Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Condition 1, 2, or 3? Why?

Back in the day even with a kid in the house, we typically had an S&W DA/SA semi's with the decocker down. But more importantly we focused on the guns in the safe. I consider guns to be the forbidden fruit and I didn't want to make them more mysterious than necessary. My son had his own gun, which was a 22 rifle. Our agreement was that he NEVER touched any of our guns without supervision. BUT, all he had to do was come to me and tell me he'd like to look at a gun, and regardless of what I was doing I'd stop and take him to the safe (not always convenient by any means) and he would watch me how I handled the gun and safely and carefully checked to make sure it was not loaded. THEN, I would hand it to him and he was to copy everything I did. The goal was he would learn gun safety at the same time he was satisfying his curiosity, and the goal is to be your childs hero, the one they want to emulate. We never specifically took him to the night stand where loaded guns were we always made a point to go to the gun safe so he associated the safe with where the guns were.

It's a tough thing with kids and not all kids are the same emotionally, or physically, or even the age this should start. Good luck and good for you wanting to have a gun for emergencies but also want to protect your kids.