3-year-old girl shoots self in head

I'm with Nickle on this one.

Some of you guys have bought the "unlocked guns are evil.....mmk" thing hook, line, and sinker.
 
They should pay...especially if they are not licensed gun owners. It is people like them that ruin this world. I wonder if they were or not.
What about those of us (the overwhelming majority) who live in places where there is no such thing as being licensed to own a firearm?

What should be done to us?
 
I'm with Nickle on this one.

Some of you guys have bought the "unlocked guns are evil.....mmk" thing hook, line, and sinker.


"Safe Storage" is usually defined by the anti-gun crowd as Unloaded Gun locked in Safe with Trigger Lock and Ammo Locked elsewhere.

My definition: only I have access to my gun
 
I'm with Nickle on this one.

Some of you guys have bought the "unlocked guns are evil.....mmk" thing hook, line, and sinker.

I don't think most folks here are suggesting that. Part of gun ownership carries some level of responsibility- and that responsibility can take more than one form- It doesn't always involve disabling and locking up a perfectly good firearm. It involves risk management, which can be accomplished quite a few different ways.

If I had a 3 year old around, the protocol I would follow would be to have any loaded gun on my person at all times or to have it locked up. (preferably the former!) At that age, children need some level of protection from household dangers. Supervision is obviously the best practice regardless.

I have two kids in my house right now, one is 8 and the other is 13. That's a different ballgame. If I lived in a free state I would have no qualms about leaving a loaded handgun on a table or whatnot, around either of them. Why? Because they've been trained enough to know that they should not touch a firearm without an adult in attendance. They also know that if they WANT to touch one that I will allow them to do so- EG, thus being able to satisfy any curiousity they might have about it.

Now, if we had guests or other people over, any guns would get locked up or be on my person. Granted I generally don't have nosy guests, etc, but you never know. Sometimes one just doesn't know those things until
it's too late.

One ND story I ran into was a fellow on another forum was getting ready to go to the range, and he had a bunch of guns on his bed. One of them was a loaded browning BHP. This ditzy broad that was visiting his house wandered into his bedroom, picked it up and said "bang bang" and pulled the trigger sending a JHP into the side of his computer. [rolleyes] Thankfully nobody was hurt. Needless to say the guys wife was very pissed at her "friend." One might ask, well where was the owner... he was off in another room doing something for ONE minute when it happened. That's all it takes. He presumed that someone would be smart enough not to touch a firearm if they didn't know WTF they were doing with it, and that turned out to be wrong.

Whenever potentially "gun unaware" people are involved, you have to assume people are idiots with firearms until proven otherwise, and take (some kind) of steps to prevent them from doing something stupid. Obviously giving
people a small gun safety lecture is one thing; but sometimes a situation might be dynamic and prevent you from doing that (as with what happened above, IIRC, the owner wasn't even aware the ditz was wandering around
his house, so the thought of her being a birdbrain with one of his guns never crossed his mind. )

I know what you're thinking- "well, don't invite birdbrains into your house" etc. While I typically agree with that, murphy seems to be lurking around the corner. Worse yet, its very hard to foresee things like the above. Sometimes people have other things on their mind than just guns and gun safety, even those of us who carry one every day. Yes, many of us think of gun safety in a personal realm all the time, no doubt, but it's a different thought process when you look at everyone else and you have to remember to think "I have loaded guns in my house- is this person my SO just invited over for dinner responsible enough not to mess with them?" It is very easy to get complacent with what I call "peripheral gun safety". EG- what might be common sense and ingrained for US is not the same for joe public, unfortunately. Maybe 50 years ago, it was, but not in our society where craploads of people grow up with no meaningful exposure to firearms whatsoever other than the crap they see on TV, if that.

I think that every gun owner has to approach safety/precautions/etc in a way that is acceptable to them, managing any risks the way they see fit. Guidelines that work in one household might not pass muster in another. Some of the guys on here unfortunately got into guns after they got married and they have to live with hoplophobes. Thankfully I don't have that problem, but I can see how the dynamic changes if a guy is backed into a corner like that.

For the record, I live in MA and I think that the MA safe storage regs are insanely, moronically dumb, but I obey them anyways while still being able to keep a loaded gun available for my use. Would I change the way I do things if I lived in a free state? Probably.... but only ever so slightly, and mostly with regards to convenience.
The level of supposed "safety" wouldn't go down in the process, either.

-Mike
 
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I don't think most folks here are suggesting that. Part of gun ownership carries some level of responsibility- and that responsibility can take more than one form- It doesn't always involve disabling and locking up a perfectly good firearm. It involves risk management, which can be accomplished quite a few different ways.

If I had a 3 year old around, the protocol I would follow would be to have any loaded gun on my person at all times or to have it locked up. (preferably the former!) At that age, children need some level of protection from household dangers. Supervision is obviously the best practice regardless.
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For the record, I live in MA and I think that the MA safe storage regs are insanely, moronically dumb, but I obey them anyways while still being able to keep a loaded gun available for my use. Would I change the way I do things if I lived in a free state? Probably.... but only ever so slightly, and mostly with regards to convenience.
The level of supposed "safety" wouldn't go down in the process, either.

