I didn’t answer the poll because I agree with parts (but not all) of 1), 2) and 4):
[ul][li]Some guns are clearly weapons or dangerous toys, not tools. In that case, I have no problem saying “get it away”.[/li][li]Firearms are dangerous and they should be kept away from kids, but there’s no point in hiding them. That seems counterproductive.[/li]Firearms must be respected and kids should be taught to respect guns. It’s natural to be afraid of guns, sometimes (e.g. a stranger pointing a loaded gun in your face).[/ul]
Voted other, for most of the reasons you said. There wasn’t a smooth enough transition in tone from “tools” to “toddlers” options.
A couple of reasons:
-
Guns are pervasive in the media, on TV, in the movies and in video games.
-
Even if you aren’t a gun owner, many of us live in areas with a gun culture.
My great nephew, for example, is being raised in a home with no guns. He does know that I target shoot, but has never been with me at the range. Other than the toddler instruction, he’s never handled them. However, he’s now started asking questions. Some of his friends have taken firearms safety courses and he’s curious. Even if none of the family had them, he would still be exposed culturally. I’d rather he be educated by a responsible adult than with one of his friends finding a weapon in the night stand and checking it out.
3; keep the guns hidden, when kids ask the inevitable gun questions divert their attention or change the subject, don’t answer or address the question
4; don’t hide the guns, treat them as a normal part of everyday life, a dangerous tool that requires respect and proper training to use, you wouldn’t allow your kids to play with the stove, or power tools or other dangerous devices, but you also wouldn’t hide them from them, explain to the kids why the tools are dangerous and need to be respected
option 3 is the “deny the existence of guns until the kids are older” option
option 4 is the “teach and educate” option
I gave the most popular answer, with the caveat that kids should be taught to respect AND fear firearms. By fear I don’t mean that they should be stricken with deadly terror at the mere sight of a gun, but I do think that kids should know what a gun can do in a concrete way that causes them to be deathly afraid of using one in the improper way. I think your idea of showing kids what guns do to watermelons is a good one.
I have never touched a gun, and gods willing, I never will. If I could snap my fingers and destroy all the guns and ammunition on the planet, I would do so in a heartbeat.
My child(ren) will be taught that guns are basically bad things, and that only bad guys and cops have them. I live in the city, and so this will be pretty much true. They won’t get any toy guns or toy soldiers, regardless of their gender.
If I become aware that my child’s playmate’s parents keep a gun, they will not be allowed over at that playmate’s house. The playmate may come to our place any time they want, I won’t stop them being friends, but all play will be at our house or a park or some such.
Honestly, I see no reason for anyone at all to have a gun, unless they’re criminals or too poor to feed themselves any other way. (Which is one of the reasons criminals have them, too, I guess.)
Because criminals would cease to be criminals if there were no guns?
My son learned to shoot at 4, with a bb gun. He learned to shoot a .22 at 6. He has always been taught to respect guns, and knows what guns are capable of causing. While we live in “the sticks”, we are not far from the city. We raise ducks, chickens, and guinea hens. If there were a fox in the backyard, we’re not going to pine for the fjords and hope it goes away. Should we instead yell, “parlay!” and commence to have an intelligent conversation with said fox prior to it ending the lives of dozens of our poultry?
Absolute statements are fallible.
And when your children run into someone with a gun, as they inevitably will, they will have no idea if they are being handled very dangerously, or somewhat safely. They will be as facinated by them as a child from the home of non-drinkers who sips their first beer. They will lack the power of knowledge and education. Everything that has informed their experience with guns will come from movies and video games. And you, of course.
Guns are bad! You will never see one so you don’t need to know anything else.
Drugs are bad! Just say no. You will never be exposed to them so you don’t need to know anything else.
And don’t have sex until you are in a committed realtionship. Because it could lead to problems that you don’t need to know anything else about.
This is not a good formula for turning children into informed adults.
Because being hacked up with a sword is better than being shot? And being impaled with a spear is better than being hacked up with a sword? And being bludgeoned with a rock is better than being impaled with a spear?
