Kids and guns

[Ericjd0887]

Just curious to know if anyone here have children and have introduced them to guns? How did you go about it and at what age? And have you let them shoot them? and if so, what type of firearm?

[flowrie]

Just went through this experience.
Our son is 9 years old.
Showed him my Shield (unloaded of course, but treated as loaded).
Wife and I explained to him why we have it ( for protection of him and the whole family).
Let him touch it, hold it.
Explained that if he ever found a gun that he was not to touch it, tell an adult.
He can only touch a gun if I am with him.
Then had him watch the Eddie Eagle short movie on his iPad (NRA website).
Then went over the rules again, talked about the EE movie.
We always keep firearms locked in safes unless I or my wife are carrying.
Went real smooth, lots of questions of course, but we answered truthfully.
All good!

[AJSully421]

3 kids: son will be 5 in Nov, daughter will be 3 in Aug, son is 18 months.

I show them my rifles and shotguns and let them hold my handguns. I tell them that they are dangerous, and not to touch them unless I hand it to them. I have keypad door handles on our bedroom and on the gun room doors. All guns are either on us, in my truck, or behind one of those doors.

The 4 year old gets to shoot a Red Ryder, and will probably get to shoot a .22 this fall. My daughter can barely hold up an unloaded Glock...

As time goes on, we will go into "don't touch, tell an adult" and so on. Right now, they don't go anywhere that my wife or I are not supervising them.

[rotor]

My daughters never showed an interest but my grandson has been shooting a .22 since he was 9 and we routinely shoot with my supervision. He actually first started with an air-rifle that was scoped and moved on from there. He is pretty good with a red dot shooting one of those reflex targets. He sometimes helps me with reloading. Eye and ear protection, all the usual stuff you need to teach them. I have a whole arsenal that he has seen and he watches when I clean the guns. He has definitely learned at a young age how to safely handle a gun.

[oohrah]

I first learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp when I was 11. My son and I took my 9 year old granddaughter to the range last Easter. She learned and was quizzed on all the safety rules. Half of her first shots were in the black, so it was a good day, and she enjoyed it.

[Ericjd0887]

Thank you for the replies! I know safety is top priority. my daughter is only 3 going on 4 so I'm just getting a feel as to when some of y'all had that discussion and how it went. I'm not comfortable yet in really just showing her and explaining just yet because I still feel likes she's a little too young but the other day I was packing it up to go shoot and take the ltc class and she asked me, "what is that" and "hey, can I see?" And I just told her briefly that this is daddy's and you cannot touch or hold this yet. But I know she's curious.

[Javier730]

Introduced my son to firearms at 5 similar to how flowrie explained, took him to shoot a small 22 single shot at 6 and my browning buckmark at 7.

[Middle Age Russ]

There is no one right answer. In our 4-H Safety Training (required by kids and parent/guardian before participation in any shooting sport discipline), we stress to the parents that they not make guns a mystery if there are guns in the home. Each kid matures at a different rate and is able to approach supervised gun handling and shooting at a different time. Before then, and as early as possible, the NRA's Eddie Eagle GunSafe program is an excellent, simple inoculation to help keep kids safe if they encounter a firearm unsupervised.

[Vol Texan]

Step one: Check out the Cornered Cat website. It's a site by a lady, focused on ladies' gun issues, but it has really good info on kids and guns, in a section appropriately titled, "Kids and Guns"

My daughter is 8 years old now, but she started shooting at age 4. Her first rifle was a Crickett bolt action, and she handled that well for about a year and a half. Then, it came time to upgrade her to a Ruger 10/22.

She's a great shot, but the whole experience has been more about the safety aspects of it. I don't want her to grow up NOT knowing about guns, given that I carry, my wife carries, and guns are a real part of our life. But even worse (and you need to check out the Eddie Eagle program at the NRA about this), I wanted to make sure that she knew what to do if she or another kid found a gun laying around at a friends' house.

STOP! Don't Touch! Leave the Area! Tell an adult! She could quote these four rules long before she ever touched a gun. We do test her on this. We have some cameras in the house as part of the alarm system, and sometimes I'll leave an unloaded gun laying around and I'll send her in to the other room to get something. I do this to test her reaction, and she had yet to disappoint.

Finally, teaching the little one to shoot has been one of the best joys of my life. I've chronicled it on here more so than anywhere, so I welcome you to read about the experience:

Question About Left-Eye Dominance
Need help picking out another rifle
Day at the range with my 6-year old daughter
Too Young to Shoot? (WWYD)
Houston south quadrant breakfast

[AJSully421]

Thank you for the replies! I know safety is top priority. my daughter is only 3 going on 4 so I'm just getting a feel as to when some of y'all had that discussion and how it went. I'm not comfortable yet in really just showing her and explaining just yet because I still feel likes she's a little too young but the other day I was packing it up to go shoot and take the ltc class and she asked me, "what is that" and "hey, can I see?" And I just told her briefly that this is daddy's and you cannot touch or hold this yet. But I know she's curious.

