Ed Ames
Member
A few points to consider....
Standard recoil spring on a pistol is between 12 and 17 pounds. By 19 pounds slides are downright hard to rack and at 21 pounds... well, I wound up taking that spring out because racking the slide a few times (in a small pistol) caused sustained pain in my hands that took a few hours to clear. Call the standard 15 pounds.
A standard semi-autonomous (able to sneak about and dig through your stuff while you aren't looking) child weighs from maybe 30 up to 90 pounds give or take. Standard semi-autonomos children also have the lower body strength to lift in excess of their own weight (they can jump) and many have the upper body strength and hand grasping power to lift at least their or weight (they can climb or at least hang by their arms).
What does that mean? Well, in simple terms it means that any child can work the slide on any pistol. They may not be able to work the slide with upper body strength alone, but they can push the slide against something and lean, or use their feet to push on the frame while they grasp the slide with both hands, or apply any of a bunch of other novel and potentially exciting (and/or tragic) strategies to work the action.
It also means they can climb to high places.
Now let's talk non-electronic push button locks. Push button locks have a limited number of combinations. It is simple for a child to systematically seek the combination by trying each possible combination in an orderly sequence (in computer parlance this would be "brute force password cracking") until the correct combination is found.
My friends and I used to do this with bicycle combination locks simply because we didn't know the combination. I was 6 or 7 when I discovered my first "unknown" combination. Older kids could do it quite a bit faster than I did (many had discovered little "tricks" based on the mechanical attributes of the locks, similar to tumbler friction in a key lock) but we could all get through a combination lock if we really wanted to and had the time. We even learned to write down or remember the position of the combination/dial when we started in case someone was using that as a tamper indicator.
That's the reality. How does it play into your child gun security plan? How should it?
My advice? Do: Teach the children well, divert them well, lock up the guns that aren't under their, or your, direct control, and use electronic locks that limit and clearly indicate brute force attacks on the combination, or key locks if you retain complete control of the key(s). Don't: Assume that just because they (say they) can't work the slide the way you work the slide they can't work it at all.
Standard recoil spring on a pistol is between 12 and 17 pounds. By 19 pounds slides are downright hard to rack and at 21 pounds... well, I wound up taking that spring out because racking the slide a few times (in a small pistol) caused sustained pain in my hands that took a few hours to clear. Call the standard 15 pounds.
A standard semi-autonomous (able to sneak about and dig through your stuff while you aren't looking) child weighs from maybe 30 up to 90 pounds give or take. Standard semi-autonomos children also have the lower body strength to lift in excess of their own weight (they can jump) and many have the upper body strength and hand grasping power to lift at least their or weight (they can climb or at least hang by their arms).
What does that mean? Well, in simple terms it means that any child can work the slide on any pistol. They may not be able to work the slide with upper body strength alone, but they can push the slide against something and lean, or use their feet to push on the frame while they grasp the slide with both hands, or apply any of a bunch of other novel and potentially exciting (and/or tragic) strategies to work the action.
It also means they can climb to high places.
Now let's talk non-electronic push button locks. Push button locks have a limited number of combinations. It is simple for a child to systematically seek the combination by trying each possible combination in an orderly sequence (in computer parlance this would be "brute force password cracking") until the correct combination is found.
My friends and I used to do this with bicycle combination locks simply because we didn't know the combination. I was 6 or 7 when I discovered my first "unknown" combination. Older kids could do it quite a bit faster than I did (many had discovered little "tricks" based on the mechanical attributes of the locks, similar to tumbler friction in a key lock) but we could all get through a combination lock if we really wanted to and had the time. We even learned to write down or remember the position of the combination/dial when we started in case someone was using that as a tamper indicator.
That's the reality. How does it play into your child gun security plan? How should it?
My advice? Do: Teach the children well, divert them well, lock up the guns that aren't under their, or your, direct control, and use electronic locks that limit and clearly indicate brute force attacks on the combination, or key locks if you retain complete control of the key(s). Don't: Assume that just because they (say they) can't work the slide the way you work the slide they can't work it at all.
