First off, excellent choice Mike. I have to disagree with the "no good reason" comment. You weren't comfortable with your situation and you fixed it. Better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to kids and weapons. If you had an inkling of doubt, I say you made the right choice.

Second, re the Ayoob quote, why wouldn't you do both? I don't own a gun but I am not anti-gun either. Whether it's your kids in someone else's house, someone else's kids in your house, or a stranger somewhere in between, it makes as much sense to me to idiot/crazy-proof your guns, as it does to gun-proof your kids if there's a chance they'll cross paths.

That's exactly what I said. You probably didn't notice that part:


My point was, simply getting rid of guns in your house IS NOT ENOUGH. You must educate and train your children as well. Because you do not control all the situations they will find themselves in.

My personal choice was to lock up my guns (in addition to training my children). I did not feel the need to get rid of them. But I was not chastising Mike for making his choice that was different than mine. As a matter of fact, I specifically said:


My point was, and still is, getting rid of guns from your house, or locking them up, IS INSUFFICIENT. Lockup or banishment is one thing that you should do ("hiding" does not qualify - every parent knows you can't hide something from your kids). But the other thing that is required is to educate your kids. So that they can keep themselves safe if they wander into a friends house and find a gun sitting out unsecured. Even though your house may not contain any firearms, your neighbors house might, and your kids should be able to deal with that possibility safely.

The only reason I responded to Mike's original post on the kids/guns/rid_the_house concept was because he was maybe a bit remoreseful that he got rid of his firearms, evidenced by his use of *sigh* in his post. And I was just co-miserating with him about that. But after that, I tried to point out to others that simply getting rid of your guns, as Mike did, is not enough to protect your children IMHO. It is only ONE step that you can take. You should add other steps too. Whether Mike additionally trained his kids about firearms or not is unknown to me, and irrelevent to my point (because his kids grew up safe and sound by whatever he did). I was targeting my statement at OTHER PEOPLE who might currently be in the "young kids at home" stage of their lives.

Perhaps it would e useful to discuss the elements of a minimal course for the "armament challenged" - how to make safe a revolver, semi-automatic, pump action; the four rules, etc.

As usual, Geezer in Chief makes some valuable contributions. If "survival hunting" is going to mean mostly gathering edible wild plants, supplemented with occasional meat, then some preppers will have a big surprise coming to them. Quite a few of us internet posters (elsewhere and possibly even here) are under the impression that if SHTF, they can just pick up their .22 rifle and go hunt squirrels, or a larger caliber and hunt deer. Most of them don't seem to be regular hunters, and not that many thought about how long the land can sustain thousands of people with the same plan. I did hunter's ed, and at some point I realized I might not be so keen on field dressing an animal in my valuable time away from work...

Well, time for me to learn to identify edible plants, I suppose!

We've got a lot of squirrels around here, but not enough to sustain us for long. About the only huntable "wild game" we see around here routinely are coyotes. We used to have racoons, but then the foxes came and ate them. Then the coyotes came and ate the foxes. Occassionally a couger comes in to snatch a coyote, but you rarely (if ever) see them. Sometimes bears, but I don't think they come for anything other than garbage cans. I guess you could hunt and eat a coyote if you were hungry enough. But still, there aren't enough to go around for the whole city. We have tons of geese now. They show up twice a year. Quite a nuisense, but for the few weeks they are here each migration, they would be very easy pickin's for a meal. You could get them easily with any weapon, including a broom. They're just wandering around all the open spaces, especially near water.

I saw posted somewhere, maybe even here on ETS, that instead of "hunting" squirrels with firearms, pellet guns, slingshots or what have you, it would be easier to just use use large mouse traps (the one's sized for rats) loaded with peanut butter as bait. That makes a lot of sense. I don't think I'd even have to bait mine. I could just set the spring, and then lay them down in our compost bin - which attracts squirrels like it was a gourmet restaurant.

I know what you mean about ecological changes. I used to see a lot more cougars when I was young, but no longer. They were beautiful and energetic. Around here we have an overpopulation of deer, but probably not enough to sustain the town's population. I'd also be worried about hunting accidents if everyone fans out into the limited amount of forrest lands here.

Time to stock on mouse traps (extra large).

It's a ten to twelve hour class .

In short:

• Always treat every gun as though it is loaded
• Always keep every gun pointed in a safe direction
• Always keep your finger outside (and not covering) the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot
• Always know your target and what is beyond
• Never handle firearms under the influence of drugs or alcohol
• Always store firearms securely to prevent unauthorized access
• Keep your firearms properly maintained so that they function as designed

The old rule was to keep your finger "off of the trigger" until ready to shoot, but we've learned quite a bit about biomechanics and reflexive actions since then. If you keep your finger up high on the slide or frame of the gun, you're much less likely to have a negligent discharge. Basically, if you should trip or start to fall, the sympathetic grasp reflex could cause you to pull the trigger inadvertently, even if your finger is outside the trigger guard but still covering it.

It's hard to find a perfectly safe direction outside of a range, so find the direction that will minimize the chance of damage to property or injury to persons.

The NRA offers firearms safety classes for adults and children. Might be worth a phone call.

Perhaps an important part of the course is: have the courage to get out of there fast when your buddies start handling firearms in an unsafe manner. I'm not sure it takes 10-12 hours for someone who has no interest in the shooting sports to be able to be safe around firearms on the rare occasions he/she is around them, but it may take some familiarity with firearms for someone to gain enough confidence to say to "that guy" "you're endangering us all, so please stop, or I will leave."

Please do not construe what I'm about to say below as a political statement; it is a pragmatic statement. Some people are put off by the NRA for whatever reason, and to reach a wider population, it would be useful for the basic safety classes to be offered by an organization that is perceived as politically neutral.

Even better, make it a required part of the school curriculum just like the half a year each of wood shop, home-ec, government, and economics. That way most people would both get exposed to them and know how to handle one safely.

Edit
Forgot the half year of health class. I don't remember what they paired it with to make a full year.