Gun and Kids at home

[manta49]

No young children should have access to firearms, at that age its the parents responsibility to keep them safe that includes denying them access where possible to things that could harm them. Children can be taught firearms safety etc without having unsupervised access to them. In most countries allowing children access to firearm would be seen as neglect.

Laws Imposing Criminal Liability when a Child Gains Access as a Result of Negligent Storage of a Firearm: Fourteen states and the District of Columbia, have laws that impose criminal liability on persons who negligently store firearms, where minors could or do gain access to the firearm. Typically, these laws apply whenever the person “knows or reasonably should know” that a child is likely to gain access to the firearm.

[TheFlash]

I have a 7 year old and a 5 year old.
All my firearms that are not to be accessible for home defense are kept unloaded and locked up or stored very high up where the kids cannot reach.
The pistol that I have for home defense is kept in a GunVault safe with the electronic push buttons (not biometric) and the pistol is kept loaded with safety on.

I have taught my kids since they were babies that my firearms are a no-no to touch when I am not around. But, when I am home, if they want to see them and talk and touch them, all they have to do is ask me and I will show them and teach them about any of the firearms I have.
(They especially like the M1 Garands...)

-Mike

[Duster340]

Locked and unloaded except for SD/HD which is either on my person or secured in quick entry lock box. While both my girls are great shots and understand gun safety, I still keep everything locked down. The prospect of leaving loaded firearms unsecured and easily accessible when we are at work, kids are at school etc just does not seem the be wise. I do not want to come home to someone pointing my guns at me or my kids. And if someone manages to break in while we're away, they'll at least need to take the time and really work at it to get any of my stuff.

That's just what my wife and I agree makes sense for us. To each their own...

Be well all,
Pat

[AK103K]

The prospect of leaving loaded firearms unsecured and easily accessible when we are at work, kids are at school etc just does not seem the be wise.

I suppose a lot of this is an "age/era" thing.

We grew up back when kids had a boatload of responsibility at a very young age, and access to firearms was pretty much a given in any household I was ever in. We all grew up with them, knew what the were, and what they were about, and even went out on our own with them, at an age these days, the parents would likely be arrested if you were seen.

It seems these days, kids are not to be trusted with anything, or even educated, in anything other than what the "party" thinks they should be. Todd forbid, they learn to think for themselves!

Scary times we live in, aint it? I suppose in another generation or two, it will all be over. Ive seen it from the inception, and my kids were some of the first to encounter it. Luckily (or unluckily) for them, I "re-educated" them everyday after school.

Now, when they have kids, it'll be their turn to do the educating. I know at least some in the future, will still know they can, and should think for themselves. Unfortunately, Ive probably saddled them with a curse.

[str8tshot]

Originally Posted by Doyle

Absolutely not so. Anybody with any training in child and adolescent behavior knows that this just doesn't hold water. Yes, there are the occasional kids that can be trusted like this but most kid's minds just don't work they way.

WOW!
And to think I have raised 5 kids over the past 25 years and have NEVER had a problem with them messing around with firearms. CRAZY. My kids must all be cut from a different cloth than the ones studied by liberal sociologists raised in inner cities. I postulate that parenting style is more relevant to the outcome of any study in child behavior than the innate undisciplined nature of children.

[cjwils]

This topic comes up from time to time in several gun forums that I read. There are always a few parents who think their kids are so well behaved and so well trained that loaded guns can be left where the kids have access. Hogwash! If kids are around, LOCK UP YOUR GUNS.

No child always obeys. They will misbehave. I misbehaved, and so did you. My dad trained me very thoroughly, but there were occasions when I played with his guns when no adults were around. Guns are so fascinating that kids are drawn to them. You don't need a college degree in child psychology to understand this; you just need to understand human nature. If kids are around, LOCK UP YOUR GUNS.

[manta49]

WOW!
And to think I have raised 5 kids over the past 25 years and have NEVER had a problem with them messing around with firearms. CRAZY.

We are talking about firearms and children in general not your children just because they were responsible around firearms doesn't mean others children will. The responsible advice is never let small children unsupervised access to firearms. Apart form the common sense aspect it maybe illegal and viewed as child neglect if a child is injured or killed.