-Mike

I'd give you +1 rep point for that but you're a mod and can probably give them to yourself. [smile]
 
Wow, you were a well behaved little kid.---jdubios

What a "special child" you must have been. ---theGringo

I’m a bit surprised, is it unusual to have respected your parents privacy?


Respectfully,

jkelly
 
I’m a bit surprised, is it unusual to have respected your parents privacy?

In young children? Yes, it's almost unheard of. If you subscribe to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, childhood morality is typically based upon the questions of 'will I be punished?' and 'what is in it for me?'. By adolescence views of morality usually move on to 'will I be liked for doing this?' and 'laws must be followed to retain order'. It's not until adulthood, if ever, that morality further moves on to 'does this achieve the greater good?' and 'is this philosophically just?'.

So I would never expect a child, of say, six years old, to respect a parent's privacy. There may be enough threat of punishment to curb the behavior, but if they think they can get away with it they will. Once a child reaches the age of 10 to 12, I would expect them to at least have the capacity to understand the situation from their parent's point of view and obey their privacy with the understanding that their own privacy should be respected as well.

Of course, I think many adults are still living with a pre-adolescent sense of morality.
 
In young children? Yes, it's almost unheard of.

So I would never expect a child, of say, six years old, to respect a parent's privacy.---jdubois
Perhaps I'm just not remembering my early childhood correctly. But I can't for the life of me remember not respecting my parents privacy or property.


Respectfully,

jkelly
 
Perhaps I'm just not remembering my early childhood correctly. But I can't for the life of me remember not respecting my parents privacy or property.


Respectfully,

jkelly

childhood morality is typically based upon the questions of 'will I be punished?' and 'what is in it for me?'

For most of us around or over 50 (and some of you much younger), there's why we behaved.

Punishment for infractions was more severe back then. We knew that.
 
Perhaps I'm just not remembering my early childhood correctly. But I can't for the life of me remember not respecting my parents privacy or property.

You're not alone. My siblings and I didn't root around in our parents' bedroom very much. Matter of fact, I don't remember going in their room much at all until they put the second TV of the house there :).

Of course we made our fair share of trouble with what wasn't in that room.

Come to think of it, I was a little surprised when I went over my best buddy's place and he showed me the gun/knife collection in his father's closet and the reloading setup in the garage. But he had clearly been introduced to them before, I knew they weren't toys, and we somehow managed not to shoot anything.
 
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Perhaps I'm just not remembering my early childhood correctly. But I can't for the life of me remember not respecting my parents privacy or property.

Not to worry. There is sometimes a solitary Fruit Loop among the Cheerios. This is the diversity that makes life worth living. [wink]
 
Not to worry. There is sometimes a solitary Fruit Loop among the Cheerios. This is the diversity that makes life worth living. [wink]

I know JKelly. I've shot with JKelly. And you, sir, are no .......... wait; wrong speech. [rolleyes]

Actually JKelly is no Fruit Loop. He's a stand-up, Total kind of guy.

Your MDR may vary. [wink]
 
a simple "if i ever catch you handling my guns with out my permission and me watching you i will kick your ass" along with the rules of gun safety drilled into my head by my grandfather kept me safe.... something that a trigger lock will never do.
 
One ND story I ran into was a fellow on another forum was getting ready to go to the range, and he had a bunch of guns on his bed. One of them was a loaded browning BHP. This ditzy broad that was visiting his house wandered into his bedroom, picked it up and said "bang bang" and pulled the trigger sending a JHP into the side of his computer.

I'm not looking to place blame here -- luckily with none hurt that doesn't have to be done. I'm wondering what extra layer of safety could have been applied that might have saved the ditz from her action.

Because of my personal routines, I always unload, immediately after unholstering. Maybe I lay it down (still in holster) if I'm changing trousers, but I just don't go to another room and leave it -- I'd have to check its status when I came back to it anyway, so if I left it, I'd unload it.

Might be a different process with a wheel gun [which the BHP isn't], but I go pistol condition 3 (sorry guys, that's my risk assessment) and always check the chamber.
 
I'm not telling anyone how to raise their kids. I am telling you how I make sure that I won't ever have to answer to my brother and sister-in-law for my nephew getting his hands on one of my guns. Even empty they are heavy enough to hurt him if he dropped it on himself. If it's in the locked safe, no worries, loaded or unloaded. I will not assume that a 2 year old will always follow the rules, and I will not assume that he will never wander off for a few seconds unnoticed.

If it's not on my body it's in the locked safe.
 
It all comes down to not being the stupid parents of a dead kid, whether its firearms or swimming pools or anything else.

A very intelligent assessment, which is why I not only lock up my unattended firearms, but my household cleaners, paints and solvents, etc.

I have two boys ages 5 and 3, I would like them to live long enough to make their own stupid decisions, not suffer as a result of mine. This has nothing to do with what the ma**h*** legislators says I must do, it is more because I remember what I was like as a child, and it scares the crap out of me as a parent.
 
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