The standard fodder fed to school children when discussing gun safety is that if a child ever finds a gun, they should (among other things) tell an adult ASAP. Is that really a good plan? The kid could take the advice completely literally, and tell some random stranger who promptly tucks the gun into his waistband and skips off to his crack dealer’s house. Wouldn’t a better plan be to instruct kids to call 911 and let them sort it out?
If it’s legal to leave a gun lying out, no, calling 911 is inappropriate. Notifying an adult is probably a good idea. For a little kid, picking it up is probably a bad idea. Until we start racking up numerous stories of “Hey, I left my gun sitting out on the front porch and this little kid told some passing stranger, and that bastid stole my gun!” I’m not too worried about the wrong adult getting told about it.
Yeah, that was the first problem that popped into my head when I wrote that. Let’s say Johnny is playing at Steve’s house and Steve’s dad (who is a security guard) absent-mindedly left his gun on the nightstand and left the house for a few minutes to talk to his neighbor. Johnny finds the gun and dutifully tells some jibhead walking down the street about it, who promptly absconds with dad’s $800 Beretta. But in my scenario, Johnny calls 911, and the cops come and read Steve’s dad the Riot Act for leaving the gun out in the first place, which seems like an all-around win-win situation. Dad won’t do that again, and the gun won’t fall into the wrong hands.
I think most kids understand that they’re to tell an adult that they know. Preferably the homeowner, be it their parents or the parents of the house that they’re at. Not that they’re supposed to walk out on to the sidewalk and tell the first passerby that appears to be over 18. I think it’s good advice. It’s a quick and easy thing to teach kids to make sure they don’t touch the gun and it lets the parents know that it’s time to find a better hiding spot or to start having a serious discussion about gun safety (depending on the kid’s age).
Similarly, you’re told to say “Excuse me…” when adults are talking and you need to tell them something. But if there’s a fire you don’t need to wait for a break in the conversation to let them know.
ETA, calling 911 would cause all sorts of problems. If my hypothetical daughter found my hypothetical gun and hypothetically called 911. At the very least, I’d imagine it would get confiscated until they ‘sorted it out’ and I’ve heard of people not getting their guns back. At worst, I’d worry about CPS being called in or a news crew showing up on a slow day if someone was listening in on a scanner and heard “This is dispatch could someone go over to [address] I got a call from a 6 year old about a gun she found in her house”.