[str8tshot]

Originally Posted by AK103K

It seems these days, kids are not to be trusted with anything, or even educated, in anything other than what the "party" thinks they should be. Todd forbid, they learn to think for themselves.

We have created our own problem. We don't expect children to be trusted, so they are not trustworthy. We expect them to want to be children or teens until they are 25, and they follow suite. I think that logic works both ways. If we expect them to be trustworthy, they are. Children are far more capable then this liberally bent generation will allow them to be.

[adamBomb]

A lot of good advice here and I hope it keeps coming...

I do realize that my kids need to be trained. I have been doing that already and it will progress as they get older. I have shown them pictures of guns, we have talked about how serious they are, what to do if you find one, etc.

But really what I need to know about are the measures I can take if they get curious or another kid does - because it does happen regardless of what we as parents do. All kids do dumb things at one time or another. Safes are a must. I have decided I will pretty much make my non SD guns inoperable in a safe in a locked closet. My SD gun is a revolver and it will be in the safe in my bedroom, loaded, and I will have an additional lock blocking the cylinder from closing. Thus 2-3 locks per gun.

[db4570]

The best information I've ever read on the subject:

http://www.corneredcat.com/article/k...ildproof-isnt/

David

[kilimanjaro]

Most of us did not get a gun of our own until we were ten or twelve years old, some later, some earlier. I'll bet not one single person on this forum was allowed unfettered access to a loaded firearm when they were of Kindergarten age.

Our parents knew it was irresponsible to let us handle firearms at an early age, and this has not changed one whit.

Lock it up.

[AK103K]

Our parents knew it was irresponsible to let us handle firearms at an early age, and this has not changed one whit.

My parents allowed it, but encouraged it, as did we. Its the main reason I believe we never had any issues. Basically, contestant training from birth.

How is it you feel its irresponsible? The younger you start teaching your kids, the faster they learn. Waiting until they are 10 or 12 to start, is a major mistake.

[jimbob86]

Most of us did not get a gun of our own until we were ten or twelve years old, some later, some earlier.

Your childhood .... I'm glad it was not mine.

I'll bet not one single person on this forum was allowed unfettered access to a loaded firearm when they were of Kindergarten age.

You lost that bet already: I never saw a gun safe growing up, and trigger locks were unknown. Grandpa kept most all his guns behind the door to the stairs ( and I know the .22 was always loaded), and Dad's were on a gunrack over his bed .... a very few people had actual "gun cabinets", usually made as a high school wood shop project - all of them had glass fronts (and sometimes sides) and NONE of them locked..... I rode around in pickups with multitple guns in racks in the rear window or above the sunvisors (the "Outa-Site" gun rack) .... guns and ammunition were freely accessible to my siblings and me from the time we could crawl ..... but we knew not to touch them, as surely as we knew not to touch the stove in winter. Doing so would result in some immediate pain .... but I'm sure modern progressive society would consider that abuse, as well.

[str8tshot]

Originally Posted by cjwils

This topic comes up from time to time in several gun forums that I read. There are always a few parents who think their kids are so well behaved and so well trained that loaded guns can be left where the kids have access. Hogwash! If kids are around, LOCK UP YOUR GUNS.



No child always obeys. They will misbehave. I misbehaved, and so did you. My dad trained me very thoroughly, but there were occasions when I played with his guns when no adults were around. Guns are so fascinating that kids are drawn to them. You don't need a college degree in child psychology to understand this; you just need to understand human nature. If kids are around, LOCK UP YOUR GUNS.

