Can you influence your kids to like shooting?

[buck460XVR]

You can expose your kids to firearms, teach whatever you know, go shooting, have fun, but in the end they'll decide whether guns will be part of their lives.

Yep........and that's the way it should be. Sometimes they want to imitate you and be just like you and other times they want and need to be their own person. What their friends like to do has as much influence on them as what you do with them. Many parents in their scheme of trying to educate, drive their kids away with negativity and constant criticism. Keep it positive and upbeat regardless of their success. Even if they don't become the best at something doesn't mean they can't enjoy it.

Start them early and before they play video games. Make it fun and take them shooting whenever you can. The key is to influence them early and often. They may or may not get into it but either way they'll make an informed decision, rather than getting their education from video games.

My youngest son(17) is into video games.......mainly first person/third person shooter games. He is a better shot at the range than I am mainly because of all the practice he gets between range sessions while playing video games. Leading a running target/lining up sights and placement of crosshairs is the same on video games as it is in person. The hand-eye coordination is exactly the same. On top of that he can basically name virtually any gun ever used by any military organization and can tell you their limitations and their primary use. He also looks forward to using the real models of guns of those that he uses in the video games......i.e. my '03 Springfields, Colt 1911s, Model '97 trench guns, revolvers, coach guns and levers. In my sons case, they have not been a deterrent to guns and shooting sports, but an enhancement. Besides........I kinda like 'em also.

 

[rr2241tx]

Take your kids hunting and you won't be hunting your kids.

My boys grew up in town and military bases in a nice selection of unsavory places so when I got retired, I built us a shooting range in the back yard with animal gongs and paper target holders with a shaded shooting bench big enough for all of us to shoot at the same time. Then I bought three identical Marlin .22s and a cases of ammo. We had several sessions of safety training and the standing challenge to shoot against Dad for gas money. I made sure to lose at least once a week and before long I got to shoot with the boys pretty regularly. I was real popular when gas was almost $5/gallon although I was no longer missing on purpose by then. Both of them are avid hunters and recreational shooters now and regularly send me iPhone pictures of their targets hoping I am going to send gas money again. They went through the safe and put dibs on everything in there about the time they got their drivers licenses so I know they'll check on my health once in a while. My guns are not going to the Feel-Goodie Gun Buy-Back Program.

 

[Manco]

Keep your nicer guns in a locked glass cabinet. Wear a holstered handgun around the house. Make sure they see guns, and that they are YOURS.

Do NOT let your kids touch the guns. Do not let them play with toy guns. Ground them for two weeks if they come with 5 feet of a firearm of any kind. Let them read books about guns, though, and watch movies involving firearms. Just never let them touch one.

By the time they're 15, the only thing in the world that they'll want to do is get their hands on a gun and go shooting!

I take it that you're kidding, but responding in earnest to the general concept anyway, while this certainly would be highly effective in piquing their curiosity, it is no guarantee (even after 15 years ) that they would develop a long-term interest in firearms. As a kid I had cap guns, squirt guns, miniature replicas, and even a BB gun (haven't shot my eye out yet, but there's still time!), and this doesn't seem to have diminished my interest in real firearms any. It's probably a better (and safer) idea to let children become familiar with handling firearms from an early age (unloaded and under close supervision) in order to satisfy their curiosity rather than effectively daring them to defeat one's security measures and play with one's guns when nobody is looking (you'll shoot your brain out, kid ).

 

[Enachos]

I don't see how anyone can't love guns! My oldest memory of my father was of him letting me handle his 4" Smith and Wesson revolver and his 12 gauge shotgun (unsure of the model).

I was simply fascinated with firearms since a kid and it's no wonder why I'm such a gun lover!

 

[bannockburn]

I never needed to influence my kids about guns and going shooting. Both my son and daughter came to me and asked me to teach them regarding their proper use and safety. I also let them pick out their own guns when it was time. The only one I bought for my son without his input was his first centerfire handgun. I wanted something that could be used both DA or SA first shot, was equipped with a safety that easily allowed that transition, and was in 9mm. I picked a Taurus PT-92 and he has been very happy with it.

