The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - Toddler Gun Safety vs. Firearm Accessibility

ice9_us · July 1, 2010, 11:56 PM

What are your thoughts? Aside from carrying concealed on my person the whole time, or having a dozen safes all over the house, how would you achieve the balance between safety and accessibility?
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I have 2 guns.. pt140 carry and walther p22.. I have a close setup like you have... It has worked fine.. i have 3 kids..
9, 7, and 4..

As a related question, how early is too early to start teaching kids about firearm safety? And how would you go about it?
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This is exactly what i have done.. appears to have worked very well..
my first son saw the gun at 7 or 8 and showed some interest..
What is that.. how does it work.. type stuff... I went over his questions… When he asked if he could shoot, I told him he had to show he was responsible, and mature enough to handle the weapon. I put the gun away, and said.. Anytime you want to see it let me know.. and Every time he wanted to see it.. within reason(no friends around and time allowed) I took it down.. let him see me handle it.. check to see if it was loaded things like that.. and we made that into rules.. so he would have to tell me what to do. If he got the order of rules wrong, I put it up. over time.. he learned to treat all guns as they were loaded things like that.. once he was able to clean and handle the gun SAFELY I took him to shoot. And we then went over range rules… in our building of rules I had him read NRA site(as best as he could) and things like that to build his own list of 10 rules… as a right of passage to shoot.. That worked very well.. and is working today.. I have handled each child the same way.. waiting for the 4 year old to start asking questions..

July 1, 2010, 11:56 PM	#4
ice9_us Senior Member Join Date: October 14, 2008 Posts: 101	faced with same issue. What are your thoughts? Aside from carrying concealed on my person the whole time, or having a dozen safes all over the house, how would you achieve the balance between safety and accessibility? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have 2 guns.. pt140 carry and walther p22.. I have a close setup like you have... It has worked fine.. i have 3 kids.. 9, 7, and 4.. As a related question, how early is too early to start teaching kids about firearm safety? And how would you go about it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is exactly what i have done.. appears to have worked very well.. my first son saw the gun at 7 or 8 and showed some interest.. What is that.. how does it work.. type stuff... I went over his questions… When he asked if he could shoot, I told him he had to show he was responsible, and mature enough to handle the weapon. I put the gun away, and said.. Anytime you want to see it let me know.. and Every time he wanted to see it.. within reason(no friends around and time allowed) I took it down.. let him see me handle it.. check to see if it was loaded things like that.. and we made that into rules.. so he would have to tell me what to do. If he got the order of rules wrong, I put it up. over time.. he learned to treat all guns as they were loaded things like that.. once he was able to clean and handle the gun SAFELY I took him to shoot. And we then went over range rules… in our building of rules I had him read NRA site(as best as he could) and things like that to build his own list of 10 rules… as a right of passage to shoot.. That worked very well.. and is working today.. I have handled each child the same way.. waiting for the 4 year old to start asking questions..