CHILD SHOOTINGS

[SkyHawk]

The problem is that many young kids will grip the gun in such a way that their two thumbs are in the trigger guard, with the gun pointing at themselves. And their two thumbs do have the strength to pull many types of triggers.

It is absolutely tragic - everyone who expects small kids to be around at any time needs a way to lock up the guns. And it is 100% the fault of the people not the firearm or the action of the firearm.

[Lexicon Devil]

No, the mechanical attributes are not the factor. It is the absolute and total negligence of adults that is the issue.

This. My two nephews are over my place twice a week at least. They're 6 and 8, and by no means do I want them to become a statistic. Everything gets locked up and put out of reach until they leave.

It's a responsibility I can't stress enough.

[JTROKS]

When I was a little boy my dad had a 1911 in 45. I wanted to handle the pistol when I watched my dad and his cousins shoot it. I was told never to touch his gun for a gun has the devil in it. Nevertheless, I spent many hours looking for it when my mom and dad are out of the house. When I was a teenager in San Francisco, the usual pastime of my dad, uncles and their friends, drink, play guitar and karaoke. Somehow someone had a heated argument with somebody and my drunk uncle decides to pullout his little pistol to quell the fight. Bad move as everyone moved in on him to take the gun away. My dad rushed into our apartment to put the gun away and tells me not to touch it as he rushed to the party to break up the fight. Well, let me just say the gun was an Interarms 380, chamber loaded and magazine fully loaded.

I have 4 kids and I understood there’s a certain age a loaded gun within their reach can be a disaster. When I clean my guns all my kids were curious and I told each and everyone of them that guns are dangerous, but if they want to handle it, with my supervision I would let them. I told them the rules of gun handling and they seem to understand and know it. My youngest is now 12 years old and she outshoots her big brothers with 22 rifles. I leave a few guns fully loaded around the house for self defense and my kids know where they are located. Every now and then I get asked to let them handle the guns for familiarization.

I truly believe the worst thing you can do to a curious child is to avoid the subject or tell them not to touch it.

[jeffyhog]

This could not have been stated better. As a five-year-old, I knew where my Dad's guns were. He showed me. Yes, at that age. They were right there in the nightstand and NOT LOCKED UP. He also made sure that I knew not to touch them without his permission. After all, they're *GUNS*. My parents also made sure I knew the difference between what I saw on Saturday morning cartoons and the real world. Result: I didn't touch Dad's guns AT ALL until I was in my 40's and already an experienced RSO, and even then, it was with his permission.

It's all about parenting, and sadly, too many parents are not doing their jobs these days; I saw this first-hand working in a K-12 school district for nearly 10 years.

I was raised the same way. My Dad always had a gun in his nightstand and I was told to never touch it, at many times throughout my childhood. When my Mom was a child living out in the country, all the boys carried rifles or shotguns to school each day and kept them in a closet at school.

Education and parenting are absolutely critical to teaching children about gun safety and responsibility. I do wonder how many accidents and injuries or deaths due to negligence happened in the old days before the internet that never got reported or made the news.

[93chipper]

Probably the most issues of negligent discharges comes from parents not teaching gun safety to kids or improper storage of firearms harder to teach gun safety when majority of gun owners today never owned a gun

[warbird]

I had no use for guns when i got out of the service since i was trained to defend myself against most martial arts experts and knew if i got within six to eight feet of a gun I could neutralize it. Within five years I bought my first gun because i was growing older, did not have time for gyms, and skills change when raising a family. I had others to defend not just myself. My daughters were taught the dangers of guns, never show them to friends, and they were a last resort defense that usually killed someone. They never touched my guns even the old unloaded flintlocks. My grandchildren are being raised the same way. They respect the power in a gun and realize they are extremely dangerous. we have strict rules for gun handling and we keep gun accidents out of the family.

[The Gleam]

Parents are sole blame, responsibility, and fault should it happen.

However, there is another crowd which ushered that along.

