The thought of an unsupervised child with a firearm is bone chilling. Proper gun safety can reduce, but not eliminate unthinkable gun accidents.
Child-safety and gun-ownership are terms that don’t seem to fit together. It should go without saying, with guns at home, adequate safety precautions are paramount. It is surely one time when the right to keep and bear arms should be, to an extent, "self-infringed." Here are some ways to help ensure a peaceful co-existence between children and guns.
Removing the Guns
Get them out of the house! The guns, that is. Since 100% safety is the goal, then this is the only way to ensure the worst doesn’t happen. Parents know children are always observing, even when they don’t appear to be. Given enough time, the child may be found spinning a revolver’s cylinder, showing neighbors the hunting rifle scope (which was removed from the well-hidden rifle), and building a tower with shotgun shells. Those are the best things that can come from guns in the home. It’s a huge, horrible leap to the next set of possibilities.
Firearm Safety Precautions
Should the decision be made to keep firearms at home, go overboard with safety. First, guns should remain unloaded. Safe gun owners are careful to unload when they leave the field, the practice range, the forest. They should be no less careful when storing the weapons at home. Unless the home is entrenched in a militarized zone, there is no reason to keep a loaded firearm "handy." The chances of a child being killed by that loaded weapon is infinitely more likely than the gun being used to stop a kidnapper, murderer or prison escapee up to no good.
Ammunition should be kept in a location separate from the firearms. An unloaded gun stored with it’s ammunition might as well be loaded. If the two are stored together, even a toddler can make the connection of where and how the bullet goes in the gun.
Next, keep them both securely locked away. Store weapons and ammunition apart from one another, in locked cabinets. At the very least, in a cabinet secured by a lock and key. At best, in a combination-lock secured gun safe or gun cabinet. If firearms are secured by a padlock with a key, the children will find the key and let their curiosity take over from there. With a combination-lock safe, preferably one without a key backup, the combination can be committed to memory and, short of hiring a locksmith, the children won’t have access to the contents. Again, it may seem extreme, but without ammunition, the guns won’t fire.
If that seems overboard, then the additional feature of trigger locks will seem outrageous. So far, the gun lies unloaded, apart from it’s ammunition, inside a safe, behind a combination lock. Most gun-related injuries are caused by accidents involving "unloaded" guns, those previously thought to be unloaded. Placing a trigger lock on the unloaded weapon before bringing it home, either after a hunt or straight from the firearms dealer will help prevent such accidents. Trigger locks are inexpensive and can be found at most large department stores, sporting goods stores and firearms dealers.
Perceptive Children
Children will watch how parents handle guns. If parents are careless with weapons, should a child ever get their hands on it, they will mimic those actions. Parents who handle guns with respect and care will impart the same habit to their children. Actions, backed by spoken procedures for handling and care, will add a layer of protection against ever present danger.
Gun owners should be exceedingly cautious and thorough when educating their children on the dangers of firearms. The right to own a firearm is a prized freedom, but when children are present, parents should impose their own restrictions on that right. The consequences of not doing so are inconceivable.
Sources used for reference in this article were the National Rifle Association and Project Childsafe. Please see these and other agencies for further comprehensive gun safety procedures.
