Gun owners are shooting ourselves in the foot with our kids and not locking up guns

[Walkalong]

There is a big difference in keeping guns locked up because it is smart, and a whole nother thing to be ordered to have all guns locked away with ammo locked up somewhere else.

I said earlier and will say again, if guns are not under our direct supervision, they should be locked up.

That does not stop us from having a gun handy for self defense.

I do understand the slippery slope angle, I really do. We just need to keep fighting for or gun rights so that locking guns up stays our decision.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Why are we so resistance to reducing unnecessary risk to innocents?

I know many here are not fans of Bill Maher and I totally understand why. However, he said something the other day that fits this situation. He was talking of the lack of bi-partisanship and said that if Michelle Obama said that everyone should be healthy, republicans would close their garage doors, crank their cars and eat bacon grease out of a coffee can. This mentality carries over to us as well.

I think everything now days is getting to the point where everything is so cut and dried that the least little thing is construed as weakness and giving in to the other side when that's not the case at all. For some reason, people think that taking responsibility for your firearms is somehow anti-gun.

We talk about the 4 rules all the time but there should be a 5th as well. Keep your guns out of unsupervised childrens' hands if you can at all help it.

I'm not for any new gun legislation, but it is my responsibility as a gun owner to be in control of my guns and who has access to them at all times. And if I fail that responsibility and someone is hurt or killed as a result of my negligence, I should be held accountable.

 

[beatledog7]

I agree--locking them up or not needs to be a personal choice for which one faces the music if things go awry. I have no problem with anyone wanting to lock HIS guns up, as long as he doesn't try to make me lock MINE up.

If my home were at any time to play host to anyone whose habits and propensities I don't know, they would all get locked up. That's my choice, not a mandate, and hopefully it will always be that way.

It's not about the age of the person, but the trust he or she has engendered. There are lots of 30-yr-olds with whom I am acquainted who know nothing about guns except that it'd be cool to handle them. No, thanks.

 

[Walkalong]

It's not about the age of the person, but the trust he or she has engendered.

Agreed. Under direct supervision, or with people you trust, which means they have earned that trust by behavior patterns. I would not worry about a gun being out or the safe open with my 21 year old son around. Not in the least.

 

[kalel33]

MSM are a huge component of this. Whenever there's accidental gun death, MSM jumps all over it to demonize THE GUN. An accidental death by any other means is, of course, brushed aside as tragic but normal. A drowning is not blamed on the pool. A traffic death is not blamed on the car.

Same thing happens with Pitbulls. They post articles that get clicks, which lead to revenue. If a Pit just growls at someone then it's front page. If a kid shot another kid with a bb gun it'd get front page too, which we did do when I was little.

 

[JohnBT]

"I really can't beleive any responsible gun owner would look at this and throw up their hands like, "Oh, there's nothing that could have been done!" Yes there was, and you damned well know it."

You must be addressing somebody else, because I know I sure as hell didn't say any of the words you're putting in my mouth.

John

 

[hovercat]

RE: trust. Does not apply to 5 year old kids and guns but....
Kids should be raised so that we can TRUST them to earn a living, vote responsibly, and raise our grandkids by age 18.
There really is no lesson to be gained from this tragedy. Someone was careless with a firearm and a child died because of it. Society cannot and should not legislate every aspect within a home. Climbing a tree is dangerous. Life is dangerous. Some exposure to life and the dangerous world is necessary before we are out on our own.
Was this too early? Obviously. But we cannot legislate everything and stay a free society. The loss for the family is horrible. But the loss of the spirit of liberty in a society is worse.
I have seen children grow up who never spent a single minute playing without an adult watching them. It is no wonder that they want .gov to tell them what to do.

 

[Powder burn]

It does not matter how you train them, there is no need to have young children having access to firearms and ammunition without adult supervision. Eventually somewhere someplace some kid will do something stupid and lives are changed forever.
Children have little brains full of mush. firearms must be given the respect they deserve. I get very angry when I read these stories, they just give gun grabbers more reasons to act and more statistics.

