Matt's right.
When my kids were very small, I baby-proofed the house.
Shortly thereafter, I discovered that there's no such thing as a baby-proof environment. Dang kids showed me that no matter how careful I was, there would always be opportunities for them to hurt themselves.
I realized I was going to have to teach my kids a lot of things I thought they were way too young to learn, if I was going to have any peace whatsoever. Stuff like how to safely navigate the stairs when they were still too small to walk up or down stairs, or how to get a plate into the sink without breaking it when they were still too short to even see the sink, stuff like why they should never ever take medicine mommy or daddy hadn't given them. Amazing how much trouble one small child can get into, if his parents trust their "baby proofing" and don't teach him anything!
Nevertheless, I still kept the baby gates in place, kept the outlets covered, and latched all the cabinets. How stupid it would have been if I hadn't! As much trouble as my kids got into with the baby proofing and patient instruction, I hate to think how much more they would have gotten into if I'd neglected either half of those two inseparable essentials.
The most remarkable thing about kids is that they grow. What might be "too dangerous" for them to try today, or too difficult, soon becomes an easy conquest -- and the next time you look, whatever it was has become too boring to even bother doing any more.
I think some of these arguments are based on people thinking about their own kids, at the stages the kids are now. My thirteen-year-old, for instance, is about as gun-proofed a kid as you'll ever meet. He knows the Four Rules. He knows why those rules matter and he has seen with his own eyes what damage a gun can do. He knows he can go to the range with me any time he asks, and thus my guns don't have the temptation of the forbidden to him; the guns are simply tools that we use somewhere besides the house. I don't worry about him getting into my guns because I know he's smarter than that. Of course I'd think you were silly if you told me he couldn't be trusted to leave my gun alone.
But when he was two? Heavens no! I'd have had to be out of my ever-lovin' skull if I'd left a gun, loaded or not, anywhere near that child! What kind of an idiot parent would leave a gun where a two year old could get it? A two year old, no matter how well he might be able to parrot the rules, is simply not capable of internalizing the rules -- or of consistently, absolutely, obeying the rules in the absence of an alert parent to remind him what the rules are.
So when you hear someone make an absolute statement like, "No responsible parent would ..." you have to ask yourself: what age of kid are we talking about here?
pax
You can't teach 'em anything until you teach 'em to obey. -- my dad.