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Fusil62
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# Posted: 17 Dec 2012 01:41pm
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With the threads on gun use at the cabin and selection of bug out guns. How about a discussion of how to teach our children weapon safety. Security in the home is all good, but they are not always in my home. If they see a gun, what will they do, how do they learn
Case in point, coming home the other day we entered our sub division. Neighbor kids (12-13yoa) were walking down the street. One of them pulled a Semi autom like pistol out and stuck it up against the others head. I got out of the car and walked over to them and had a little discussion. Do that in the wrong neighborhood your asking to get shot. 6 yrs ago I almost shot a kid that turned with a pistol in his hand. He dropped it, I didn't.... Kids are not being trained. It's not an issue of the good or bad of the gun but what to do if they are around them.
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Fusil62
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# Posted: 17 Dec 2012 01:52pm
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When our son was 2 we had a useless pistol for wich we had no ammo. We put it on a table and told our son NOT to touch. Touch = spank. If you want to touch, ask. Mom or Dad all then show you how to hold, clear, make safe, etc. I think he only had an unauthorized touch 1-2 times.
I let him shoot a 22 later after he had learned the safety points. By the time he was 5 he had better gun handling skills than many of my coworkers. He has grown up shooting matchlocks through modern guns.
We took the mystery away from the gun. We introduced consequences to not following directions. We were consistent with our standards and they did not change was he got older.
When we head to the cabin we take a gun or two and review things. The three of us (wife, son and I) take advantage and practice. We don't just blast away but shoot about 25-50 rounds each in an organized fashion that is practice or training.
This is not THE way to teach kids. Just what worked for us.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 17 Dec 2012 01:56pm
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I am all for teaching children about gun safety. We did. My daughter was in training to become a State Trooper than decided to go back to school for HR. None of our children have mental illness if they did there would be no weapons in our household.We never bought our children play guns because in play they point them at one another. The mother in CT taught her sons gun safety She took her sons target shooting. So her son knew how to hit a target. She just had no idea the target would be innocent children and adults trying to save them.
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wakeslayer
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# Posted: 17 Dec 2012 04:18pm
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I was taught the safety, respect, and skill by my father. He was an avid shooter from his teen years through school, sharpshooter in the army, reserve policeman in So Cal in the 70's, and a small, feathered, and big game hunter all his life. I have carried the safety aspect with me in the front of my mind my entire life. It was never something you just messed with or played with. Serious business every time. I tried to instill the same in my children although not as enthusiastically as my father. I tasked him to help teach my children as they lived in the back of my farm for the last ten years. Both my son and my daughter have a similar respect and safe interactive skills as I. My son is a little interested in guns, but more just the occasional coyote sighting, or having to whack a rooster or something along that line. My daughter has nearly no interest at all. Regardless, they both get the safety and responsibility of being around guns.
I have to give my father a great deal of credit for his skill in teaching myself, my brother, and my children, in a comprehensive manner, gun safety.
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Martian
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# Posted: 17 Dec 2012 05:52pm
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Quoting: silverwaterlady The mother in CT taught her sons gun safety She took her sons target shooting. So her son knew how to hit a target.
Now, if she had just taught him to respect all life, he may have continued shooting only targets.
Along with how to safely handle a gun, my daddy taught me that all life is precious and is created by God. Therefore, unless I was going to eat it or it was going to eat me, I was not to shoot it. Period! Letting your kids shoot anything that lies outside those boundaries only teaches them that some lives have more value than others, and they get to decide which ones they are. "A true hunter," he'd say, "Respected the life being taken to sustain him." I've never forgotten this lesson.
Tom
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 10:55am - Edited by: trollbridge
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A very good lesson indeed!
A lack of respect for life appears to be at the root of all of these shooting incidents. All children need to be taught to respect life. If children can't display an appropriate amount of empathy towards living things (human or otherwise) then that is a huge red flag that I personally don't know how can go unnoticed. Parents need to pull their heads out of the sand and take responsibility for their children. Society needs to place more value on mental health issues...especially for young males---who are always the ones behind the trigger of these horrible shootings. Something needs to change and fast!
Sorry if this post tends to veer off the direct topic...but Tom is totally correct and his father taught him a very important lesson that must not be overlooked when teaching gun safety to children-to teach all the rest without teaching empathy towards all life is like only teaching half the lesson.
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Malamute
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 11:47am - Edited by: Malamute
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We dont really know what the mother taught the kid, she may have tried to instill the same feelings she had, (assuming respect for life), only it "didnt take" in him, for whatever reason. When someone is mentally ill, what we assume to be "normal" human behaviour can go completely out the window, no amount of teaching can make them into what you want them to be. In true sociopaths, they simply have no concern for others. It isn't a parental problem, its a wiring problem in the kids brain.