 

[Dean1818]

I have 2 extremely quick access safes in the house for home defense pistols.

My wife and I know the keypad combination.

All other guns in the house are trigger locked and unloaded. A fullsize safe is in the works.


I have two teenagers who dont have the combination nor the keys to the rifles

One of my kiddos has mild depression. I DOUBT that anything would happen........ But I couldnt function if something did.

Both kids shoot regularly, and continue to get close supervision when they do.

I think there is a time and a place for everything. Some kids cannot handle the freedom or responsibility.

I think some parents may be pushing their kids into shooting and having access to loaded weapons a bit too soon. IMHO.

Some kids at 10 are better than kids at 17. Just because you were the responsible gun owner at 8, dont ASSUME that your kid is equally responsible at 12.

Some kids have friends that are literal morons........ Who would LOVE for the opportunity to play with a gun...... Kids with zero training....... These kids are a timebomb waiting to go off in a gun owners home.......

I had a classmate killed in grade school by a "responsible" older brother, she was 11.

An absolute tragedy

I am sure her parents felt that her brother was mature and able to handle a gun.....

FOLKS...... THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY WRONG!

If the internet were available at the time of the shooting, their father or mother might have been posting how responsible and trained THEIR kids were with firearms....

I lean more toward the safe side.

 

[Texan Scott]

I have NEVER taken a single safety precaution with a gun just to keep the rest of y'all from looking bad.

I do it because I love my kids.

Not sayin' other people don't ... Just sayin'.

 

[Sam1911]

There really is no lesson to be gained from this tragedy.

Someone was careless with a firearm and a child died because of it.

These two statements contradict each other directly.

We may say, "This lesson is redundant, because I already have strict safety practices and would NEVER leave a (loaded? cocked? ... or ANY) gun with unattended children." But there IS a lesson here to be learned, as obviously not all gun owners have heard and understood.

(Or had the imagination and intelligence to figure it out on their own.)

 

[Sam1911]

I don't really even see this Kentucky tragedy as, necessarily, a case for locking up guns. This was just gross negligence that could have been avoided with far less parental care than investing in a gun safe. Maybe (?) we all accept that and some are just not willing to come out and admit it, I don't know.

...

However, on the question of keeping guns locked up:

I must say it does seem that for many of us the argument that we grew up with guns and ammo were stored in an unlocked closet, or otherwise easily available, and our strong desire not to have to spend the money or go to the trouble (or give up the "freedom", I guess, though I don't get that one) to get a gun cabinet or safe or good locks on a closet (etc.), appears to really equate to acceptance that if our kids are too foolish, or too dumb, or too sneaky, (or their friends are) and they do something horribly tragic, well, that's just life and these things happen and that's an acceptable price to pay for...well, whatever. The "freedom" not to lock things up, I guess.

I'm not sure why we'd be so very resistant. Shoot, when most of us grew up no parents used car safety seats. These days many fewer kids die in car accidents. Same with safety precautions on many other items. From pill bottle tops to safety rails around stairways, and on and on. Nothing's perfect, of course, and a very determined young person, as they get older, may indeed defeat even a heightened level of security. But does that mean we should not make the effort for the benefit of our families?

It is a very cavalier way of thinking, indeed, that says a little money spent and a little effort exerted to very significantly reduce the chances that our kids will DIE this way just aren't worth it.

...

Paraphrasing an old MADD advertisement I remember from childhood, if you won't do it to save your kids' lives, do it because guns are valuable and you don't want them stolen!

 

[leprechaun50]

Re: my post #30. The times are changing and sometimes its best to change with them.









;\

 

[Arkansas Paul]

Eventually somewhere someplace some kid will do something stupid and lives are changed forever.
Children have little brains full of mush.