Weapons won’t go away. As long as there are people willing to take things from others, there will always be weapons, and refusing to learn about them just makes it easier to get taken from.
I got a BB gun for christmas when I was 8.
I got a .22 rifle when I was 12.
I purchased (on my own) my first shotgun when I was 13.
I have never killed or injured anyone, myself included, with a firearm. I was taught the rules from day 1, and they were enforced.
Oh this made me nostalgic for the days when I knew exactly how to raise children. 
Uh . . . wow. It is indeed taking longer than we thought.
An unloaded gun is pretty useless.
My kids grew up in a house where there were loaded guns all over the house.
I grew up in a house with loaded guns.
My parents grew up in homes with loaded guns.
So did my grandparents, and my great grandparents.
We never could count on bad guys, hostile indians, whatever, be willing to wait for us to unlock our guns and ammo and load up before they attacked us.
I never even thought of it being a problem, and I know my grandpa also never gave it a second thought.
We/my family/my neighbors also do not lock up our sharp kitchen knives, we dont lock up our car keys, nor our hatchets and axes, etc. Our kids are taught from a very young age not to pickup a gun and shoot us, our kids are taught not to take our car keys and drive away, our kids are taught not to grab a butcher knife and stab their siblings.
I can not imagine anyone in my family, or for that matter, Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone or George Patton or Dwight Eisenhower or Dolly Madison or Mary Todd Lincoln… as a child… picking up a gun and murdering someone - and I certainly never heard that Dwight Eisenhower or his brother when they were children ever grabbed the family gun and when on a killing spree .
I know it doesnt work for everyone. Not everyone has an American ancestry family history where loaded guns were always kept in every home.
For those who can not trust their kids with guns, or for those parents with violent untrustworthy children , then I strongly recommend that they lock up their guns, lock up their knives, hammers, hatchets, sharp objects, baseball bats, etc. any thing that could be used/has been used to kill/maim people, and also they should store their car keys in a locked box.
Now, to be fair, some kids that can’t be trusted with guns are not violent in intent, just overly curious - and the consequences of curiosity over anything besides a gun are typically way less disastrous. Maybe a car if you live in a busy area or your other kids tend to play in the driveway, and Junior snags the keys and hops in, but other than that? (My mom and dad did stow the keys somewhere special for a while when we were kids, but the amount of noise one of us would have to make to get to the garage, including yanking on the stuck door to the outside, would have given them a blatant cue, versus just quietly picking up a gun.) Curiosity over a knife will almost always only result in stitches at worst.
Hatchet, OK, you might end up losing a few fingers, and I agree that kids need to be kept away from stuff like that until they’re somewhat responsible. Same thing with power saws unless they have blade stops on them.
Even when your kids are responsible, you can’t trust their friends to be likewise.
I learned how to shoot starting from about age 5. Firearm safety was drilled into my head. I get sick to my stomach when I see people do dangerous stuff with guns. One of my friends had an Airsoft gun—which looks like a real gun but shoots light plastic pellets—and noticed that I never, ever pointed it at anyone even by accident. I always moved it so that it was pointed in a safe position. That’s how heavily ingrained gun safety is in me, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I learned it as a kid.
Bolding mine. Same here.
While on vacation this year (Costa Rica), I took part in a little target shooting at the resort (break barrel spring piston pellet rifle). The ‘instructor’ kept painting people with the dam thing while it was over her shoulder. Even though it was un-cocked (barrel in ‘broke’ position), I kept ducking.
And, she would jokingly ‘shoot’ at squirrels, birds lizards and other wildlife.
Drove me nuts.
Maggie, in a totally friendly way and as a mom, I want to tell you that IME that is a really good way to get a kid who is fascinated with guns and who turns every stick into a play gun. Biting your sandwich into a gun is also a popular move. (Not to mention water squirters, Star Wars accessories, drawings…) I have known parents with philosophies just like yours, who eventually had to give in to the realization that their kid wanted desperately to join ROTC or Civil whatever that program is, and at some point it’s no longer about your personal moral stance but about respecting who your kid is. (Very similar things happen with other things too, it’s not just guns.) I’m not much of a gun person myself–I think they’re boring–but it’s my considered opinion after knowing a lot of kids that it’s better to not make a big deal out of guns.