Let's take this a bit deeper. You are suggesting that children will access unlocked guns, and that proper training and removing the mystery has no real impact on how children react around guns when left to their own devices. OK. So what control measure do you suggest to prevent parents from forgetting to LOCK UP THEIR GUNS? If the children are not educated and allowed to learn in a controlled manner, the result may be (and in fact has been) very catastrophic.
People forget to do things all the time; yes even gun safety. If you doubt this, look up how many people get DQd from shooting competitions for safety violations. If people didn't forget not to break the 180, or touch ammo on the safe table, they wouldn't get DQd (most of the DQs are for violations like that). Oh yes, you can lambast them for forgetting, but the truth is we all do forget from time to time.
Why do I belabor this point? Because I would prefer to train my children at an early age about gun safety so they will be safe around guns. The point was made earlier about other children coming into the house with unsecured guns. The same point can be made about my children going into another person's house where the gun owner doesn't subscribe to the current mantra of LOCK UP YOUR GUNS. If my child has an appropriate level of understanding, he won't touch the guns, nor will he abide others playing with them either.
So to your mantra of if you have kids around LOCK UP YOUR GUNS, I say take the time to invest in their lives and teach them gun safety, then choose how you will store your guns in general.

[str8tshot]

Originally Posted by jimbob86

Your childhood .... I'm glad it was not mine.







You lost that bet already: I never saw a gun safe growing up, and trigger locks were unknown. Grandpa kept most all his guns behind the door to the stairs ( and I know the .22 was always loaded), and Dad's were on a gunrack over his bed .... a very few people had actual "gun cabinets", usually made as a high school wood shop project - all of them had glass fronts (and sometimes sides) and NONE of them locked..... I rode around in pickups with multitple guns in racks in the rear window or above the sunvisors (the "Outa-Site" gun rack) .... guns and ammunition were freely accessible to my siblings and me from the time we could crawl ..... but we knew not to touch them, as surely as we knew not to touch the stove in winter. Doing so would result in some immediate pain .... but I'm sure modern progressive society would consider that abuse, as well.

Funny, I too remember the days of a shotgun or rifle in the back window of EVERY truck in the High School parking lot during hunting season. And that was 30 miles south of DC in the 1980s. How times have changed. It is now illegal to have a pocket knife on school grounds.

[Duster340]

Yep, I too grew up around unlocked guns, started hunting at 9yo with my own single barrel 12ga and JC Higgins 22. Dad taught us kids gun safety. And I did the same with my twin girls. As I mentioned previously they are great shots and avid shooters, and they too now have a single shot 12 ga of their own. While I trust them to do the right thing, they're still kids, good kids at that, but their guns are locked up when we're not using them. Being kids they sometimes do silly, kid type stuff. I'd be lying if I said my brother and I didn't get into some mischieve, because we were sometimes dumb kids.

The biggest factor is not a distrust of my girls, but rather my distrust of other, unwelcomed, people. Not being home 24/7, I am not going to leave our our weapons unlocked, loaded and easily accessible to make it easy for some dirt bag to steal or use on my family if they walk in on them without me.

That said, I have no problem with fellow shooters that have differing opinions on the topic. Nor will I think less of them for thinking differently than me. I don't look back and think. Jeez my parents were irresponsible, because they were not. Different times perhaps, who's to say.

Be well all.

[skizzums]

when my child was too young to be trusted, he wasn't able to pull the trigger on a double action revolver, at least not the Taurus. But that's not exactly a promotion to leave a revolver in his toy box.

Most all my guns are locked up, even now that he is old enough to be trusted, and I don't lock up loaded guns. But even when he was young I did not feel safe w/o a loaded weapon that was easily accessible. Kids are super short thankfully, and there are places they just cannot get to. We kept our revolver in our bedroom on top of the entertainment center with first chamber empty, when not on our person. And an SA/DA semi-auto, unchambered but loaded, with safety on in a basket on top of our fridge, still do to this day, he is 8 years old now and he is scared to death to touch a pistol, even though I don't want him to be. I don't know how many of you have let a 3-5 year old try to use a gun, my son was curious so I talked to him about how they work, and allowed him to try to pull the trigger on unloaded firearms, just not happening. He could not pull the trigger, even with both hands until after six years old. I couldn't imagine any toddler could take of the safety, rack the slide and pull the trigger on a hammer type pistol. So I felt safe with a CZ type on top of the fridge. I assume that all these accidental discharges by children are with striker type, maybe DAO, with no safety on a loaded chamber.

In any event, I don't see why you would have to have a locked up gun unloaded unless that's the law where you live. If your wife would let you, let your child try to rack the slide, let alone if he can even pull the trigger.

