I am a city girl. I grew up playing, among other things, Cowboys and Indians (okay, it's not politically correct but when I was a kid, that's what we called it).
Guns were toys. We really had no concept of the power of a pistol. When we were shot during our games, it was time for heavy drama when we fell to the ground writhing and wriggling. Then we jumped up and started again. I never saw or talked about real guns.
My husband John, on the other hand, grew up in a small town where the residents hunted. So the guns in his home were real, not pretend. And he learned from a very young age about gun safety. He tells a story of a time when a city cousin was visiting and found a shotgun. He was fascinated and wanted to explore this new item. John, who would never normally tell on his cousin, immediately ran to get his uncle and his father. He knew that this was serious business. Guns are not toys.
In a new book, Kids, Guns and The Truth, author York Furstenwald writes that "chances are very good that someday your child, willingly or not, will come in contact with an unsupervised gun. Does he or she know what to do to stay safe?"
That comment caused me to think. I know I wouldn't have understood the potential dangers a gun poses and I wonder if my children would have been as naïve as I. My children grew up in a home where we did not allow toy guns; we tried to limit violent play, video games and TV programs. But I would have to be ignorant to imagine that they never experienced any violence by playing with other kid's guns, trying out violent video games or watching movies and TV shows when I was not around.
In this book Furstenwald notes that he isn't taking a stance on whether as adults we choose to have and use firearms. It's about our responsibility to ensure that our children are educated about the seriousness of guns and what to do if they were to come upon one. He notes that we teach kids how to swim to avoid drowning, but how many parents talk to kids about the dangers of a mishandled firearm?
In this book Furstenwald talks about the statistics surrounding firearms, about guns at home and guns at school.
I found that I was intrigued with his material about what it is parents can do to protect their children. I have never actually seen a gun and I imagine that may be the case for many parents. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't prepare our kids for the possibility.
We would assume that even if a child tried to shoot a gun, he would be inaccurate. His aim would be off. But experience has shown that the practice kids get by playing video games makes them surprisingly accurate.
When children do pick up guns they often shoot themselves. The reason is that they don't have much index finger strength so they turn the gun around and using both hands, push with their thumbs with the barrel pointing right at them. So they need to learn from a young age to leave the gun where it is and not try to pull the trigger.
And he notes that if they are getting their firearms information from TV and movie shootouts the author states that nothing is real in those situations.
Some of the messages from the book are that children, youth and teenagers need to learn to:
- Never pick up a firearm unless authorized by a competent adult.
- Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded.
- Never ever point a gun at another person or a friend, or themselves.
- Leave the area where the gun is immediately and go tell a parent or adult if they find a firearm.
We need to be realistic and give our kids the education they need to be safe on the chance they may come upon a gun, whether a handgun, shotgun or rifle, somewhere, sometime.
Kathy Lynn is a parenting expert. To read more, sign up for her newsletter at parentingtoday.ca.