Yeah I agree.
I took Developmental Psychology a couple semesters ago and our instructor told us that the part of the brain responsible for decision making wasn't fully developed until about 18. If that's true, and I figure he knew what he was talking about, it doesn't matter how well you train your kids. They'll make dumb choices now and then. If one of those dumb choices is made with a loaded gun you left laying around, well the consequences are pretty dire.

 

[Gaffer]

I have not read all of the thread pages but a good part of the problem today is that parents are not parenting. The good book lays out how we should parent and I tried to do that and brought up two boys with loaded guns at my bedside and never had problem. I took them to a gravel pit as soon as they were old enough to reason and showed them what a bullet would do to a jug of liquid. I explained that the human body is largely liquid and what a bullet would do. When they grew old enough to tell me why they never messed with my guns, they both said that that little demonstration was most impressive and was what impressed them so much to never even consider touching the guns.
Maybe I was just lucky or had smart kids but it worked in my case.

 

[FAS1]

Educate, take the mystery out of it and teach good gun safety. Even with that you will never know if that's enough for some until something bad happens. Make sure you continue to use your safes and handgun safes just to be sure.

When I designed mine, it was after one of my son's friends said "I know where your gun is" while I was in the garage reloading

Apparently my oldest showed him a .25 auto that I kept in my toolbox. It was the only gun that was not in the safe at the time and I spent a lot of time in the garage reloading back then. It was a real wake up call. They didn't touch it, but what if the friend grabbed it and said "Cool"? They were around 11 or 12 at that time. Thank God nothing happened, but that's when I decided to make what I wanted in a handgun safe and now that my kids are grown I still use it for my G17 for home defense.

So, in my opinion do all that you can to teach them, but don't take for granted that they will ALWAYS make the right decision, especially around friends. My dad had guns all over the house and I never had an interest in them growing up. I was too busy riding motorcycles and didn't get into guns until I had my own home.

 

[bigdaa]

Since before we had sons (15 and 13) I had my safe. PERIOD.

Every gun I have is locked inside. That's the way it's always been with the critters running amok with their rugrat friends and now teen associates.

Their Red Ryders had places in the safe!

I could not face the future being responsible for anyone's death and heartache.

In teaching people gun safety and operation, I never leave out the very first thing: PROPER GUN STORAGE!

I tell em to get a safe, and a decent sized one because with guns you can never have enough .


Nobody is ever going to stumble onto a loaded gun in my home. Nobody.

 

[Sam1911]

My assumption that it was locked is just as valid as your assumption that it was not.

The quote "in place and operational" lead me to my assumption.

The fact that the gun fired lead you to yours.

How's that again?

In place and locked but the gun fired would equal NON-operational.

In place and operation but the gun fired would equal NOT locked.

 

[Akita1]

Yeah I agree.
I took Developmental Psychology a couple semesters ago and our instructor told us that the part of the brain responsible for decision making wasn't fully developed until about 18. If that's true, and I figure he knew what he was talking about, it doesn't matter how well you train your kids. They'll make dumb choices now and then. If one of those dumb choices is made with a loaded gun you left laying around, well the consequences are pretty dire.

Agreed - I read recently that the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until mid-20's, which may explain why before that age (and sometimes after of course) we do things outside the realm of cognitive reasoning. For my part, my kids know the four rules, know how to shoot and will still never have unsupervised access to the guns in our home. Further, their friends' parents are notified upfront that we have them in the home, they're all locked up, etc. Mitigating the risk is the answer here, IMHO.

 

[bassdogs]

will respond when I digest the comments on this thread. this happened in my backyard and wife attended the funeral on Sat. On several levels, this hit home. At this point I am both saddened and infuriated by what happened. This was not an accident no matter how you look at it. The reality is that the 2 yr old could have easily been the shooter and the brother or mother the victim. The gun was there for the taking and required no training, skill, or strength to fire. Truth is that it could have slid to the ground when the door slammed or it was bumped by the vacumn.

