My Child Is Pretty Curious, Do You Lock Up Your Guns?

[bangswitch]

Not saying you wouldn't get sued, but NC law makes provisions for the above:

Good to know, but it doesn't protect you from a civil suit. People nowadays aren't willing to take responsibility for their own actions and feel they should be owed something even if it was a result of their own wrongdoing. Judges today are too liberal to laugh at stupid lawsuits that should never be heard.

At any rate, there are no unsecured guns in my house when no one is home.

 

[Nasty Canasta]

We keep over 90% of our firearms secured, mostly against theft. We've been out of the kid business for a long time & no grandkids so no concerns about curious little ones. IF I knew someone was visiting with kids (highly unlikely) I'd take the appropriate actions.

 

[bassjam]

I've never been asked that but I have kids aged between 4 and 15 and if any of their friends parent's asked before dropping them off I wouldn't have a problem telling the truth.

Actually just this past fall my 15 year old had 3 friends over and she asked if her friends could shoot jackalanterns with us (it's a family tradition) so my wife contacted each of their parents beforehand to make sure there were no issues. None of the kids had ever shot a firearm before.

 

[AK Hunter]

My guns are not locked up right now but back when my children were living here I did lock up every gun except for the carry in my pocket.

 

[Mostly Lead]

Am I likely to fill out an online survey about it? Absolutely not.

You just did...

 

[Spats McGee]

You just did...

I guess I did.

 

[EIB0879]

We had firearms all over the house growing up. No one died.

 

[hoardingthemanual]

I keep my guns in my gun safe. I pour my coffee into a coffee mug. I lather hair shampoo into my hair. life isn't hard.

I dont waste time with people who play devil's advocate or those who rhetoric for the sake of rhetoric.

 

[GBExpat]

How would you respond if your neighbor asked you that question?

<shrug> No unsecured, fire-able firearms at my house. There is, however, a large number of unsecured sharp-pointed and/or -edged objects all over the place.

... so, not a kid-safe place, at all.

 

[Miami_JBT]

How would you respond if your neighbor asked you that question?

My neighbors know I'm a former cop and the face for a national gun rights organization. The cat is out of the bag on that one.

 

[The Night Rider]

This is likely a fishing expedition to get information on who has guns. It is also a subtle indication that gun owners are thoughtless and leave guns lying around. Unless there was a hidden agenda, why would it be necessary to ask such a question? The sole redeeming feature is that you have the ability to ignore it and not take the bait.

I was under the impression they were telling people that this was an okay question to ask before you let your kids go play at Johnny's House. What do you do if they're asking you face to face?

I mean, my youngest grandchild is 18 years old. This is not a scenario that I'm going to have to deal with

 

[Reloadron]

"If" I owned any guns, it's nobody's business how they're safely kept.

That is my thinking. How many guns I own, how I store those guns, how much ammunition I own and how I store my ammunition is my business and mine alone. Something I have no use for and I despise is other people trying to crawl into my life.

Ron

 

[Bill_in_TR]

I am comfortable sharing information with people I trust who have a legitimate need to know. But that is a very small group of people. I am certainly not sharing info with some random stranger taking a survey.

 

[rust collector]

If the inquirer is a friend, they know the answer. If not, I would prefer that their child play elsewhere. Otherwise, I would have to disclose a drawer full of sharp knives, a workshop full of edged and power tools, a swimming pool, non-tempered and operable windows, balconies/decks, and storage of corrosive and/or toxic chemicals and pesticides. I would also need a liability waiver signed by parent before any visit.

 

[The Night Rider]

With the exception of my carry gun which is also my home defense gun, I keep all my firearms unloaded and stored in the safe.

If I'm not home there are no unsecured firearms in our house.

I can't imagine anybody asking me that question but if they did I would simply answer than any firearms in the house are locked up and I'd make sure that if their child came to my house they would be.

Lets Talk Guns Colorado is a Bloomberg funded "Gun Safety" organization.

I don't necessarily to disagree with some of their points. I absolutely believe that if there's a firearm in your home it should be under your direct personal controller it should be locked up.

But if you go to their website they also have videos about how to talk to your friends about filing an ERPO on your spouse and who to call if you notice that your friend has an unsecured firearm in their home. They even have a how-to on off site temporary secure storage. It's basically a how to on how to get an ERPO on your spouse and have the guns taken out of the home.

They're not good people. And if somebody came to my house asking those questions I would be a little suspicious of their motives

 

[doubleh]

My answer would be "What guns"? Of course this is NM and almost everyone has one or more. We got a safe storage law recently and if a kid commits a crime with one the parents are now liable. NM laws are usually written so vaguely that they probably would be if the kid stole the gun.

Our guv didn't get everything she wanted in gun control and is considering calling a special session to browbeat the legislature into giving her what she wants. Liberals just can't get it through their tiny little brains that guns are machines that can do nothing until a human operates them. Criminals are just turned loose, sometimes repeatedly, with no bail to keep on being doing what they do.

