Ok, that’s click-bait-y, but it’s true. It was with a BB gun almost 40 years ago and she wasn’t significantly injured and didn’t go to the doctor. But it did happen, and it shows us a few important things about gun safety. First, the short story…
It was Christmas 1983 and miraculously, this is the year A Christmas Story was released with all the “you’ll shoot your eye out” shenanigans. I guess BB guns were all the rage that year? I was recently 7 years old and received a Daisy lever action BB gun, much like the famed Red Ryder. Our family was visiting grandparents in North Georgia and I’d gotten to attend the morning hunt on the farm with my Dad, Grandfather and Great-grandfather. This was a big deal! When we returned, we emptied our firearms and kicked off our cold-weather clothes. Like Dad did with his shotgun, I dumped all of the BB’s out of my gun back into the bottle. I didn’t check the chamber, I didn’t even know what that would have meant.
My sisters were lounging around on the sofa waiting for our stories and I proudly carried my BB gun in to show them. I don’t remember anything about the conversation but I do remember putting the barrel of the BB gun a few inches away from my sister’s stomach and pulling the trigger. She immediately screamed and grabbed her stomach and was clearly hurt. As she pulled up her shirt to see her injury, I panicked, ran and locked myself in my grandparents bedroom, under the bed, sure that I was done for. As I lie there crying hard, I knew she wasn’t in life-threatening danger but the shame about what I’d done, the embarrassment for screwing up right after receiving the gift and the threat of consequences were too much.
I don’t know how long I laid there before my dad came to get me. I don’t remember anything about punishment or conversations we had after that, except that I’d just been really lucky and learned the most important lesson any gun owner must while handling.
There are many versions of gun safety rules, and the beauty of them is that even if you fail one in any given situation, you’re still very unlikely to harm anyone. We can’t recite them often enough.
- Muzzle control – always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
- Trigger Discipline – keep your finger out of the trigger guard and off of the trigger until you are ready to fire.
- Unloaded – guns stay unloaded until it’s time to shoot, including the action, chamber, magazine, etc.
- Target Awareness – identify everything between you and your target AND everything behind your target.
I broke all of these rules that day, but I learned them that day too. Looking back, I wonder if my parents or grandparents shared any of the embarrassment that I did. I’d be horrified if my son did that, or even joked about it. Whether you’re a shooter, a law enforcement professional, or not yet started your journey with firearms and firearm safety, we all have to take responsibility to ensure that kids understand guns and how to be safe around them.
Years later in high school, Hunter Safety Education was required just like Health-Ed (or Sex Ed) and Driver’s Education. The school then saw these practical life skills as necessary for all students. I wish they’d required typing and checkbook balancing and nutrition too! Most school systems no longer teach Hunter Safety, if they ever did, and that’s a shame. Demystifying guns for kids, showing them that a gun is a tool that can be used for good and for bad, and teaching them early the basics of firearms safety would save lives. My dad always said about kids, “Don’t tell kids not to climb ladders and rocks, teach them to climb the right way.” Many things in life are like this, we can’t Nerf the world and we can’t prevent our kids from encountering dangers. It’s ok to say hello to strangers, but don’t get in their van. It’s ok to eat candy, but maintain some moderation. At our house, we encourage the kids to pay with snakes they find in the yard, so long as they let Dad or Mom verify it’s a safe one first.
We are approaching 400,000,000 guns in the United States and many kids will encounter a gun someday. According to the National Safety Council, unintentional gun-related deaths declined by 50.5% from 1997 to 2017, while the number of guns in the population continued to grow at record rates. This trend is really encouraging and I believe the more we invest in teaching our kids about gun safety, the more we can protect us all and make the world more interesting in the process.
Looking for a place to start? Try our Introducing Kids to Guns video and watch it with your family.