I am very proud of my daughter. She woke up from a scary dream the other night, and came down stairs just after I had reassembled my glock after doing a periodic break down and inspection. I told her "You know not to ever touch that right ?" Her reply was "Dad, you know those kids that you tell don't go in the road or something and they do anyway just to get a ball or something ?" I smiled and said "Yes" She said " I'm not one of those kind of kids ." She has a hard time listening to a lot of things, but always seems to get the important things, like this, right.

She asked me if it was loaded. I showed her the magazine and explained that when you pull the slide back and release it, it puts a bullet in the chamber. I showed her a bullet when I was explaining this and told her when you pull the trigger a pin hits that "little silver circle". I could see I had her full attention and she was very interested. So, I broke the gun back down so she could visualize and I explained the entire process to her. And I mean <u>entire</u>. I explained how the rifleings work, case pressures- how the propel the "end of the bullet" down the barrell and cause the slide to recoil and chamber another bullet, every piece of the gun apart during a normal field strip. She was hanging on to every word, and appearing to understand. The firing pin was the last thing I was explaing to her. When I said "You see that little thing in there ?" She responded "Oh I know!! Is that the thing that hits the 'little silver circle'?"

I was amazed !! She listened and understood better than if I tried to explain it to my wife !! I don't know how much she'll retain, hopefully most of it. I got her a BB gun when she was 4 or 5. I only had to go over safety procedures once. Only once !!! I was assuming as we were shooting it I'd have to keep reminding her, but nope. She would keep the barrell pointed in a safe direction, put safety on (or confirm it was on), **** it, aim it without putting her finger on the trigger, take safety off, fire, then put the safety back on before moving out of her firing position. She would still confirm safety was on before cocking, even though she knew she just put it on. I was amazed then too. After the first couple times I asked her to explain everything she was doing as she was doing it, she didn't miss a thing. It was different as far as hitting the target, she almost never hit it the first couple times we shot it. Then I gave her the eye test to see which was the dominate eye, and even though she's right handed, she's left eye dominate. After I got her shooting left handed she did a lot better.

When I was her age, my Dad taught me gun safety too and even had us (me and brothers) hand loading .44 magnum rounds. He usually added the powder himself, but sometimes let us do it under direct supervision. We would take the old primers out with the rockchucker, boil and bake the shells (he didn't have a tumbler), put new primers in and crimp the projectile in. He explained the whole process to us. We knew exactly what each part of the process was accomplishing.

My point here, is that we need to teach our childrenfirearm safety. Whether you have children or not. And if you don't know firearm safety, or only think you know enough you should take a course. It's not enough to simply tell them "You never touch a gun." You never never know when they may come in contact with a gun. You are not with them 100% of the time, and it could be anywhere. As evidenced in recent history, that place could even be in school. The more they know and understand, the less likely they are to have an accident.

Shooting with your kids is a great way to spend time with them and teach them about safety, responsibility, discipline and consequences. I don't mean consequences of being bad, I mean consequences of pulling the trigger. They will see the damage to the targets and understand what's happening.

Sorry about the long post, just thought this was an important thing to discuss and this is a great place to share it.

 

Very true.

I shot a gun for the first time a few weeks ago, our neighbor was going bear hunting and invited us to come sight his guns with him. I had a lot of fun, and saw how powerful the guns were. They were all black powder rifles, one was a huge kentucky-something wood one, and he had a modern-looking .50 that kicked really hard. He showed us how they work and made sure we followed every safety precaution every time. I had a lot of fun.

 

I'm glad to here you had fun. I'd like to see more people get involved and learn how to safely handle them so they don't believe the scare tactics used by the anti-gunners. Once you learn, you realize that the sarety features are so easy that even a 5 yr old can learn the first time around, and when properly handled are less dangerous than driving to work in the morning.

 

Seems like all fun hobbies are like this, no? Shooting, fourwheeling, paintball -- it's just the idiots that give it bad press.

 

Yes most are, hunting included. It's all based on ignorance. Instead of researching these things and finding the facts, people who don't understand or care to find out develop a bad image and spread it around.
If the general public were educated on these matters, there would not be so much opposition.

 

The fact that the media has to jump onto any bad news or events (to stay in business) doesn't help anyone's cause either. One kid with stupid parents gets hurt on an ATV, everyone hears about it. Same with paintball. Studies show there are less injuries in paintball than there are in PingPong. But stupid kids shoot at cars and old people and give paintball a bad name in the news.

 

Agreed. Shooting is a very fun way to teach someone gun safety. I am only 17, but I have known proper gun handleing techniques since before I can remember. Like you said, I had a bb gun when I was little, then got a .22 rifle for christmas one year. After that came my Winchester 1300 12 ga for a birthday one year. And then for christmas one year I got a Remington 7600 GameMaster 30-06 for deer hunting. Oh and I cant forget my favorite toy[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I...well my dad cause I technically cant own one... have a Walther P22 pistol with both 3.4 inch and 5 inch barrels. Along with a Red Dot scope. This is a fun toy to plink with in the summer. You would be amazed how often I can go through .22 rounds.

Clay Pigions are very fun to shoot! I always love to go out and shoot some sporting clays. We went to a place called Nemicolin Woodlands this past summer and got to shoot some birds there. You travel around to each station and shoot at a total of 100 birds. This was alot of fun. We have also been to many a shotgun shoot before that, and we also have friends houses that we can go to that can throw just about anything for us. SO if you ever have a chance to go shoot clay pigions take it, because it is some of the best fun you can have.

 

Both my sons pulled the trigger on a 22 by the time they were 4 years old. With me holding the gun, with my arms reaching around them with their back to my front. They knew right away these things are serious and go bang. Later I would shoot jugs of water and so forth to illustrate effect. There, curiosity satisfied, respect instilled. They are very safe and I have no problems with them ever messing with all the firearms in my house.

I know a gal who's son was killed at age 10 when him and his friends were playing around with a 22 rifle in the house and had an accidental discharge. They were curious kids not knowing what could potentially happen. That's the danger---lack of education. My sons age 11 and 14 know that when a gun comes out at a friends house without an adult there, you haul butt for the door and start making phone calls.

Leave them ignorant and you're asking for trouble. Show them reality and they will be much safer.

Hats off to you Sparky for educating you daughter.

 

I love shooting clay pigeons too. Me and my brother go to this pit with a couple boxes of pigeons (180) and a couple boxes of ammo (200 rounds). We almost always walk out with ammo and no pigeons. There's a guy that lives by the pit that comes out to watch us. The first time he came to watch it was like the third time we'd gone in a month and a half, so we didn't miss any and most were "one shot kills" He was pretty amazed by that so most of the time we shooy he comes out and watches for 15-20 minutes, and he's not a shooter.


Shady, I believe that as a parent it is our responsibility to teach our children proper gun safety and handling whether we own guns or not. It would prevent un-necessary deaths due to un-educated children, and un-educated adults that could have used a little training and respect instilled in them at a young age.

 

When I was a kid, I use to pick the lock on my dad's gun cabinet and play with the guns all the time. There wasn't any amunition around, however.

My kids have grown up with guns around, and we go shooting all the time. And of course, they have had safety training. The effect this has had on my kids is to remove the "mystery" that guns have for most kids (it's not the forbidden fruit). If they found a gun sitting on the dining room table, they wouldn't even give it a second glance much less want to play with it. Why would they want to mess with it, when they were probably shooting it last weekend? It's just an everyday thing, and no big deal to them.

Of course you have to worry about other kids that may be visiting, so of course the guns need to be locked up or under the control of an adult at all times.