It’s unknown if demonstrating responsible handling actually keeps kids safe.
Parent who think their kids know gun safety, no longer bother to keep their kids safe from guns.
The percentage of parents who think education is a proper replacement for proper storage is too high.
One of my son’s friend’s family literally has guns lying around the house. On a table, leaning on the wall, on a shelf. He stopped being allowed to hang out with that friend.
Just take them, they go for quite much on the black market.
With the number lying around he probably would not notice to report them missing.
“my perfect flawless child would NEVER do anything bad with the guns he has free access to!!”
It’s like fire safety. Of course you teach a kid about fire safety but leaving a bunch of matches and gas cans lying around is going to increase the likelihood that someone gets burned. Education should be used in conjunction with proper storage, not in place of it.
Dude, it’s ridiculous how much of an angel my kid is, but they continually make bonehead decisions, and it’s a safe bet they’ll continue to for years to come.
Isn’t safe storage part of gun safety?
Yeah but I taught the kids to be safe so don’t need to do it myself.
/s
No that’s LITERALLY against the Second Amendment!
Safe storage === shoe box on top of the fridge
no, that’s communism /s
I’m just glad I don’t have to teach my kids gun saftety, as they will most likely only see them on a screen.
That’s wicked lol ;)
I would suggest doing so anyway. If they come across a firearm by happenstance then they at least won’t panic and will know what to do to be safe.
It’s maybe not imaginable, but most people here don’t ever see a gun outside a museum or in the hands of military/police.
First time I touched a gun was in America in a shooting range.
Rule 1 if you ever come across a gun: do not store it in the oven!
Correct! Modern guns are safer to store in the microwave! Be sure to set it to power level 60% for 5 minutes to properly remove any gunpowder residue after you finish using it for the day.
When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s my Grandfather who served in WW2 kept guns in several closets and under two beds at least, and I also knew where the ammo was located. I knew to never mess with them but times sure have changed.
Nowadays I lock mine up responsibly and never loaded. I’ve not started giving my kids lessons though, since they’re not even 10 yet. We’ve talked about safety though. I think that education is super important.
I’ve thought about one of those hidey wall shelves but am a bit scared to have anything quick access that they could stumble upon.
That’s for the best to educate them. It’s totally possible one of their friends has unsecured firearms in their house. Better to know it’s something serious and to leave them alone.
This is a really important point, thank you for raising it!
Lockpickinglawyer on YouTube destroys every gun safe on the market
The lesson he’s trying to teach, is that there is no ‘right’ lock, only ‘better’ locks. Layer your security and have an honest assessment of threats and replaceability. Locks really only:
- Keep opportunist thieves honest
- Raise the skill threshold needed to bypass, and
- Take longer to bypass, risking detection for the attacker
#1 Can be achieved by the most bottom tier vendor-garbage stacked zinc/brass body lock #2 & 3 Is where most lock ratings come from, but nothing is perfect.
This monstrosity is what the military uses on secure ammo dumps, vehicle storage, etc and that thing still gets other dudes with guns protecting it. If the Army left it completely unguarded, things like thermite, oxy-acetylene, or grinding would not have any trouble getting past.
Inversely, your mid-to-good bicycle cable lock outside the corner store only really works because of the risk of exposure as people leave and enter the store. Bolt cutters might be a two-minute job all said and done, but there’s significant risk of discovery mid attempt.
How many children are watching Lockpickinglawyer AND have lockpicking tools AND have a steady enough hand to crack the locks that Lockpickinglawyer does? Going to guess that is near zero. The dude has also easily picked every common door lock but I’m willing to bet you still lock your doors.
Many of the pistol lock boxes can be opened with trash like a soda can
And many front doors can be opened with trash like a paper clip and screw driver. How many kids do you see going around and lockpicking their neighbors?
Thankfully my kids aren’t a/the Lockpicking Lawyer!
Some dude is on YouTube, better not take any safety measures.
Seriously. You can open most front door locks with a paper clip and a screw driver. I’m going to guess people like this still have a lock on their door.