My son loves to help reload, i'll let him resize or pour the powder into the funnel, even seat bullets, then go back and recheck every one of them. I pay him to sort brass. Still he has no interest in actually shooting a gun, I urge him to please let me know when he is ready and we'll run to the store immediately at get his first .22. I think i'll have to force the issue when he's ten because he really doesn't like them, he thinks "they kill people", which he is 100% correct.

[BlueTrain]

When my mother went to high school (my father never did), the high school had no parking lot. It was an "inner city" school. When I was in high school, very, very few students drove to school and none of them had pickup trucks. So I never, ever saw a gun in the back window of a pickup truck.

I did not grow up with a gun in the house. But when we moved to the country where my step-mother was from, there seemed to be guns everywhere but they were all old. I only saw one handgun, though, which was a .22 automatic. The owner kept it hanging on a nail in his shed outside. The only gun in the house where we lived, which was a pre-Civil War log house, was a single-shot Winchester .32-40 (I think) that felt like it weighted at least fifteen pounds. I don't recall anyone ever shooting it and I have no idea where it is now.

[2ndsojourn]

"If kids are around, LOCK UP YOUR GUNS."

I agree. It's not so much my kids that I worry about, but you never know who they'll bring home and what others have been taught. More importantly, there's probably a law restricting access to guns by minors.

Also, there's this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyvQ9rED0Ns

[pax]

It's not the odds. It's the stakes.

pax

[kraigwy]

I trust my kids, now I trust my grand kids.

Kids are curious, I believe they should be taught at an young age with supervision. If they are allowed to shoot, and are giving the opportunity there is less curiosity. They know dad/no grandpa will take them in the back yard (rural area) and teach them safety and gun handling.

But, kids/grand kids have friends. They want to bring their friends to grandpa's house to ride horses, 4-wheelers and such.

I don't know these kids, I wont teach them about guns and gun safety without parents permission AND parents presence.

My greatest fear is a kid getting my guns and someone getting hurt.

So every gun I have is locked in my gun safe. They aren't getting into it as only my wife and I know the combination.

I do believe in being armed 24/7. So my revolver is constantly in my pocket. Its impossible anyone getting my gun without my knowledge. At night my gun is still in my pants pocket hanging on the bed post. One would have to climb over me to get to it and I'm a light sleeper.

I wont stash guns all over, on the night stand, under the mattress, not the closet. I don't want anyone getting to my guns without my knowledge or my getting them for them.

But I want 24/7 access my self. In my situation, my opinion is, my home is gun safe regarding kids. Though I still have the fear in the back of my mind of some kid getting my guns.

YOU CANNOT BE TOO SAFE WITH IT COMES WITH KIDS AT HOME WITH GUNS.

[BlueTrain]

Some people trust their kids with the family car as soon as they get their learner's permit and they have an astonishing and disproportional number of accidents when they're just starting out. In some countries the legal age to drive is higher than the legal age to drink alcohol. We get lots of things backwards in this country.

The rate of accidents also increases when you're at the age I am fast approaching, too.

[TailGator]

Some people posting seem to consider teaching and secure storage to be an either/or situation. I tried to make it clear that I did both, and I strongly recommend that approach to others, because neither is fool proof.

I had good kids who obeyed and followed rules and excelled in school and became responsible adults. One of them burned her hand on the stove when she was little; despite all the warnings and teaching that we did she had to find out for herself. That is part of the way kids learn, but learning about firearms in that way could be tragic.

Teach them, because you want them to be safe when you have your firearms out, and when you take them shooting, and when they are in other homes where weapons may not be secured.

Secure your firearms that are not in use, because they will have friends over who have been taught less than your kids have, and because even the best kids have lapses of judgement.

We protect our physical possessions with layers of security. I don't see why the most precious things in our lives - our family - deserve less.

[FITASC]

No young children should have UNSUPERVISED access to firearms,

Fixed that for ya

[TimSr]

Secure your firearms that are not in use, because they will have friends over who have been taught less than your kids have

Exactly. I never worried about my kid with the guns, but never wanted to put him in the position of trying to keep an agressively curious friend's hands off of them.

For your home defense gun, loaded in a lock box (combination or bio) is fine. Kids find keys.