NM is rapidly going to hell in a handcar. If I were not so old I would pack my sack and return to Texas.

OK, rant over with and to address the OP's question even my great grandkids are old enough to know not to mess with a gun without parental permission. I understand that kids don't always do as told as I was once one myself. Really, I was, and did some stuff I shouldn't have but it never involved a gun. Locked up is the way to be sure. However if you teach you children about how guns work and what they are capable of will help a lot with the curious factor. Taking them shooting with you will help even more. I see curiosity in a kid as good but it's up to the parents and other adults to teach and channel that trait.

Today the world is a far different one than I grew up in. I do notice that most of the shooting incidents done by kids is in urban areas where very little occurs in more rural areas.

 

[wayneinFL]

I haven't had small children in my house in a long time. It's not child safe. Wasn't even that child safe when I had small kids.

There's all kinds of dangerous stuff all over my house. Is your kid an idiot? If he is, you don't want him in my house.

 

[GreenWolf]

I grew up with access to guns. They were up on a rack on the wall and in a closet. I never messed with them unless I had permission. I was a curious child and learned how to handle, clean, and shoot firearms safely from my father.

 

[.308 Norma]

The cat is out of the bag on that one.

Yep. Right after we moved out here (in 1979), I built a "little red barn" storage shed beside the house. And I purposely left the roof beam extending about 6 feet out the front of it so that we would have a convenient place for hanging deer while we were skinning them out. Later on we planted some trees, but it was years before any of those trees grew big enough to hang a deer from.
At any rate, while we don't have any real close neighbors, I'm sure that over the years, there's been hundreds of people driving by on the road out front that have seen dead deer hanging from the front of our "little red barn" during hunting season, and I doubt many of those folks just assumed we were bowhunters. Besides, in the 44 years we've lived here, there's probably been a good many neighbors and people driving by that saw us carrying guns back and forth between our house and our motor vehicles - even though we try to be somewhat discreet about that.

 

[TarDevil]

If the inquirer is a friend, they know the answer. If not, I would prefer that their child play elsewhere. Otherwise, I would have to disclose a drawer full of sharp knives, a workshop full of edged and power tools, a swimming pool, non-tempered and operable windows, balconies/decks, and storage of corrosive and/or toxic chemicals and pesticides. I would also need a liability waiver signed by parent before any visit.

1) Do you have kids,
2) If yes, do they make new friends?

Over the years, our home has hosted many sleepovers with school and church kids. Good friendships from such.

 

[.308 Norma]

I was a curious child and learned how to handle, clean, and shoot firearms safely from my father.

Same with me, only my mom was involved in teaching me about safety with guns as well. And that's very much the same way my wife and I raised our own kids (both daughters).
BTW, only one of our two daughters took to guns, hunting and shooting. The other one, while she doesn't have anything against those things, simply isn't all that interested in them. And get this - she's the one that's a wheel with one of the largest hunting and conservation organizations in the U.S.! I don't know where I went wrong with that girl!

 

[rust collector]

1) Do you have kids,
2) If yes, do they make new friends?

Over the years, our home has hosted many sleepovers with school and church kids. Good friendships from such.

Children are fully fledged. Grandchildren are in the house often, but only when other adults are present. Meet-ups with friends are at other locations.

Many years ago we took in foster children. A couple decades ago we were on the Warm Showers site and hosted transcontinental bicyclists regularly during the warm months of the year. They would occasionally have the run of the house while we were at work. Our travels and other obligations made that untenable.

Young ones are presumed curious.

 

[Sovblocgunfan]

No matter what i do with my guns or how i choose to store them, i find that it helps if one removes the urge for a child or children to be curious. If children are not curious guns will be less apt to be coon-fingered to begin with.

 

[.38 Special]

My neighbors are all strangers. I've never passed a single word with most of them. They have no reason to know that I even have guns, let alone to ask how I manage them, so if they started asking such questions, my reply would be hostile.

Parents of my children's friends, though, have a duty to their families, and I give a lot of leeway to people engaged in those duties. The subject has come up on several occasions and my answer always has been "I make sure that everything is locked up in the safe when your kids come visit".

 

[.308 Norma]

No matter what i do with my guns or how i choose to store them, i find that it helps if one removes the urge for a child or children to be curious. If children are not curious guns will be less apt to be coon-fingered to begin with.

I believe that too. I grew up around guns and hunting, and I had access to a good many rifles and shotguns. Heck, for that matter, I had my own gun "rack" in my bedroom. However, as I've said before on THR, the only gun in the house that I was really curious about was the revolver (I think it was a 38 Special) that I knew Dad kept hidden in the top drawer of the dresser in his and Mom's bedroom. And I snuck in there and fondled that gun many times when Mom and Dad weren't around. Luckily Mom and Dad taught me early on about safety with guns, so I never did have an accident with that revolver even though it was loaded.