How old should kids be before you teach them about guns?

Question

honest anwsers.

Answer 1

hmmm when they start knowing what weapons are

Answer 2

old enough to understand what they are and that they can kill you if you abuse them.  we have guns.  what you cant do is make them a mystery to your kid.  because getting his hands on them will be an obsession like twinkies for a uh. fat kid.  

maybe you can sign him up for a gun safety class for kids.  once they lose their mystery and they learn to respect them..  you keep them out of reach and safe for him in case he has a lapse in judgment too..

Answer 3

Our kids and nephews have been shooting guns since they could hold them.  If you are going to have them then the child should learn to respect them and know how they work.  A lot of people would disagree with me BUT my children NEVER pick up ANY weapon out of curiosity.   If you watch the news the kids that get hurt playing with them  usually know nothing about them.  They should be closely mon itored and NEVER leave a loaded gun around a child EVER!!  If it is available I would get instruction from a pro  but if not look up courses on the internet.

Answer 4

I think it's more about maturity than age. My older three have all had a gun safety class and go target shooting with my husband at the gun club. They are 13 yr twins and 11 yr old. They all started at age 10. My older boys have marksman and pro marksman badges. They both aced the gun safety course.

My youngest son is 8 and he has a learning disability and we probably would wait longer for him, not sure how long yet.

I think it's important for kids to understand the danger of guns and how to handle one safely. We have two guns in the home one belongs to my husband and one to my 13 yr old twins. They are kept in a locked box in the basement and we have NO bullets here. They get them when they go shooting at the gun club.

As far as talking to them about guns and safety that should happen at a younger age like preschool age before they start visiting friends homes who may own one. Kids should know how dangerous guns are and to treat them with respect and never touch one they see and if they aren't sure whether it's a real gun or a toy they should assume it's real and leave it be or ask an adult.

Ms_s...guns don't kill people...people do

would you never teach a boy scout how to start a fire for fear they will go burn everything down and kill people? Give me a break. Fire can be just as dangerous a weapon as a gun if in the wrong hands.

Answer 5

I wouldnt teach them!  I also wouldnt allow them to have gun toys or gun related games and they would only allow them to watch movies with guns in them if they were atleast 15-16.  Basically if the topic was ever raised I would says guns are bad, they kill people, and that if they ever, ever wanted to hold a gun in their hands they would have to train to be a police officer or in the army.  But if they wanted to be either of those things they would have to be good in school and not doing anything to tarnish their records because both professions need clean records and good grades (i dont know if thats true, but I would say it anyway)

Answer 6

Teach them what exactly? Gun safety? How to use them?

I think it depends on your household. Where I used to live many people hunted---for food, not sport. Of course young kids were taught not to handle the guns and that they were serious business---and as they got older they were taken on hunting trips.

Obviously, a five year old is not allowed to hunt ducks, but he can certainly see what happens when a duck is shot and gain an appreciation of the power of a weapon.  As they got older they would learn how to shoot targets with BBs or something (don't know, I didn't do it.)

I don't hunt so my kids are being raised in a house without real guns, so when they play with pretend guns I teach them things like "don't even point a gun at a person as a joke" etc.

It's funny but now that I live in suburbia I see lots of young kids 4-5-6 years old and up who have pop guns and nerf guns and they run around shooting at each other---but I don't remember seeing this kind of play when we lived in the woods.

At a recent birthday party, a group of boys got into a Nerf gun battle that was crazy---all over the backyard, on the swingset, etc. The one kid who had experience with guns (he has been going duck hunting with his Dad since he was about 5 or 6) was one of the few boys who didn't get into the game.

I think it is because he takes guns seriously and this is a kid who doesn't seem to take anything seriously. He has no interest in pretending to kill anything.

Based on that, I would say if you have access to guns, it makes good sense to teach kids starting at 4-5-6 that guns are NOT toys.  If one of those other boys found a parent's handgun (which shouldn't happen of course)  I could see him accidentally shooting someone...but I can't see any of the kids from the woods over age 6 or the kid who went duck hunting with his dad shooting anything.

THANKS for the question--you made me think about this in a way I hadn't before.

My younger kids are not being raised in the woods LOL and I realize I need to do a better job of teaching them about guns.  I would never intentionally put them in a situation where they could come in contact with a handgun, but I don't know how many of the kids in my subdivision live in a house where there IS a handgun.

Answer 7

Luckily, in Australia the answer is never!

Answer 8

why should kids be brought up with the gun?

Answer 9

well i knew what they were when i was 3 but really only got to understand what they could do when i was 5

however now ir=ts all over the news so chances are u won't need to  but it's better to be safe than sorry

Answer 10

i would teach them when they get in the early teen years the dangers of guns. let them know this is not a toy and to stay away from them.

Answer 11

I was taught from a very young age to respect them. This was before the whole 'OMG a gun' feeling that people have now, my dad had a few guns *gasp* not locked up. I was taught to stay away from them, and I did.

My two year old has seen a gun, and I am teaching him now what they are and what they do, for him to stay away from them. I do not call them 'pow pows', as I've heard other people say to their kids....he's getting the point. And no, I didn't hand him one or let him touch it. My dad has a few on a gun rack(out of reach) and when my son notices them, he says 'gun...no no'.

It really depends on the kid and the way the parent feels about guns.

My eight year old has a BB gun. He has shot a rifle, BUT he knows that he is NEVER to touch one without an adult around, and only certain adults at that.

Answer 12

as soon as they ask. My son is 4 and he knows that my mother (his grandma) was murdered by a b*****d that shot her over a dozen times and he knows that guns are not toys and very dangerous and that he needs to act responsible and to be safe at all times.

Answer 13

My son sees guns around him all the time. He sees guns being used by the police, guns around houses and guns being used on the streets. By seeing I don't mean he literally witnesses all of these things, but he is aware of them. When I was young, it was common to see someone carrying a gun and I carried weapons myself before I was even a teenager. As a teenager I used a gun myself and had never been taught about them from my own parents. From a very young age, I thought it was fine to carry a gun and I was aware that people got killed in our neighbourhood using guns.

My son is three and he knows all about guns. I don't see why not, he's aware of them anyway. He knows to stay away from them and he knows the bad things that they can do. I think it depends where you live and how aware your children are, but I think there's nothing wrong with letting them know gun safety from a young age.

Answer 14

when they reach 90

Answer 15

I would teach tehm as early as possible. If you think they might comprehend, then start talking to them, Especially if they may be exposed to them. If you have any in house, or even a relatives house. Teach them the difference between real guns and toy guns.

Answer 16

7

Answer 17

they will learn on there own

i mean i did

my parents didnt have to sit me down and tell me to not play with this i just learned it school

to not bring that kinda stuff to school idk it all just comes to us

btw im 13