No good comes from having weapons where children can get access to them. Training kids on firearms is good. Leaving them where they are accessible by unsupervised children is very bad. Had I a rifle available as a kid I would have killed my stepfather. As it is I shot him in the neck with a Crossman pump action pellet rifle. Had it been a powerful rifle he would have died.......

Kids and unlocked guns, not good.

My Fathers guns were kept in the hall closet.....
I was five years old when first i shot a shotgun.....with my dad standing right behind me ......
By the time i was 13 i had been through bb guns, and pellet guns...knew how to aim and shoot reasonably well...
At 13 i joined the Army Cadet corps...
I was taught how to shoot 22cal british lee Enfields, first, then full calibur 303s
By fifteen we were issued 308 cal FN assault rifles to shoot at the range.....
taught how to shoot submachine guns (stens, a very dangerous weapon in itself...)
Bren guns...303 automatic weapons...LMG, even a 3006 browning machine gun once....
and 9mm pistols...
ALL kids need training in this area....
Perhaps not so extensive, but they must be taught respect for the weapons and what they are for....
Perhaps the mystique would be far less apealing if education was started earlier, and given to all kids interested.....
I know my own boys got the same early training as i did.....they are 39 and 44 now.....but they never played toy guns
like the other kids....or pointed them at humans....because they knew what one can do.....having helped dress deer etc....that i shot....
I think its a matter of stunting our kids maturity by treating them as if they were helpless.....shielding them from the realities..........s

My son was seven when I first took him to a range. We had a father/son class where the range master took great care in instruction.

We then spent the morning firing from a Savage .22 bolt-action rifle. By the end of the day, he was hitting center mass at 30 yards and used all the safety precautions.

He plays rough with his Nerf gun ( ) but when I ask him to pretend it's real, he takes a whole different approach.

He's nine now. But he knows to treat EVERY gun as if it's loaded, never ever to point a gun at someone, and never to put his finger on the trigger unless he's willing and ready to fire.

Proud Papa.

I think part of the problem is; when you keep something away from kids, it creates a sense of taboo and glamorizes that thing you keep from them, making them want it more. Drugs and alcohol are great examples of this phenomena. In countries that have younger drinking ages, such as Germany, kids learn to drink responsibly instead of the binge drinking that goes on in the US.

By not teaching our kids about guns early and making them a natural part of their lives, we create this mystique about them that makes kids even more curious and more likely to act recklessly if they do get their hands on guns.The only experience most kids have with firearms comes from the movies and video games they play which encourages them to blow away anything that moves. If kids got their hands on guns early and learned to handle them responsibly at a young age, it would be second nature to always treat them as loaded and behave responsibly with them.

I never had access to guns in my life until I went into the military. I thought it would be really cool to shoot them and carry them around in the army. Basic training fixed that real quick. Days and weeks spent taking them apart and cleaning them before we could even think of taking them to the range destroyed any sense of mystery or glamor in weapons for me.

I still think its important to keep weapons in the home but, now I know; if I take them out shooting, I'll have to spend a lot of time cleaning them when I'm done which tends to take some of the fun out of it. Add to that the cost of bullets and range fees and a whole lot of the glamor is gone.

Originally posted by FortAnthem


I think part of the problem is; when you keep something away from kids, it creates a sense of taboo and glamorizes that thing you keep from them, making them want it more. Drugs and alcohol are great examples of this phenomena. In countries that have younger drinking ages, such as Germany, kids learn to drink responsibly instead of the binge drinking that goes on in the US.

By not teaching our kids about guns early and making them a natural part of their lives, we create this mystique about them that makes kids even more curious and more likely to act recklessly if they do get their hands on guns.The only experience most kids have with firearms comes from the movies and video games they play which encourages them to blow away anything that moves. If kids got their hands on guns early and learned to handle them responsibly at a young age, it would be second nature to always treat them as loaded and behave responsibly with them.

I never had access to guns in my life until I went into the military. I thought it would be really cool to shoot them and carry them around in the army. Basic training fixed that real quick. Days and weeks spent taking them apart and cleaning them before we could even think of taking them to the range destroyed any sense of mystery or glamor in weapons for me.

I still think its important to keep weapons in the home but, now I know; if I take them out shooting, I'll have to spend a lot of time cleaning them when I'm done which tends to take some of the fun out of it. Add to that the cost of bullets and range fees and a whole lot of the glamor is gone.

Much truth in your post. We had guns in every closet and I had one under my bed when growing up. They were just something we used when needed to run off the critters that would do harm to the farm animals or get something different to eat. Just was not a big deal because they were used all the time.

I thought of a preachers daughter who was basically locked inside the house until she was 16 and then finally got a car and a little freedom. She tried to make up for lost time.....

City folk do not look at guns like most rural people which is understandable.

Guns are a big deal to many people because all they can think of is their only purpose is something they are totally against. They have never shot in competition or spent the day with a kid popping turtles in a fish pond and they never will. Having to kill and clean something to eat is pretty high on their yuk factor even though they eat meat. One size does not fit all.