Shielding Kids From Guns vs. Teaching Gun Safety

This study is kind of old news now, but I think the topic is forever relevant. The study was performed in 2016 with the assistance of the local police in Waterloo, Iowa. A bunch of kids were put in a room alone with toys on a sofa, and they tucked a gun into the sofa cushions to see how the kids would react.

All but two of the kids played with the gun - which was a real gun, but was rendered inoperable for the experiment - by waving it around, running with it, pointing it at each other, and pulling the trigger. Two of the kids never touched the gun. The difference? The two kids who didn't touch the gun lived in homes with guns and had been taught gun safety. 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Parents want to believe that, in a situation where a child walks up on a poorly stored and random gun (think crime ditch), the kid won't pick the gun up. But the reality is, if a kid doesn't know what it is, they aren't going to teach themselves. Kids don't know guns are dangerous randomly, and just like you have to teach them to not run out in the street so they don't get hit by a car, you need to teach them not to touch guns, either. A kid who doesn't understand the danger is going to be curious. They see them on TV and in movies. Video games, especially since parents apparently don't police the games they let young kids play. How do they know if you don't teach them?

I remember a customer coming to me to purchase a firearm one day when I was working in the gun store. It was his first gun, and he wanted it for home defense since there had been some violent home invasions in his neighborhood that year. He wasn't the ideal customer, and he was not at all receptive to anything I was asking or instructing. Basically, he was one of the "how hard can it be" customers. He didn't want to have to clean the gun, he didn't want to do any maintenance, he didn't want to test it out on the range. Now began the slow process of talking him out of the gun. That sounds counter productive, and might shock some, but when we had customers like this, we normally tried to talk them out of a purchase because they were dangerous to themselves and others. And we tried to find any good reason to stop the sale. 

The guy mentioned he had kids. As was company policy, I explained proper storage procedures and information on teaching his kids gun safety. He was beside himself. His statement: "My kids aren't going to know this is in the house."

He planned to store the gun in a drawer and not tell the kids it was there. He was completely against teaching them any type of gun safety, continuing to reiterate that they were not going to shoot the gun and he wasn't going to tell them he had it. The kids were both under the age of ten. At this point, I told him the story of when I was the same age as his oldest and was excited for Christmas. My parents were outside decorating the house, and I began the hunt for Christmas presents because I just had to know what I was getting, I couldn't wait any longer. I did this for years. I would find any alone time I could and tear around the house hunting down my presents, and I usually found them. I went through any storage we had; closets, the attic, the basement, drawers. Anywhere presents could be stashed. 

His response? "My kids don't do that." I smiled and said someone had told my mom they caught their kid doing it about two years ago, and my mom told them I had never done it, either. 

The guy came back two weeks later with his two kids to run them through a safety course. And he tried again to purchase the gun after that, at which point he took home a nice revolver.

You don't know what your kids' friends parents have. You don't know if they are going to be playing outside and find a ditched gun (I hate to admit it, but we used to find them occasionally when I was growing up, and they were usually at the county park). You don't want to think that a situation could come up where your kid is face to face with a gun and a choice, or that your kids' friend might pick up a gun and start playing with it, barrel towards your child. 

And I speak from experience. I didn't grow up with guns. My dad had guns when he was a young man, but when my mom got pregnant, she made him get rid of the two rifles he owned. At that point, my father also became very anti-gun. I grew up in a fairly liberal household (dad was a Reagan conservative for most of my life [a Bernie voter by the time he died] but didn't talk politics). My gun safety lesson was that if I saw anyone with a gun, they were either a criminal or a cop. There was no in between. And I spent a good portion of my life thinking citizens weren't allowed to have guns. When I got older and realized hunters existed, I thought they bought their guns out of the trunk of a car, like the bad guys did. I had no idea gun stores were a thing. You laugh, but I honestly didn't. I was 21 years old when I discovered gun stores existed, and three years later I took a job at the first gun store I ever saw. 

I was lucky. There was never an issue with us. When I got older, I was astounded to find out how many of my friends' parents actually owned guns. Yes, in New Jersey even. My best friend from high school, her dad had a fairly stout collection. I never knew. Luckily, their parents actually stored their guns away because of their kids, and their kids did know gun safety. But a lot of other kids aren't so lucky. From people who leave their guns where ever, to ditched guns, to kids knowing the combo to the safe without the parents knowing, kids get their hands on guns all the time, and there are accidents. There would be a lot less if we educated our kids. 

Education is the key. Not banning. It's another aspect of personal responsibility. Owning guns means you take on responsibility. I have kids in my house all the time, from neighbors to kids of my friends. Because of that, I have taken the utmost care in storing my guns. Safes. Locked rooms. Areas of the house that are completely off limits. And watching the kids instead of letting them run all over unsupervised. I understand kids get into things. And I understood what I was taking on when I brought home my first gun. My neighbors have deployed me as the safety teacher, too. Two of the neighborhood kids loved their toy guns, and I discovered a few years ago that their parents had told them I owned real ones, in hopes that the kids would ask me about them and I'd teach them. Damn if that didn't work. They did ask, and I did teach. Those kids have still never seen a single gun that I own. 

Accidents happen. But at the end of the day, you are responsible for your own kids and your guns. Teach your kids. If you don't know enough, get them into a class, they are available. The NRA is really good at that. Most gun shops will help you with literature and other resources to teach your kids. Don't be embarrassed; go into your local gun shop and ask for those resources, watch how excited the staff gets to help you with that. 

Teach your kids. Know their friends and their parents. Don't hide guns from your kids. You don't have to take them shooting, but you need to know that they know how to react to a gun if they see one. It's your responsibility. 

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