Merlin
Ultimate Member
Let me ask you about that. Because it's a really great subject and worthy of deep thought and discussion.
Here's my thinking:
If I "hide" something from the kids, they want to find it. If they do find it they want to "see" (experience) it. They are curious by nature. That's part of being a kid. It's healthy. (Until someone gets shot!)
If I show it to them from birth. Let them hold it. Teach them that is something they are not to touch when I am not there. That it is dangerous (like so many things = car, stove, matches, electric sockets, knives, scissors, hard baseballs, bats, the street where cars drive, etc, etc, etc) I am thinking the mystery is taken away.
If my thinking holds, understanding replaces mystery.
So, they don't run into the street chasing the ball. They don't play with matches. Or stick their fingers in the electric socket, or run with scissors, or throw hard balls in the house, and yes, finally, they don't touch the gun.
Why?
Because my job (as their father/parent) is to teach them. What other job do I have? I can't be with them 24 hours a day. All I can do is teach. If I do my job they will learn. And if they learn they will be safe.
BTW, my father never taught me about guns. I found one when I college age. (A semi auto.) I took it to the back of the house, opened the sliding door, pointed it at the big hill, and pulled the trigger. It didn't fire. I put it back.
That was stupid of me. (Thank God I pointed it at a big hill. Thank God the safety must have been on, or a rd wasn't chambered. Anyway, thank God it didn't go off!)
And I was hardly a "child"!!!!! (OK, the house was off in the woods and no neighbors were around! - But it was still a dumb thing to do!)
If I had been taught would I have acted so stupidly? Would I do that today? Would you?
Why wouldn't we? - Because we were taught!
That's just my thought. I don't claim to know it all.
It's only the beginning, of what I think should be a major (and very important) discussion.
I can add that all kids are different. When I was 7-8 my dad carried. Each day when he came home from work he took off his gun and set it on the table. He showed it to me and then I was told it was NOT mine to touch. I was the kind of kid that listen to that.
Not all kids are like that. Maybe because they have always had parents that hid everything from them because that was easier for them instead of the required puritanism that would come...or should come with not listening to that instruction.
All to many parents do not want to ever punish there kids anymore. The just want to be their friends.