 

[walt501]

Here's my experience. My two boys were 4 and 5 when the sling shots came home and a cardboard range was set up in the basement. The importance of proper eye protection was drilled into them before they they could shoot. That provided weeks of entertainment. They were 6 and 7 when the BB guns arrived along with another lesson on eye protection. Thousands of BB's went into a cardboard range. Then at ages 7 and 8 it was off to the north woods to camp, which was their favorite thing to do in the whole world at that time, only this time the old Winchester 62A pump I had learned on as a kid came along and so did a box of clay pigeons. The clays were placed in the branches of shrubs with a hill behind for a backstop. My oldest was concerned about the recoil of such a high power rifle - until he took the first shot. Then the competition was on as to which one could break the most clays in a row.

They're almost 22 and 23 today. My oldest is in the military and loves shooting handguns. He can out shoot the old man anytime, but I haven't told him that yet. My youngest has gone on to work with computers, but just recently said that that if we were to put a Trijicon sight on our M4 rifle he'd love to shoot it as that's what he uses in one of his computer games.

So my advice would be to start them early, and combine shooting and firearms training with other activities they already enjoy. Hope this helps.

 

[wishin]

You can expose your kids to firearms, teach whatever you know, go shooting, have fun, but in the end they'll decide whether guns will be part of their lives.

I couldn't have put it any better!

 

[Manco]

I don't see how anyone can't love guns!

Honestly, I feel the same way. I mean, what sort of person wouldn't at least consider guns somewhat cool because they go bang and allow ordinary people to wield the awesome power of life and death? (not that I couldn't kill somebody with a pencil if I were so inclined, but guns are usually more effective) One may fear the awesome responsibility that goes with such power, especially if one is the careless type, but to dislike or even hate guns seems crazy to me.

Maybe some people are just brainwashed to say that they hate guns, considering how many of them probably enjoy watching movies that often exaggerate the level of violence of most uses of guns (apart from all-out warfare). Or maybe some people are afraid of themselves, believe it or not. I remember watching a video in which anti-gun activist and actor Sigourney Weaver (her name begins with "Sig" and has "Weaver" in it--oh, the irony! ) was being introduced to shooting automatic weapons by director James Cameron. She actually enjoyed it, whereupon he quipped "Another liberal bites the dust" (obviously kidding, being on the liberal side himself, albeit with some mixed or moderate views). Afterward, Weaver said that in retrospect she didn't like having a feeling of such power and what it brought out in her. I take this to mean that she doesn't trust people who are not in authority (somebody has to keep the peace), including herself. How sad is that? We gun lovers are supposed to be the paranoid ones who don't trust people, but if you think about it just a little, we have to trust fellow gun owners quite a bit. It's the trust of government authority versus oneself and other decent folks (and most people are decent enough or else we wouldn't have societies at all) that separates those who tend to hate guns from those who tend to like them. Interestingly, they don't necessarily trust the government to do much else right, aside from keeping the peace, yet they want the government to do everything for them anyway. I'm trying to keep this High Road here, but doesn't this seem kind of...childish?

 

[BikerNut]

Influence Your Kids to Think For Themselves

I think what's more important than influencing your kids to like guns is to influence them to think for themselves, and to come to their own conclusions about guns, shooting, shooting sports, self defense, second amendment issues, etc... despite the liberal drivel that's driven into them by the school system.

You have to be a parent to have influence, and if your kids see you as a reasonable, responsible, respected and intelligent person who is a thoughtful, caring and loving parent... who happens to like guns... then that alone is a major influence.

My oldest son wanted an air rifle when he was 10, so I bought him one and taught him the rules of safe gun handling. He had a lot of fun with it. When he was 18, I took him to an indoor pistol range with a .22 SA, a .38 DA, and a 9mm auto. He enjoyed it a lot, and shoots better than his old man. But it was just a one-time thing with him.

