From: "niel fagan", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Teaching Gun Safety
>
> Does Gun Education in School Really Save Lives?
>
>By Claire Moore
>
>Aug. 20 �It may be the only issue people on both sides of
>the gun control debate can agree on.
> Proponents and foes of gun control say they want gun
>education and avoidance programs taught in public schools
>from kindergarten through middle school or even high school.
Why only teach it in schools, with firearms in the home
(and being regularly found just lying around by all accounts)
the teaching should start at home!
At the risk of being flamed, I took my two sons to my
gunsmiths last week (I owed him a bottle of wine), the
eldest (7) sat down quietly on an ammo case and read a
book about the titanic, the 3.5 year old walked round
looking in the display cases (all in sight BTW).
My eldest asked why some guns had two barrels and others
only one, after explaining he asked if he could have a
gun...So I asked if the smith had any defunct air soft
guns, we left with a broken a/soft pistol (I had an idea
what might follow and this was the opportunity to start
teaching them both about gun safety).
On the way home I asked my eldest and what guns were
for, "killing things and to keep you safe if someone's
after you" (remember he's only 7 and has
never even seen a firearm up close before today).
So when we got home the lesson was quite simple (they
make guns/blasters from lego duplo being star wars
fans) don't touch anything that looks like any sort of
gun except your lego one's and if you find one leave it
alone and tell an adult, I then put the a/soft pistol
on the arm of my chair and left the room.
5 minutes later they were playing kids games with
their toy cars, and the a/soft pistol was exactly
where I left it totally untouched.
I congratulated both of them and warned that I would
when I'm at home leave the a/soft gun in different
places where they could find it without telling
them, also that if they didn't touch but told me where
it was they would get some extra pocket-money, touch it
and lose some pocket-money too, just to re-enforce the
point.
One thing I do wonder at is where the idea of carrying
a gun for self protection came from, and if a well
balanced, home supported child who his teachers rate
highly for his caring nature thought that way what
about the likes of those that fall below the norm?
Niel, a caring and concerned parent.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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