The Anti-2nd Amendment Crowd. The Million Moms March mob, Handgun Control, Inc., The Brady Campaign, Mayors Against Guns scam, Bloomberg's 'Everytown' con, and as of late the "March for Our Lies" ruse with countless others.

Why?

Because all these groups have done is to vilify firearms in such a way, as to imbibe on society that guns are ONLY for doing evil, have no purpose but for evil, for killing people, that they should be done away with, not even talked about, not even seen, hidden entirely, zero-tolerance for their existence or teaching children how to be safe around them... culminating in the very opposite of what should be done - a refusal to even discuss actual safety of handling firearms, their view being that by choosing this approach it will invite the move toward guns being made to not exist at all, so there is no reason to talk about treating them safely, or even having a method for teaching safety in the first place.

Show me even one instance where any of the formerly mentioned groups have organized and taught a safe firearm-handling class, a beginner's guide to own a gun, a new gun-owner shooting class, or even preached the 4 Jeff Cooper/NRA safe-handling of firearms in all of their prattling - which is really aimed at abolishing the 2nd Amendment in its entirety.

With their incessant marketing of "guns are evil" they have created this mess of a broader swath of American society now eschewing even the idea of forming the image of a gun in their imagination, so more than ever before, many now only views guns have having no other purpose than for offensive/destructive intent, tools of evil, for implementing criminal and hateful causes, perverting and distorting an inanimate object into some magic wand for empowering those who would only see a firearm for hurting others.

It's gone so far as to create an irrational phobia about the sight of a gun, or worse, a complete ignorance about firearms to the point of not knowing even the basics of safe-handling rules (which were formerly first taught to kids when given their first squirt-gun, cap-gun, suction-cup dart-gun, or BB-gun.)

And just who might be attracted to that aspect of only seeing guns for doing something heinous?

Such a weak-minded person who otherwise might not have been attracted to firearms in that manner without the non-stop marketing telling them that's only what guns are about, bolstered by his parents that keep chanting the same, and thusly never teach nor allow that individual to see, think, hear, or even be exposed to firearms in a positive and constructive manner.

So the result is a perverted and abnormal attraction to firearms for all the wrong reasons.

It's two fold unintended consequence - you get a household, where should there be a gun at all, kids are not taught about safety around it because this major negative force is working against parents. And you potentially create an atmosphere bringing up kids that may see guns as a tool for facilitating their revenge against others.

These groups implore parents don't even mention the word "gun" in the vicinity of their kids, and for fear those kids may even make the slightest reference to it at school, and then the teacher, doctor, or neighbor is calling Child Protective Services and citing the parents as targets for AB1014/Red Flag style laws to burn the parents over the coals in a modern day witch-hunt by the Anti-2nd Amendment crowd. They apply this tactic of using "it's for the children" to get it done, all while they are for anything other than REAL measures for teaching the basics of gun safety and advising how to spread the word about that, which works against parents' ability to retain a safe and sound environment for their kids where firearms are concerned.

The second part of that is that it cultivates a disturbing view of firearms as these kids then grow older, as their only exposure to firearms his through superficial sources that reinforce a negative view of firearms, improper handling of firearms, or that firearms can somehow give you the unmitigated power to "get back at" the bullies - a la fractured minds brought up in such Leftist households like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Seung Cho, Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger (his video manifesto and upbringing proved as much of that exact view), Dimitrios Pagourtzis, among others.

A kid will figure out a trigger no matter what the pound of pull may be, no matter if its a Glock with a Triple-Action Safety or an HK P7M8 with it's robust grip actuator.

Kids are brighter, more precocious, and innovative than most parents (now days at least) are willing to give them credit. Previous generations used to see their kids as "young adults" at much earlier ages and reinforce maturity in their children.

However, ever since around the 1980s, it has become a destructive trend to coddle children and instead, popular to reinforce their infantile/immature nature well into their early 20's, even labeling them as "children" through age 21 by many of these Anti-2nd Amendment groups in order to skew statistics in their favor.

