another pake
Member
Living in west central Minnesota is a sportsman's paradise. No matter where you are you're only minutes away from almost limitless hunting and shooting opportunities.
If you live, work, play or go to school in Minnesota it's probably only a matter of time until you find yourself friends with or living with someone who enjoys firearms. For this reason alone it has always made sense to me and my wife to make sure that any child living in our home receive firearms safety training. Such training is readily available to any kid, 11 years and older through DNR affiliated groups. If you're going to live here you may as well learn how to handle them safely.
We are in our late 60's. Having raised five of our own and over 60 foster kids in 30 years. A lot of kids have grown up here.
This past weekend, one of our current foster kids, a twelve year old girl from a very dis functional family had this experience. On Saturday, O_____ came inside and asked if she could bake a pan of brownies and deliver them to a neighbor, an elderly widow in her eighties who lives about a mile away as the crow flies. O_____ had recently met our neighbor and enjoys going over for a visit now and then. Well, she baked the brownies and carefully loaded them into her backpack and rode her bike the mile or so down the gravel to the edge of town where her new friend still lives independently in her own home. The two "girls", differ in age by more than seven decades. They certainly differ in their life experiences and understanding of both world history and current events. And although it didn't seem apparent to either of them, they differ in their race.
At some point O_____ looked out of the window and saw ducks paddling around the wetland at the edge of her friend's property.
"My brother should be here. He loves to hunt." ,said O_____.
"I have a shotgun. Would you like to see it?" ,her elderly new friend asked.
They both walked to a bedroom where her hostess produced a long gun from a closet. She handed it to O_____ .
"I hope that you've got the safety on." ,said O_____.
It wasn't. And she told me that the next thing that she noticed was that it wasn't a shotgun. It was an old tube fed BB gun, still loaded.
O_____ made the gun safe and unloaded it. Then, handing her friend a dozen or so BBs she said,
"Maybe you should just keep these in a drawer."
To say the least, I'm pretty proud of her.
If you live, work, play or go to school in Minnesota it's probably only a matter of time until you find yourself friends with or living with someone who enjoys firearms. For this reason alone it has always made sense to me and my wife to make sure that any child living in our home receive firearms safety training. Such training is readily available to any kid, 11 years and older through DNR affiliated groups. If you're going to live here you may as well learn how to handle them safely.
We are in our late 60's. Having raised five of our own and over 60 foster kids in 30 years. A lot of kids have grown up here.
This past weekend, one of our current foster kids, a twelve year old girl from a very dis functional family had this experience. On Saturday, O_____ came inside and asked if she could bake a pan of brownies and deliver them to a neighbor, an elderly widow in her eighties who lives about a mile away as the crow flies. O_____ had recently met our neighbor and enjoys going over for a visit now and then. Well, she baked the brownies and carefully loaded them into her backpack and rode her bike the mile or so down the gravel to the edge of town where her new friend still lives independently in her own home. The two "girls", differ in age by more than seven decades. They certainly differ in their life experiences and understanding of both world history and current events. And although it didn't seem apparent to either of them, they differ in their race.
At some point O_____ looked out of the window and saw ducks paddling around the wetland at the edge of her friend's property.
"My brother should be here. He loves to hunt." ,said O_____.
"I have a shotgun. Would you like to see it?" ,her elderly new friend asked.
They both walked to a bedroom where her hostess produced a long gun from a closet. She handed it to O_____ .
"I hope that you've got the safety on." ,said O_____.
It wasn't. And she told me that the next thing that she noticed was that it wasn't a shotgun. It was an old tube fed BB gun, still loaded.
O_____ made the gun safe and unloaded it. Then, handing her friend a dozen or so BBs she said,
"Maybe you should just keep these in a drawer."
To say the least, I'm pretty proud of her.
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