Bolt locks, trigger locks, gun safes, empty chambers and well secured ammunition.
It’s just that simple.
There are plenty of easy, inexpensive means to prevent a loaded weapon from ever finding its way into the hands of an innocent child or angry adolescent. Every time I come across a school shooting story, my teeth start gnashing and I wish the truly responsible parties were being goose marched in tight shackles and prison orange before the court.
Adults are ultimately responsible for securing their guns against tragic misuse and ought to be held severely accountable for the horrible consequences when they fail to take a minimum of proper precaution.
In my household all of the tools mentioned above are employed. In addition, our boys have received multiple training courses on gun safety and proper use. They enjoy going to gun range for target practice or shooting skeet and love spending time at our friend’s ranches pinging cans or hunting game in season. I would swear on their beloved lives that my sons would never misuse a firearm, having been thoroughly indoctrinated with a solemn respect for the weapons we own from the time they were capable of rudimentary reasoning.
While I trust my children, I’m unwilling to trust their friends. They’re all good kids, but guns are like porn, too finger-licking tempting to put down once found. Better to be safe than hauntingly sorry.
That said, my son’s thirteenth birthday turned up last Monday. We spent the entire weekend celebrating and kept his straight A, clarinet playing bold self out of school just for kicks. His main gift was a Remington single barreled shotgun and a day hitting as many skeet as his daddy could pull.
Yes, we bought our child another gun. He already owns a sweet little twenty-two rifle and a natural talent for hitting the black spot. You ought to see him swing after that swift clay bird, nine out of ten direct hits without giving it a second thought. The boy catches rarefied air when he’s aiming a gun, possessing a natural affinity with this piece of steel.
Yes, guns kill way too many innocent people, but so do cars. I fail to see the tragic distinction when mourning family members are bent over a casket filled with somebody else’s tragic mistake.
Adults are responsible for their actions and have a responsibility to monitor those within their influence. Take the keys away from a drunk, banish the irresponsible teenager from the family car, sell the sedan out from under your aging parent’s wavering grasp.
And lock those guns up, for children’s sake.
Responsible? Responsibility? Those must be Texan concepts, because they’ve been gone from Michigan for decades. Just rent me a house, buy me some food and send the check please.
Kids get shot in Detroit all the time…three last week alone. It’s “unacceptable,” the Leaders said, but nobody mentioned responsibility. I guess if you don’t mention it, it doesn’t exist.
I’m of mixed feelings here.
How does locking things up stop someone who really wanted to get at them? I know I never had a problem with locks stopping me for more than the few minutes I needed to think about how I was going to open this one.
Locking things up also have the side effect of not being accessible for when you really may need it.
I grew up in a household where there were rifles in every corner of the house, handguns in various drawers and ammunition easily accessible. At no time did any of us kids have the idea to do anything inappropriate with any of the weapons. ( well there was the time my father caught me stripping every automatic handgun in the house at the same time just to see if I could ). We may have done bad things, but bad things with guns was JUST. NOT. DONE.
I guess my childhood home was a bit of an outlier, but I still have trouble accepting the idea that kids cannot be responsible for their own actions and be raised appropriately.
I am too lazy this AM to do so, but I think a person could graph the correlation between the rise of fatherless homes and misuse of firearms. These school shootings just did not happen in times past. I agree that gun training is key, and also with the concern about other people’s children accessing our guns. Standing rule in our house is when friends come over,simply no playing upstairs. My eleven-year old daughter is an avid shooter and owns a .410 shotgun/.22 rifle , has taken hunter’s safety and loves to hunt “Pahtridges” with her dad. Because of our rural location, the kids around here are all firearms trained and know the consequences of misuse. They also don’t just show up at the door on Saturday morning. Because of the distances involved, parents generally arrange ahead of time.
That said, guns locked up with ammo stored at some other location are completely useless to me for self-defense. I would not consider such a thing (but my circumstances are different from many).
Also, in our house there are no little boys anymore. I might think differently if there were. Maybe.
My dad used to take his gun to school. Grade school back in the country schoolhouse days. School shootings weren’t an issue. We will have to be purified by fire before we ever get back there.
Daphne- I enjoyed your post because it mentions the word guns and then is sensible about the topic. It is virtually impossible to discuss many times whe npeopel take extreme positions (those who would ban all and those who want their own tank).
An extreme position is that it is a girl’s civil right to have taxpayers support her bastard. Gun control is spreading kitty litter over the result of extreme positions.
We would rather be prudent, than sorry. And while I completely trust my boys, I’m not willing to place that same confidence in anybody else’s children.
As far as not keeping a gun handy in case of danger, I’m not too worried about that in my neighborhood. The worst crime ever reported around here is a bashed in mailbox or two on the last day of school… just teenage boys releasing a little testosterone.
Besides, I have two huge dogs that would eat a stranger’s face off if they managed to get in the house or our fenced backyard.
Teresa, regarding absent fathers, I suspect you’re right. I think drugs like Ritalin and Adderall might be contributing factors also.
Did anyone else see that sad story of an eight year old Washington state boy who took his mother’s gun to school and nearly killed another child when he dropped his backpack and it went off? That never had to happen.
Daphne- I enjoyed your post because it mentions the word guns and then is sensible about the topic. It is virtually impossible to discuss many times whe npeopel take extreme positions (those who would ban all and those who want their own tank).
I’ve never heard a single keep-and-bear-arms advocate (other than perhaps those who get messages from the fillings in their teeth) suggest that owning a tank (many do, btw) shouldn’t be something rare and unusual, that is, highly regulated and controlled.
Have you?
On-the-other-hand, there is a large (but shrinking) constituency that would like nothing more than to confiscate all privately owned firearms and outlaw their possession. This constituency has has, among others, a not insignificant number of Representatives and Senators.
So, for you to equate the two “extreme positions” is a bit disingenuous, don’t you agree?
Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I think owning a tank would be like the coolest thing ever.
I learned years ago, barely into my 20s, that few things get a girl hotter than firing a high caliber handgun.
I’m kind of keen on anti-aircraft guns, the big kinds on ships.