It's sickening how inappropriately childish a larger number of teens and many well into their 20's are now days, where in Dicksonian times up through the 1960s, kids couldn't wait to be adults.

Luxury, technology, and decadence contribute to that, but the responsibility for this still falls squarely on the parents, and those parents are so easily influence by media and "trends" if not adverse legislation, that is vilifying the existence of guns in any context.

Trigger format need not apply.

[LoadedM333]

Probably the most issues of negligent discharges comes from parents not teaching gun safety to kids or improper storage of firearms harder to teach gun safety when majority of gun owners today never owned a gun

[FAS1]

If you are a parental failure.

I don't think you can apply that to everyone.

Here's my personal experience with two boys that have completely different personalities. This is also when I decided I wanted a secure way to store a home defense gun and wasn't happy with what was available so I started to design what I was looking for in a quick access handgun safe.

Both my son's knew gun safety and had shot all my guns at the range. Never had an issue with them about guns or really any problems with them growing up. They were good kids and now they are both married and are good husbands and fathers themselves. Neither one really showed much interest in firearms as they were involved in other sports.

When my oldest was around 11 or 12 one of his friends came by while I was reloading in the garage when he said "I know where your gun is". I was a little shocked! I kept a loaded pistol in my toolbox at the time. All other guns were in the safe. It was a small .25 caliber pocket gun. I asked him where and he pointed to the correct drawer. When I asked how he knew that he said my son showed it to him.

Neither of them touched it but what if his friend said "cool" and grabbed for it? Needless to say the gun was removed from that spot and we all discussed what happened. That is when I decided to build the handgun safe that I now sell. It was a real eye opener for me and no matter how good your kids are and how well you communicate with them, please don't leave that unknown element up to chance. We all make some bad decisions in our lives and it only takes a second when a gun is involved. Kids are curious and that's how they learn. I think you have to do everything you can to help your kids to make good decisions.

[mausercat]

I have many guns and my wife and I no longer have children in the house, I always kept loaded self defense guns locked in a safe and later on locked with a fingerprint safe. I kept all of my ammo and other guns locked up in a spare bedroom that was locked at all times. Later on I put on a digital lock that automatically locked after opening. I still keep those guns unloaded in there to make sure I would not have a negligent discharge. If I am working on a gun and some company comes over I put everything into that spare room and lock it. This works for me to make sure things are safe.

[champu]

Said a slightly different way from other responses... considering measures to address the chain of events at the link in the chain where the uneducated and unsupervised child is trying to squeeze the trigger on a handgun they got a hold of is completely absurd.

It's the same "problem-solving" approach that calls for banning of 10+ round magazines because they're worried about the situation where a person has started a mass shooting spree, has already fired at least 10 rounds, and they're trying to make him reload a little bit more frequently.

[Quiet]

CDC stats for 2017 (latest completed year)...

Total deaths from injury by firearms in 2017: 39,773

Total deaths from accidental discharge of firearm in 2017: 486 (accounts for 1.22% of total deaths for firearms)
Age under 1 = 1
Age 1-4 = 31
Age 5-14 = 30
Age 15-24 = 117
Age 25-34 = 93
Age 35-44 = 64
Age 45-54 = 50
Age 55-64 = 47
Age 65-74 = 30
Age 75-84 = 18
Age 85+ = 5

Total deaths for under age 15 = 62 (accounts for 12.75% of accidental deaths by firearms and 0.16% of total deaths from firearms)

[larkja]

No, the mechanical attributes are not the factor. It is the absolute and total negligence of adults that is the issue.

x100.

If you can't afford a safe, you shouldn't own a gun. At a minimum, get a trigger lock - they're cheap.

[riderr]

This line was already tried by anti-gun orgs. Just curios if OP is not one of their members.

[AregularGuy]

Wow new members making their way over here from OT?

Yeah! What kind of new trollery is this? Post some links of the numerous recent cases.