You might be surprised how many law-abiding adults around you carry handguns for personal protection, especially women in an area where they don’t feel safe. You don’t know because they don’t talk about it in ordinary conversation, that’s all.
Anyway.
My husband has a couple of guns for target shooting, and they are always locked away, etc. He has a similar routine to the OP–kids are always invited to watch him clean the gun after use, and he explains about them while he does that. They know that if they are curious, they can always ask him and at any time he will stop and answer questions and show them things. This really helps to take away the urge to explore the closet on their own, and also to deter any friends who might say “Let’s go look at your dad’s gun!” (Answer–“Sure, let me call him. Hey, DAD!!”)
A lot of our friends have guns in their homes, so it’s important for the kids to be able to handle themselves (not that our friends are irresponsible). Many of their friends are learning to use them, and introductory shooting classes are a popular activity for girls’ and boys’ groups.
My daughter just turned 10 and asked for a BB gun for her birthday. She got it and is going to be learning how to use it properly. I think she got the idea from a recent daddy-daughter activity she went to where there was target shooting, and her friend had a BB gun of her own. She also knows that, like her staff and nunchucks for kung-fu, and even the wooden sword we have for pretend, those things need to be kept safe and away from visiting friends who might be impulsive and get over-excited when playing–so they’re always put away when we have other kids over.
My wife had similar experiences growing up–all toys had all weapons removed from them, even the little plastic ninja turtle swords, etc. No violent games. No cartoons with gun violence. She didn’t end up with that fascination with guns, so much, as a combination of that and an abject fear of them. So I’m not sure if it worked as a good outcome or not–despite being semi-rural, she never had any exposure to real guns until she married me (and she’s now a better shot with a .22 than I am and is still nervous around any firearms that aren’t primarily designed for target shooting).
Since the “when I have kids” thing is going to be getting much less theoretical for me in December, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Ultimately, I keep my guns unloaded, trigger- and action-locked inside a combination-locked safe. I expect I’ll be following MacTech’s example, based on my own experiences.
I was also raised without guns and to believe guns were scary and dangerous, and I loved 'em. I wasn’t prevented from having gun toys or seeing (cartoon) gun violence, and I always had a squirtgun or something. My parents had something of a uneasy compromise, as my mom was totally anti-gun and my dad was and is pretty much the most easygoing guy on the planet. He’d buy us a Laser Tag set, and mom would make us only use it with the targets set up for target shooting (no shooting at each other). That rule was unenforceable with water guns, but she tried. I only lost my fascination with guns when we had a severe problem with skunks and raccoons in our yard when I was in my teens and my dad borrowed a .22 from my uncle to deal with them–we live WAY out in the sticks on 16 acres, you see. I started out fascinated, and one session of “here’s how you have to maintain it, and why” and the safety lectures, combined with watching my uber-cool uncle and dad take exquisite safety care around that .22 (and its tiny, tiny bullets) sort of immediately locked home the idea that this was not a toy.
Somewhat ironically, once the wildlife started destroying my mom’s garden and bird feeders, she became the best shot of us all. I asked her about it and it turned out that most of her anti-gun position was solely based on the fact she was scared for my and my brother’s safety as kids and was trying to minimize the risks to us in any way possible.
You’ll notice I’m talking about something that goes well beyond “don’t touch it, get an adult.”. But thanks for playing.
It’s unlikely that he will ever be aware of it if they do. Guns are pretty invisible in suburbia. Gun ownership is hardly evenly distributed across the population, and there are certain social strictures that accompany the least bit of carelessness with or flaunting of guns: if one kid goes home to his parents and mentions the gun in Johnny’s house. Johnny’s suddenly going to have a hard time getting play dates.