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'Gun safety not part of many parents’ conversations with kids', U-M Matthew Davis, MD

D

Doug Huffman

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stainless1911

stainless1911

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I went over gun safety with my kid so much, that she complained, "do I have to say the (4) rules again?" "Yes dear, what are they?" "But dad." "But nothin', do you want to go to the range and shoot, or turn around and go home?" "Ok dad, never point at anything..."
 
S

Sefner

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I wrote this in another forum about that same study I will copy it here:

The study says the 18% of gun-owning parents did not talk to their kids about gun safety. At first this seems appalling! This must be why so many kids shoot their friends while smoking weed in their dad's study (remember that commercial?). But the first thing that came to my mind was the range of ages that are considered "kids". I'd say 0-18, but let's say 0-19 for sake of easier math. So we know that 18% of gun-owning parents do not talk to their kids about gun safety. That's about 1/5th (which is an overestimate). We also know that kids age about 0-19 when they are at home, for a total of 20 possible ages. This means that 1/5th of kids are under 4 years old, or about 18%... I think you see where this is going: the parents not talking to their kids might just have kids too young to understand.

Now obviously this is not scientific, but it points out how reality can so easily defeat so many statistics, some of which may be used in arguments against gun rights (and some used in argument for gun rights). I'm also not suggesting that there is a certain "age" at which to teach gun safety, it should be taught as early as possible, but the point remains.

Another interesting statistic: of non-gun-owning parents, 24% are "very worried" that their child could get hurt with a gun while at a friends house. Of gun-owning parents that same statistic is 10%. Yet we also see that less than 50% of non-gun-owning parents even talk to their kids about gun safety while 82% of gun-owning parents talk to their kids about gun safety. Unfortunately the article does not discuss the correlation between how worried a parents is and whether or not they talk to their kids about gun safety (ie: it could be that all of the 24% of non-gun owning parents who were very worried did indeed talk to their kids about gun safety). Take that how you will.
 
DrTodd

DrTodd

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Sefner said:
I wrote this in another forum about that same study I will copy it here:

The study says the 18% of gun-owning parents did not talk to their kids about gun safety. At first this seems appalling! This must be why so many kids shoot their friends while smoking weed in their dad's study (remember that commercial?). But the first thing that came to my mind was the range of ages that are considered "kids". I'd say 0-18, but let's say 0-19 for sake of easier math. So we know that 18% of gun-owning parents do not talk to their kids about gun safety. That's about 1/5th (which is an overestimate). We also know that kids age about 0-19 when they are at home, for a total of 20 possible ages. This means that 1/5th of kids are under 4 years old, or about 18%... I think you see where this is going: the parents not talking to their kids might just have kids too young to understand.

Now obviously this is not scientific, but it points out how reality can so easily defeat so many statistics, some of which may be used in arguments against gun rights (and some used in argument for gun rights). I'm also not suggesting that there is a certain "age" at which to teach gun safety, it should be taught as early as possible, but the point remains.

Another interesting statistic: of non-gun-owning parents, 24% are "very worried" that their child could get hurt with a gun while at a friends house. Of gun-owning parents that same statistic is 10%. Yet we also see that less than 50% of non-gun-owning parents even talk to their kids about gun safety while 82% of gun-owning parents talk to their kids about gun safety. Unfortunately the article does not discuss the correlation between how worried a parents is and whether or not they talk to their kids about gun safety (ie: it could be that all of the 24% of non-gun owning parents who were very worried did indeed talk to their kids about gun safety). Take that how you will.
Click to expand...

I wrote the author and asked that he cite ALL of the data he has in the report... where did he get that 30 per day??
 
3

3fgburner

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Northern, Virginia, USA
Anecdata

A few years ago, I was at Jamestown for one of their big public events. I had just finished a musket demo, sprung the rammer (cleared the piece, for you non-BP types), and come down the ladder from the bulwark. While I was taking questions, a man asked me if he could get a photo of his kid holding the musket. I said he could, although I'd keep control of the muzzle. As Dad was bringing up the camera, the kid yanked the muzzle out of my hand (I now keep a tighter grip), swung it around, and pointed the musket right between Dad's eyes. I slapped the muzzle upward, as I and several "gun nuts" in the crowd all yelled, "NO!". The dad looked totally bewildered.

"It's not loaded, is it?"

In my outdoor voice, I replied,

"ALWAYS treat a gun as if it's loaded. NEVER point it where you don't want a hole. KEEP your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. And ALWAYS be sure of your target and what is beyond. Haven't you taught your boy that?"

"Well, we've always tried to shield him from the Gun Culture(tm)".

::HEADDESK::
 
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