OK my head has cleared and I think Sam 11 has it pretty much dead on. So many talk about locks and safes, safety training, or exposing youngsters to firearms at a very early age. Each of which has merit and shortcomings in preventing an incident of this type.

Over the days since this happened, I have mulled it over in my mind hundreds of times. This is primarily a case of total lack of parental responsibility and failure to provide a safe home for their children. As Sam pointed out, the cricket requires that a striker be manually pulled. the gun was left fully ready to fire and we are to believe that no one new. I don't buy it. Parents, family and friends need to open their eyes and make sure their homes are safe for the kids that frequent them. This is not accusing anyone or taking sides as to what is correct. Just that we should not take for granted that our kids, grandkids, or neighors kids are safe. Take a second look and act accordingly.

Accidents can and will happen. All we can do is to minimize the opportunities for mayhem. No one can look at a situation where a gun that looks like a toy, is fully loaded and ready to fire, and is left where it is in easy reach of a child or even the family dog; and still refer to an incident like this as "AN ACCIDENT".

 

[Manco]

I don't see how it's a bad idea to control access to our own firearms, especially when young children, no matter how well trained they may be, are around--it's the responsible thing to do. Older children (of varying age) who you know you can trust may be given independent access to loaded firearms for defensive purposes, but short of that I think it's a good and very prudent idea to keep one's firearms locked away securely when young children and visitors are around (at the very least). Why tempt fate, even if it's one's family tradition to do so?

Defensive firearms, as pointed out earlier, can be made readily available in a hurry yet remain secure the rest of the time. The very best such devices are the ones that use a mechanical push-button combination lock such as the Simplex--these are dead-reliable, require no batteries or other power source, have no backup key to be lost by the right people or found by the wrong people, and are very quick to unlock (when you have the combination), even in the dark.

As for the recent case in Kentucky involving a 5-year-old brother who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister, that was a case of gross, I would say criminal negligence on the part of the parents, involving multiple failures in judgment and firearms handling practice, which is particularly glaring given the design and intended function of the rifle involved. This may have been an "accident" on the boy's part, but not with regard to his parents, in my opinion. This tragedy was completely avoidable.

 

[j1]

Any parent allowing his child access to a firearm is a fool. I do not usually speak this strongly and do not like to insult people but that is what I think.

 

[Sam1911]

Let's make a bit of an adjustment:

"Any parent allowing his young child unsupervised access to a firearm is a fool."

Most of us allow our children all the access they desire, so long as they ask and touch ONLY under Mom or Dad's direct supervision.
And many of us allow older children (late teenagers) to shoot and/or hunt at times without us being right there.

Those are very positive things. The distinction becomes important because there are plenty of folks out in the world who really DO want to not allow children ANY access to guns EVER. That's a very negative thing, and we need to make the difference abundantly clear.

 

[X-JaVeN-X]

Educating your kids is one thing, but assuming that kids always do what they're told is a stupid and dangerous assumption.

How many kids are told from the time they can comprehend that they shouldn't smoke, do drugs, etc, because they can cause them serious harm? ... Now how many still do any of the above options?

Of course educate your kids on gun safety...but don't assume that your kids are somehow immune from immaturity and bad decision making. Doing so is a dangerous game to play...especially when it comes to guns.

 

[JFtheGR8]

When I was taking one of those mandatory healthcare education courses required for my particular degree the instructor gave us a statistic about how most people only have a fourth grade reading level. If that is the case then what do you think they are capable of teaching their kids. I'm not going to dig up the source so don't ask. I figure it's probably reliable and in my exposure to the public through 10+ years of patient care I would attest to it. Guns in the home of small children should be secured. There's a difference between secured and locked up too. Not all gun owners are THR either. The members here are exceptional for the most part. I'm with Ron on the PSA's but I don't think the anti gunners would go for it since they want total confiscation.


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