My youngest never had much experience with anything other than tacticool airsoft, so I took him to an Appleseed with a 10/22 and an AR-15. He had a good time, but probably still prefers the X-Box version of firearms.

They may not grow up as avid shooters or gun owners, and that's OK. I just don't want them to grow up as anti-gun, anti-2A voters that believe anything the anti-gun activists spew out.

Especially since they will inherit a lot of guns someday...

 

[ArmedBear]

rather than effectively daring them to defeat one's security measures

Oh, you're absolutely right. The question was how to make them intensely interested in guns, not how to keep them safe.

If you want to keep your kids from shooting themselves or someone else, that would be a bad way to do it.

 

[W.E.G.]

In a suburban area, where even BB-guns and tin cans will get four police cars at your front door in three minutes, you might as well take a whizz up a rope.

AMHIK.

I have this fantasy that there are still country kids who spend afternoons in the fields and woods.

As to whatever guns I may own now, my worst nightmare is that there will be more than one or two guns in my "estate" when my time is up.

 

[jnyork]

My dad sure influenced me.
'
On VJ day I was 5 years old. We heard the news on the radio. To celebrate, Dad took his 1903 Colt 38ACP out on the back porch and ripped off a full magazine into a dirt bank by the chicken coop. I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I have been a gun nut ever since. I still have the Colt and take it to the range every so often and exercise it a little.

 

[ArmedBear]

LOL

I take it you didn't live downtown.

 

[Sam1911]

I take it you didn't live downtown.

That's funny. I shoot occasionally with my good friends up at Wilkes-Barre Rifle and Pistol club. Their history says that from 1923 to 1948 their range was 4 blocks from the square at the center of town! I doubt they had the 300 yd. rifle range they have now, but it would be a rush to run IDPA matches in the middle of the city! Might complicate muzzle discipline issues, though...

 

[Lee Roder]

You can influence your kids to like anything, but you can't make them. And life is just too short to "learn to like" anything. As a former kid myself, I really think "parental influence" does more harm than good. They're different, not clones of you. Can you say piano lessons? Seriously, show them. If they are interested, show them some more. Otherwise just drop it and try again maybe later. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I see #11 beat me to this. It's true. I work with horses.

 

[nitetrane98]

In my situation as a child, there were no fun guns at all in the house. Dad had a shotgun and a deer rifle. I was never invited to hunt. Looking back, probably a good idea. But nevertheless, I was a gun nut by age 8 or so. Literally any stick could be made into a rifle and with a little luck an appropriately shaped root served nicely as a handgun. Didn't know a thing about them, just what I had seen on TV.

My 2 sons were around guns growing up. We went shooting at the river occasionally but I was a LEO and didn't make enough money to support much of a shooting habit. They both have a few guns now but they're not real passionate about them. But they still enjoy burning up my ammo.

I have a 9 yo grand daughter who I asked recently if she would like to go shooting my guns at the river. Her dad is a LEO also so she has been around guns too. She was very enthusiastic at the prospect.

In response to the question, I don't know if simply exposing them to shooting will make them into a gun nut. I would say the possibility of making them hate guns is a very distinct possibility if they are pushed into it against their will. Or even for some reason they just don't like loud noises.

We would all like for our children to enjoy the same things we do and to the same level we enjoy them. Sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. I restored old cars for a hobby for years. Built a nice '76 Trans Am for my son's first car. I envisioned he and I working on it together. Didn't happen. Absolutely and totally disinterested in that part. He sure liked to drive it though.

So if you're hoping for a life long shooting buddy, you may get one and you may not despite your best intentions.

 

[Jaybird78]

As a new dad to a 1 yr old daughter, I am anxious about the future.

As a kid I begged for a bb gun for two years until I turned 9. I had a blast with that Daisy. Then I just stopped. An old friend received a .22 for his 17th b-day and I was "hooked" again. I feel I lost so many years of enjoyment that I could of had. I can remember asking my dad as a kid if we could go shooting (he once told me he had a .22 pistol). My dad damn near worked 6 days a week my entire childhood. We never went.

I pray that my daughter will want to shoot.