I lock up my guns…… mostly because I spent a lot of money on them and want to make them more difficult to steal. My kids understand what guns are capable of: they have shot them all, and all but the eldest don’t like anything bigger than their .22′s.

I have pee wees aged 2 and 5 (both girls); here is what I do.

The first layer is education. Both girls are aware of the firearms in the house and see them often (as a hobby, I hand sew leather concealment holsters and you can’t wet mold a holster without the gun in it). I teach the girls that the firearms are “Daddy’s” and that they are for grownups only, and teach them that should they ever see one when Daddy isn’t in the room that they should not touch it. Firearms are NOT play toys. If they should ever see a firearm while at a friends house they should stay away from it and tell an adult emediately. When they get older, they will be taught to shoot should they show any interest (if they don’t, they won’t be forced).

The second layer is access. I almost always have a gun “strapped on” as it were, but other than that, everything else is in the safe. There are occasions that I am using a gun for creating a holster pattern or wet molding etc (see note about holster making above), and in those occasions the firearms are kept unloaded. I mean, who whats to shoot their… um… you-know-what off because they are stupidly creating a holster pattern with a loaded gun? Ammo for these guns are kept seperate.

The third layer is simply knowing your kids. My 5 year old is somewhat gun curious, so I have had her out shooting the airsoft once or twice and she is allowed to touch the firearms if she asks and I check them to make sure they aren’t loaded first. That curiousity isn’t so much that it would override her dicipline, but I am careful just in case. The 2 year isn’t interested at all. She would rather play with her dollys. I’m not saying that I don’t have to worry about her (and I do) I am just saying that I don’t have to worry about her sneaking to play with the “GUN” because guns don’t spark her interest. The important thing is to keep watch so that if that changes I can be sure to understand what to look out for.

I wouldn’t think of having guns in the house without using all three of these layers of safety. Does a layer get missed sometimes? Yes, nobody’s perfect. But much like the four rules that we, as “gun people”, all follow, they interlock and it would take a breakdown in more than one layer for tragedy to happen.

s

disclaimer: I am not an expert. I am just a dude. I did spend 6 years in the Marines, and I grew up in a household with numerous firearms that I had physical access to on a constant basis from the time I was a small child. SO… I may, or may not know what I am talking about. Of course I think I do, that is why I posted.

“And, in addition, how do you ensure the safety of your children when you have guests or visitors who might not be as trustworthy as you hope?”

I ended up back in an apartment after my last divorce, and own multiple firearms. In order to keep them out of the hands of curious children of friends that might come over, I swapped out the door knob on one of my closets with one that has a key lock. If I’m going to have visitors, one firearm goes on my hip and the others get locked into the closet.

“If you teach your kid that guns are dangerous tools, much like a circular saw”

That’s the exact same comparison I use at the local youth competitive pistol club when we get a child that’s nervous about trying a firearm the first time. It’s amazing how too much TV really conditions them to see firearms as some evil object to be feared.

I raised two kids (now 25 and 22 respectively and with kids of their own) with unlocked guns and ammo.

Don’t get me wrong…I think safes are a great idea and I do own one now…it just never crossed my mind when my kids were young because I grew up in a home without one. Had I thought about it, I probably would have gotten one back then just to be safer.

The point is that supervision and education are the keys. Like many others have said before me (including SayUncle in linking to this post), taking the mystery and intrigue out of it by letting them handle the guns and teaching them about then in a controlled environment, and making sure they know that whenever they want to do so, they can handle them and shoot them. You’ll salve their curiosity and the urge to “play with” guns when you’re not around will be much reduced if not eliminated entirely.

One of the main reasons I’d be sure to have a safe today is that most kids aren’t trained in gun safety any more. When I was growing up everyone had guns and everyone knew how to use them. When my friends had young kids, being mainly military families, it was much the same. Today, I would be primarily worried about other people’s (uneducated) kids being around in a home with unsecured guns. A safe is definitely a good idea for those situations.

Contrary to popular modern “conventional wisdom”, guns and kids are not incompatible with a little common sense and proper parenting.

Not to mention the fact that statistically speaking, one’s child is MUCH more likely to die of accidental drowning, poisoning or suffocation (not to mention being ASTRONOMICALLY more likely to die in a car crash) than to be killed in a gun accident.

The gun in the gun safe, ammo stored in a separate locked container, children “protected” by absence of the weapon, is one end of the range. The weapon is essentially unavailable for self defense.

The gun on your hip in a holster, loaded with one in the chamber, cocked & locked, children “protected” again by their lack of access to the weapon, is the other end of the range. The weapon is immediately available for self defense. Me, I would move out of that neighborhood or at least proactively put up a layered defense.

Training kids that tools are not toys works from a very early age. Tools are used only to do their specific job. Toys are used in play.

If you teach your kid that guns are dangerous tools, much like a circular saw or a hammer, they can understand that it has both proper and improper uses. Then they can tell some other kid who finds a gun in somebody else’s house that a gun is not a toy and not to play with it. This is likely a better way to avoid a tragedy than expecting your kid just not to touch something that is dangerous – and hence attractive.

Also, teaching your child to shoot from an early age impresses on them like nothing else that the purpose of the firearm tools is to put holes in things – paper or tin cans or whatever the gun points at when shot. This is better learned from you than from playing with somebody else’s just-discovered gun with no adults around.

And no, I make no money off these safes.

So when you are up, the gun should be with you. When it isn’t with you, if it is in one of these, you could still get to it in a few seconds. (If it’s 3 PM, and your gun is in the bedroom, when the thug breaks in the front door, it might as well be on the moon.)

The “should it be locked or not?” is the wrong question. Gun owners do have a responsibility to ensure that their guns never get in the wrong hands – like kids. It is the same responsibility to keep the kids safe from the urban goblins of the world. It is all about safety.

And Nobody – there are no guarantees in this world. That doesn’t mean you are off the hook for taking some simple precautions. Fine you don’t want them cause you feel it is a risk. Read up on some of the home invasions that have made the news in the past few years. (The kind where they hold the kids hostage and take the father out to get money) Then tell me what other risks you run. Are the poisons in your home? Tools? Stairs? A swimming-pool? (That last is VERY dangerous.) A dog? (Look up the CDC info on dog-bites and children) The world is full of risks, and you can’t protect your kids from life – and not make them crazy. You choose the risks you want. But those choices create other risks.