Always lock up your guns/firearms if kids are in your house

[MedWheeler]

Also, encourage your friends who are NOT gun owners and who have children to get those kids trained in gun safety, too. Remind them that, just because they don't have any guns in their homes doesn't mean that their kids will never visit a home that does have a gun (or more) in it. Offer to do the training yourself.

 

[PzGren]

Keeping guns safe, from children and other unauthorized use, is a standard precaution for me but isn't enough. Gun proofing children is the second step.

A little over twenty years ago we were visiting friends and the grownups were in the living room downstairs, while the kids, aged 4 to 8, were upstairs in the bedrooms. One of my sons came downstairs and told me that one of the little girls had found a gun in a shoebox under the bed and my oldest son had seen the cartridges in the revolver's chambers without picking the gun up. He asked the other kids to leave the room and send his little brother to get me. It was a loaded Taurus 85.

You can only control your own environment to some extend but not the rest.

 

[3850remhep]

I am not the guy to provide a PC answer to this question- Don't let you kids become idiots around firearms.

By 13, I was well established in the shooting sports and I got my own .38 Enfield at age 14 for defensive carry around the homestead. This was in the 90's, not the 50's.

We locked our guns in a security cabinet to prevent theft, NOT to keep me out. I had the key on my pocket knife next to my band locker key all throughout high school. I was the family armorer.

If the only thing that keeps your kid from shooting up his school or doing something else stupid with firearms is the lock on your gun safe, you have got far more serious problems.

I've already stated me position for this discussion. But to tongue in cheek comment on the highlighted sentence, at many high schools now, that pocket knife wouldn't get past the metal detector. How many high schools still have rifle teams, or even rifle drills for ROTC kids?

 

[Steve S.]

When thought about, most children will not grab your car keys and try to drive, they will not play with your power tools, they will not play with your stove or your fire place, they will not play with your kitchen knives, etc - very common and mostly exposed dangers all around every household - but a firearm, that somehow has it’s own isolated and unique category in all venues. Of all of the unsupervised and dangerous items around a home, all but one are designed for daily life’s practical use and only one has the sole design purpose to maim or kill and that is a firearm. In my mind, that design propose and stigma (if you will) is the source of a child’s curiosity and the ever- present and eminent danger for a child - they are drawn to it because of it’s design purpose and the resulting adult behavior/ conversation about firearms - the dangerousness and the taboo is the allure for a curious child’s mind.
It is the similar psychology of taboo that we have known since the dawn of man; Adam and Eve were told that everything in the garden was theirs except the forbidden fruit and I’ll be darned, we all know what happened after that…..!

 

[3850remhep]

When thought about, most children will not grab your car keys and try to drive, they will not play with your power tools, they will not play with your stove or your fire place, they will not play with your kitchen knives, etc - very common and mostly exposed dangers all around every household - but a firearm, that somehow has it’s own isolated and unique category in all venues. Of all of the unsupervised and dangerous items around a home, all but one are designed for daily life’s practical use and only one has the sole design purpose to maim or kill and that is a firearm. In my mind, that design propose and stigma (if you will) is the source of a child’s curiosity and the ever- present and eminent danger for a child - they are drawn to it because of it’s design purpose and the resulting adult behavior/ conversation about firearms - the dangerousness and the taboo is the allure for a curious child’s mind.

And don't overlook the pop culture influence. John Wick never armed himself with a power drill, even a cordless one. Shoot-em-up video games are an even stronger influence where you can get "killed" and simply restart the game. Understanding life isn't a game isn't all that easy for some kids spoon fed video games from an early age.

 

[Spats McGee]

Also, encourage your friends who are NOT gun owners and who have children to get those kids trained in gun safety, too. Remind them that, just because they don't have any guns in their homes doesn't mean that their kids will never visit a home that does have a gun (or more) in it. Offer to do the training yourself.

I tell those parents, "It's like teaching them to swim. You don't have to do it, but deep water will still be out there."

 

[.455_Hunter]

I've already stated me position for this discussion. But to tongue in cheek comment on the highlighted sentence, at many high schools now, that pocket knife wouldn't get past the metal detector. How many high schools still have rifle teams, or even rifle drills for ROTC kids?

My son goes to the same high school now, and yes, it operates fully in the "zero tolerance" paradigm. No metal detectors, YET...

 

[bassjam]

This would be a story about locking up firearms if it was the 5 year old who shot the 13 year old. But it's a story about poor parenting since the 13 year old did this, which is WELL old enough to know better. My daughter is 13, I've debated giving her the combo to my handgun safes for when she stays at home by herself. I've decided to wait another year and spend more time at the range with her before doing that, but in the meantime I got her her own pepper spray to use when she goes out with friends and watch how safe she stores it at home with my younger children. So far she's doing well.

 

[jak67429]

It is a matter of parenting or lack thereof and letting electronic entertainment raise the kids. Most parents these days plop the kids in front of a screen and forget about them. Everything in modern entertainment glorifies using guns to kill humans. from tv shows to games, to chat groups. My 16year old granddaughter has been shooting since she was in kindergarten. been shooting competitively for 8 years. She is now teaching her younger sister age 6 firearm saftety and we will be going to the range to fire her new Pink 22 soon as it warms up.

 

[lightman]

The only guns that are not locked up in my house are my bed side pistol and our concealed carry pistols. Three of our Grandchildren are old enough that they hunt or shoot and know about guns. Two others are too young to shoot yet but have been told and shown about guns. When those two are here we put the guns up on a tall piece of furniture where they can't be seen or reached.

 

[buck460XVR]

Both parents are charged with 4 counts of child endangerment, a misdemeanor in PA, which could lead to a 5 year sentence and a $10,000 fine possibly, for each count. I think this may have been triggered by the Michigan School shooting. Up till then, even tho the law was on the books, it seldom was used.

As I said in my first post here, there was a lot more going on there than just a gun left out. A lot of "backstory" we don't know. Mother and father with different names. One child age 13, and the others 6, 5, and 3. I'm thinking the resentment went deeper than "jumping on the bed". If the 13 year old was old enough to know where the gun was and how to use it, he was also old enough to know the dangers of pointing it at his siblings and pulling the trigger. There was anger there(probably being left alone to watch his siblings). I agree with a previous posted that even if the gun was locked up in the safe, that odds are the boy knew the combination or where the keys were. Had the boy used the gun in SD from an intruder that endangered himself or his siblings, the kid/dad would be heralded as heroes.

I'm not pointing fingers, nor am I making excuses for anyone. Just stating we don't know the half of it. Tragic event that will shape the lives of at least 5 people forever.

 

[Roknstevo]

Eddie Eagle should be on every elementary school's curriculum.

Absolutely.....That message has been forsaken for sex and transgender education.

 

[buck460XVR]

Absolutely.....That message has been forsaken for sex and transgender education.

Few years back, the local PD attempted to educate elementary kids with the same philosophy ..."STOP"..."DON'T TOUCH"..."RUN AWAY"..."TELL AN ADULT". Local gun nuts claimed they were scaring kids away from guns and having them expose gun owners.

I agree, Gun Safety needs to be addressed at our schools, just like sex and transgender education, because in way too many scenarios, it is not being addressed at home. Basics should be implemented at the elementary level and then re-enforced and expanded once the kids get to the secondary level.