I grew up with rifles that were locked in the garage. And I was a stupid kid who figured out how to look down the barrel and point them at the neighbors’ fence. They were “hidden” in an area where I could mess with them for a few hours without my family knowing.
I was given the whole talk but I never took it seriously until years later when I got on the range and did some actual hunting and cried my ass off killing an animal.
Knowing how stupid I was, I assume the worse with my family.
Today, I keep a pistol in a secure case in the house. But it’s in my office near all the other critical things where I can see it/my kids can’t access it without lots of barriers. It also means that it’s kinda useless for quick access and would take a few minutes to get. I’m okay with that.
My grandfather taught me about gun safety for as far back as I can remember. He didn’t keep loaded guns around where we could get them but that wouldn’t have mattered because the number one rule was don’t touch them without permission and I never saw any of us kids break it. He also drilled into us not to treat them like toys. They were never gotten out for fun. Only to hunt or practice with. Which is not the attitude I see in many other gun owners.
All the gun owners I know talk the biggest talk about safety. Then the moment they get to show it off, they wave their guns around like school children and pointing it at random things and fetishizing it.
Mine is locked up and secured. And if I take it out, I’m using it.
You a seem to know a lot of ammosexuals
That’s my experience as well. When I got old enough that I started going shooting with people outside my family I was frequently shocked with how little regard a lot of them showed for safety. They usually had the basics down but their whole attitude made me very uncomfortable.
You mean he INFRINGED on your RIGHTS to use those Weapons? DISGRACEFUL!
Kids are kids though and consequences often don’t stick in the face of possible adventure. We don’t actually fully develop our risk assessment until the age of 25. That’s why both sides are important. Teach but also lock them up.
For sure. I was just giving my experience that teaching worked quite well.
Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to perceived levels of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected.[2] Although usually small in comparison to the fundamental benefits of safety interventions, it may result in a lower net benefit than expected or even higher risks.[3][n 1]
Yeah probably this. It feels okay to be more lax once your kid knows how to handle a gun because of the perceived lower chance that the kid accidentally discharges the gun they find.
But kids trained in gun safety also purposely shoot themselves and others, and also still make dumb decisions and accidentally shoot themselves and others. And a lot parents probably don’t want to think about those scenarios in my experience.
Link to source study:
Parental Engagement With Children Around Firearms and Unsecure Storage
That headline, lol.
I’d argue that the idiots leaving unlocked, loaded guns around are very much NOT demonstrating responsible handling, but sure, okay.
Just… why?
Most likely they have been sold the fantasy that someone could break in and kill you at any time so if you do not have a gun at the ready, you will be a statistic.
True… It’s very passive. No one ever pressed me to think this way but I just did… And still sorta do. Maybe movies? And I was susceptible to applying that concept to myself? I dunno.
Title really needs to include that all participants own firearms. Makes a pretty big difference.
Isn’t that implied? You can’t keep unlocked and loaded guns in your house if you don’t own guns.
The study, conducted by gun violence researchers at Rutgers University, analyzed survey responses from 870 gun-owning parents. Of those, the parents who responded that they demonstrated proper handling to their child or teen, had their kid practice safe handling under supervision, and/or taught their kid how to shoot a firearm were more likely than other gun-owning parents to keep at least one gun unsecured—that is, unlocked and loaded. In fact, each of the three responses carried at least double the odds of the parent having an unlocked, loaded gun around, the study found.
This doesn’t sound that surprising when you consider that it’s survey based research.
It sounds like the dunning kruger effect, as in ask gun owners whether they demonstrate safe handling to their kid and everyone will just say yes. What did that demonstration involve though, and did anyone actually learn anything.
I think the survey results are good evidence that whatever these parents consider a demonstration is inadequate.
Not the onion
People who fetishize self defense carry will always have loaded and unlocked guns in the house because they are afraid of someone breaking in at any moment and they might need to play John Wick: Home Edition. Those kinds of people also teach gun safety because they think responsible handling of firearms is important.
They just don’t understand that accidents are far more likely than a home invasion, and children are children even if they are taught gun safety.
I mean this is pretty obvious correlation not causation. If you don’t have guns in the house you probably aren’t giving kids gun handling lessons.