Yeah... that's how you start to have a problem.

Unload it, show it to her, let he hold it and teach her to have reverence for it, tell her that she can see it any time that she wants, but only with your permission and supervision. Take the curiosity out of it, while preserving the respect for it, you'll be fine.

[C-dub]

I am 51y now and took a slightly different approach than my dad did. My dad taught me the basic safety of guns and took me shooting every couple of years. He is/was not a hunter and I also had no interest in hunting. We just shot at tin cans and I would throw some clay pigeons for him out at my grandpa's farm. The rest of the time the guns were hidden away.

My approach was to not hide them, but make them a part of the house not much different than the vacuum cleaner or pliers or any other tool. Every tool as its purpose and it is only to be used for that purpose and taken care of. Our only child, a daughter, is now 14y and has seen a handgun on my hip since as long as she can remember. She had no interest in shooting herself until about 9y, but prior to that I did teach her about how to safely handle a gun and check to see if it was loaded and unload one. I was very proud the first time I took her to look for her first handgun. We went to several places when she was about 11y to look at different .22lr models and feel which one she liked the best. BTW, she ended up picking the Colt 1911-22 Glod Cup model.

Anyway, the proud part was that in the first and every store we went to, when the sales person placed the gun on the counter for me to check I would let her check it since it was for her. Ya'll have seen this before. Almost all these places keep a magazine in the handgun and while they do check to make sure it is not loaded before placing it on the counter for the person to look at, they always leave the magazine inserted and almost always leave the slide forward. Well, every time she picked one up she dropped the magazine and checked the chamber to make sure it was empty before doing anything else, while keeping it pointed in a safe direction. It put a big smile on my face to see the sales persons face when they saw that. Let me know I had done everything right so far.

Firearms are no mystery to my daughter and she likes to shoot. It is not a top priority for her. Right now, softball is and getting ready for high school next month are. She likes to shoot her M&P 15-22 more than a handgun and has recently fired her grandpa's .410 bolt shotgun. She fired my Benelli M2 3-gun last year, but didn't care for it much. She's a strong kid and I knew she could handle it, but she didn't care for it. She did ask about it and wanted to try it. I didn't push her to try it. I did have to do a little convincing with the .410 because of the Benelli, but she really liked it. I've tried shooting trap with it and can do okay, so I'm hoping to get her interested in that a little and eventually working up to either a 20ga something or maybe even a 12ga.

I'm no firearms expert or svengali about all things dad. Just ask her, but it seems as though I got this one thing right with this one. My one regret is not having started her out with a single shot or bolt action rifle instead of a semiauto. She really likes to load up those mags and go through them pretty quick. We've recently begun practicing drills and different things with a timer working on quickness and accuracy at various times. And every now and then we have our own little precision competition. She's fired everything I have except for the larger caliber rifles. She's asked about them and we may give one or two a try the next time out.

[Jusme]

My youngest is 18 now, but I pretty much followed the same pattern with all three of mine. At about 3-4 I let them see my guns, unloaded, strict adherence to muzzle direction, treating all guns as loaded, no touching without supervision, don't touch any gun, at someone else's house etc. I would take them out and let them watch me shoot a gun, usually a 22, at a water bottle or something that makes a dramatic display when hit. Age 5-6 introduced them to bb guns, always under my supervision. Both of my son's were in Cub Scouts so they got to shoot bb guns at day camps and Cuborees. which gave them the chance to work in a structured environment, with other Cub Scouts.
Age 8-9 introduced to 22 rifle the Cricket single shot, Eye and Ear protection, always with an emphasis on safety. My youngest son got his rifle merit badge at age 11 with his cricket rifle. Age 12-13 Shotguns, and higher powered rifles.

I never pushed any of my kids to shoot, they all enjoyed the experiences, and are very safe with firearms, I think that if you do everything to demystify firearms with kids, there are fewer issues. Allow them to ask questions, see the guns, explain how they work, and always practice what you preach regarding firearms, then they won't be so apt to misuse them.

[PatrickMas20]

Man, this thread makes me want to have a kid. Because my dog don't ask any questions!

[allisji]

Just curious to know if anyone here have children and have introduced them to guns? How did you go about it and at what age? And have you let them shoot them? and if so, what type of firearm?

I'm in the same position as you. I have a boy who will be 4 in Sept. and a one y/o daughter.

I'm ready to start talking to my son about guns, but my wife is not ready for me to. I'm going to have to go ahead and do it soon, because I think that his toddler friends are already talking about guns. He saw one of my American Rifleman magazines and told his mommy that it was "the gun that daddy is gonna use to shoot bad guys".

Neither his mommy nor I have talked to him about my guns. But I plan to take the approach that AJ Sully did and let him hold my handguns after I clean them and before I load them. Maybe when my son is in kindergarten is when I'll let him start shooting BBs or airsoft, and we'll work our way up from there. His granddad has bought a Davey Cricket .22 that will be his first "firearm".