Some kids can be messed up by their upbringing, but that isn't the only way things go wrong.
I was raised around guns, my folks both shot trap and skeet, and hunted birds. We were taught at a young age to shoot pellet guns and 22's, and allowed to shoot other things as we had interest. I've seen many families that raised their kids around guns, the ones that had the least problems were the ones that showed their kids all about them, but were taught that they were not toys. As was said before, take the mystery away, and make them realize the potential power. Trying to totally isolate kids from guns is what seems to invite disaster. When they are exposed to them, they have no foundation for safe handling, no concept of the power, and no understanding of the function, what's safe or not. If they have no interest, fine, but I think all kids should be taught, either at home, or school, the basics of gun safety and handling.
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DaJTCHA
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 12:57pm
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I pray that the lessons I've taught to my children "stick". I pray that the lessons, shared by others and already written, are enough to prevent this sort of senseless act of violence and lead them along a path to fulfillment, peace, harmony and success (regardless of what). I pray that my bright and well adjusted children grow up respecting the things I respect, loving the things I love and cherishing the things I do...For that matter, I guess we can all claim this prayer as our own?!
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exsailor
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 01:17pm
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To begin with there are a number of safe shooting and hunting courses sponsored by the NRA and other organizations around the country in our communities. The one catch is juveniles must have parental permission or attend with a parent.
I was raised with a loaded gun in every corner of the house. We ate a lot of game. I knew what they were for, and I knew what they did even before I understood the concept of death. I also knew IF I touched them I would get a whipping. Later I was taught the basics of gun safety by my Dad, when I got a B-B gun for Christmas and a copy of the NRA Shooting guidelines. I also got a lecture on how to lose my shooting fun. When I was 14 I got to work all summer to buy my first real gun a shotgun. I didn't shoot it until I was again taught gun safety by Dad. I wasn't allowed ammunition to shoot until I could handle the gun safely. I shot under supervision and hunted under supervision. When I proved I could shoot safely, then I got the privilege to shoot safely. When I earned the privilege to shoot by myself it wasn't squandered. During 4H camp the state park put on a shooting demonstration to the impressionable 8 to 14 year olds. I remember hearing a bar of soap has the same density as a person's bone in for arm and a watermelon the same density as the human body. Then they showed us what a 22 rifle did to both. It was a lesson that has stuck with me for my entire life. I grew up respecting guns. The most important thing I learned was respect for others, their property, their rights and their life. Inner City Kids and most suburban kids today for the most never learn any of what I was taught. I suspect it is the lack of a Father in their life to ensure they learned these lessons. I think there is still hope for the small town and country kids.
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TheCabinCalls
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 02:24pm
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Gun safety is good. Even if you never have a gun at your house. Your kids might go to a house that does have a gun. Would they know to never put their finger on the trigger...even if pretending?
There are training courses, books and online referrences.
To me it seems that no gun should be accessible if there is any turmoil at home: divorce, death, depression, bullying, drugs, etc.
Teaching kids to recognize a threat, self inflicting or otherwise is important so they know positive ways out of it.
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Malamute
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 03:35pm - Edited by: Malamute
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One basic that used to be taught, but seems to have fallen by the wayside,....when shots rang out, people used to hit the floor to get out of the way, today, it turns into a panicked rush in all directions, putting the runners as well as many around them in harms way. If everyone hit the floor when things went south, whoever was needed to sort things out would have a clear shot, instead of a confused melee, and no way to stop the shooter. Getting on the floor also gives little target to the shooter.
Elmer Keith wrote of a holdup in a restaraunt when he was a kid,
. He was riding his horse, delivering newspapers and could see over the curtains and see the holdup occuring. He told a cop friend that was walking a beat,w hen the cop came in the door, one of the holdups fired a shot at him, and everyone hit the floor instantly. That allowed the cop to get a clear shot at both holdups as they hid behind the counters, and looked out to shoot at him again. This stopped the situation in seconds with no further injuries other than one kid getting hit in the leg by one of the holdups. I believe the cop shot 2 shots, one for each holdup, both scored. End of problem.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 06:00pm
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Yes you can drop to the floor but if nobody is there with a gun to shoot the nut than you are going to get shot.
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Malamute
Member
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# Posted: 18 Dec 2012 07:36pm
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Maybe, maybe not, but you're a much smaller target on the ground.
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