Too much safety?

Sorry for the delay. I had to go take care of a couple numb-skulls who definitely need not own firearms much less be issued them. Oh well,
Maybe I should have put the opening line in the bottom?

Mountain man- I don't think guns or any dangerous item should just be handed out blindly to anyone children or adult. Not to sound anti, but there are allot of people with them that shouldn't have them. On the flip side, I know of allot of kids who can handle the responsibility of dangerous items. How many have kids who ride dirt bikes? My oldest (sorry I am proud of my kids, I guess) used my little trim saw to help cut wood last year. The same thing applied there. Safety was ingrained with the learning of how to use the item. It was not a separate class. Is that not how you were taught to climb? The audibles were part of how to climb and natural as part of the process.

You say guns are meant to kill. In the Corps, or any military service, you are right. A military man may have to kill just because it is the enemy he is looking at. But NEVER should any civilian view them as such. Not even LEO's. Why? There job is to save lives. I may kill a deer at home, but I feed my family with it and as such we live. An officer may need to use his one day in defense of himself or others so that they may live. For me once this uniform is off (actually I hunt in it, but you get the point) my firearms are tools for living.

You question whether people focusing on gun safety makes them dangerous. Well, how about this. you may take precautions as you climb, but when talking to others is that your focus? Or is it on the enjoyment of breaking that crest, or just hanging for a moment and enjoying the view? And I bet more than half of the non-climbers you talk to are so caught up in that part. They may not want to try it, but they won't tell you you're wrong to do so. With firearms the first thing a non shooter says is how dangerous a gun is. Right off the bat they are considered in that light. By stressing how careful we are we only make this worse. After all anything you have to treat so cautiously must be horribly unstable. Right after that they hop in their car and drive off in even more danger.

My oldest was so scared after the hunting education course spent half of their time on weapon safety, I had to convince her they weren't so bad.
"Daddy is my 410 really that bad?"
"Do you plan to do something you shouldn't with it?"
"No"
"Then no it isn't, Kala"

You say that making safety unconscious leads to negligent discharges. I believe the opposite to be true. The fact that safety becomes a habit, means that it is ingrained. I feel odd if I start to walk toward my target without having opened the action. I can't do it. If I actually had to think about it, I might forget something. Not that I am perfect. The last perfect person I know of died at 33 for all of us. However, I feel similar to clasping my hands the opposite way if I break habits. I doubt I'll ever be able to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, because I learned that putting it on was a part of riding.

The part about weapons not killing is simple fact. I have yet to see a knife, bow, car, or gun kill someone. I have SEEN people die from other people using them though. A car bomb makes a great example.

I have gotten beyond the point where I tell my kids what they have done wrong most of the time. I can ask and they can figure it out. Sometimes just a quiet hint is all it takes to drive the habit into a child's bones. Yes they are still kids. They NEVER hand me a loaded gun. The bolt being forward would have been right after getting out of my gun cabinet, but I don't take a gun with the bolt forward, not even from my armorer.

And yes if safety is not ingrained you do need more teaching. I have said no one is perfect, but good habits with the use of anything are a necessity.

To address your concerns about other kids in our house. We deal with that since kids like to show off, by simply removing the bolts or locking the Rossi. Nice and simple and the kids can only beat each other with them after that.

hso said:

Safety is learned, not instinctive. If you teach your children how to handle something or do something safely and then reinforce it they can learn it and turn it into habit.

Not speeding becomes a habit that is safer than speeding. Not driving while distracted (cell phone, texting, arguing, reaching into the back,...putting on your makeup drinking your Big Gulp of Vodka Sunrise) becomes a habit and is safer than driving distracted. Driving with or without a seatbelt becomes habit that improves your safety. They're not instinctive, but through being taught the hazards of this one activity they can be turned into good habits that lead to safe behavior.

Good habits, not instinct is what helps keep us safe when dealing with any hazard. To develop good habits they have to be taught and reinforced. To be reinforced they have to be consistently followed and when they aren't the failure needs to be discussed, the habit retrained the safe behavior reinforced. Sometimes the failure to follow the habit of behaving safely with certain activities can lead to such catastrophic consequences that the person who hasn't turned that conscious safe behavior into unconscious habit needs to be prohibited from engaging in the activity to keep them and others safe. That usually only is reserved where permanent disabling injury or death is the consequence. That is the case with firearms. Failure to handle them safely can lead to permanent disabling injury or death and failure to exhibit safe behavior should be treated as most serious.

Since your children sound like they are safe with firearms it is probably because you trained them well by making sure they understood the hazards around them and that you then reinforced the safe behavior so they would develop good habits. The fact that they still err and you don't seem to explain the nature of the error means that they are not instinctively safe nor have they developed the unconscious habits to make them as safe as you assume your will has made them.

While I agree that the way to make kids safe with firearms (or knives, or tools, or many things) is to make them familiar with them, to train them in all the ways required to handle them safely, to reinforce that training so that it becomes conscious practice and then unconscious habit, but don't assume that retraining on particular elements isn't needed nor that reinforcement shouldn't be clearly communicated instead of assuming that a raised eyebrow alone communicates enough detail.

Click to expand...

You have me there. Sorry. You are right "instinct" was poor choice for wording.

But since the worst thing my kids have done since I put there guns in their rooms is to knock them down once while playing, I think they are plenty safe. I dropped my M-4 yesterday in the chow hall after all. In both cases the weapons were cleared before and during the correcting of the the situation. I still have another person clear my weapons before storing them. A habit I passed down to them by having them show me a clear weapon. I don't have to ask anymore they just do it.

If a lesson in habits is required. I do give it, but this country has slid far by figuring things out for others. Giving them a chance- which is generally all that is needed- and requiring effort in figuring out some things will only benefit today's youth.