty belt hanging way up high where I could hardly reach it myself. Then told all the friends that yes it was loaded , it was always loaded and if the messed with it they would likely kill somebody. I also told them that if they wanted to see it let me know and I'd even let them shoot it if the parents ok'ed it. The mystery was gone and none took me up on it.
Another thing I did a few times was disable the gun and leave my rig where it would be noticed. As instructed she came and got me . Only once did she bring out the belt to show me and I simply mentioned what she was supposed to do , lesson learned. These days she has her own permit .
These days I have nobody young frequenting the house , no duty gun either. I keep the 357 .sitting in a quick draw open top box mounted on the inside of the outer wall 6' up hidden completely by a scarf draped over it. Nobody will ever see it as you need to go inside and turn around to find it. My LCP I carry daily gets treated like a nuke because it's size makes it easy to lose and absolutely screams "toy"! It goes from pocket to its hidden drawer way up high always in its holster.
Different strokes for different folks and situations. You just have to see and think what you have to work with. The one big point I have is remove the mystery from the equation. That solves .75% of the problem immediately.


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benq said:

My wife isn't a fan of firearms but she understands why. Before introducing my girls to guns both my wife and I were in agreement how, when, where and how often. Every so often I would test them by leaving spent brass around the house and wait for them to call me saying they found ammo and it should be in the safe. In our house, the rule is firearms are either in my hands, in the safe or on my hip. Otherwise daddy is in big trouble with mommy. Good luck.

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The best teaching tool for my son was hand over hand shooting with him. Once he realized what happened with it he won't touch them no matter where there left.

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