Grandma and Guns
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Anonymous
Agree. I grew up in a gun heavy environment, everyone had guns, everyone went hunting, guns in general don't phase me but people who are cavalier about gun safety piss me right the hell off. Your mother should NOT have a gun if that's how she treats it and my child would never enter her home. Sleeping with a loaded gun in the bed? GTFO. |
Anonymous
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I would tell her it must be in the gun safe and check it religiously when we arrive. Otherwise I would let it go.
It is not insane to have firearms but it is insane to leave them around mobile small kids. It won't be an issue until your baby can crawl. I always do a gun check at my dad's because he is not good at putting everything away. Every fourth visit I find one and make him lock it away. I am meticulous, though. |
Anonymous
| PP here...also it is not unusual to sleep with a gun under the mattress/on top of the springs. Frankly when I lived in DC I always kept a loaded .45 there. When we had kids, I bought a biometric safe. I have always kept the first chamber empty and now I keep bullets in a separate safe but when my kids are grown and gone I am sure I will revert to first chamber empty. |
Anonymous
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Yes, check if the gun is in the gun safe. But if you still don't feel comfortable, you make the rules.
8 children are shot every day in unintentional gun accidents. |
Anonymous
+1 Except the person that grew up around guns was my DH. They are HUGE on gun safety. No way would I go over there. |
Anonymous
Pretty much this. Get her one of the panic buttons that she can wear around her neck. Just in case she has a fall and can't get up, or there's an intruder or something. And tell her that you can't trust her judgement about the gun so you're giving her advanced warning that you won't be letting your kids spend any time there. Done. |
Anonymous
P.S. Also let her know that medics will not enter her home with an unsecured firearm around, the police will be slower / more cautious to respond, etc. |
Anonymous
| Our child is not allowed to be at my parents house without one or both of us being there. They have unsecured loaded firearms in their house. My husband owns several firearms and is scrupulous about gun safety so we aren't reacting to the existence of their guns alone. We have a teenager so we can still go there. When our kid was younger, none of us went over to my parents house. With a teen, I know they won't go near a gun if they find one on the way to the bathroom. |
Anonymous
Another plus. We have guns, bil has guns and three kids, and everybody is super respectful of the weapons and super cautious. Your mom needs to take classes. It will entertain her and educate her about gun safety. |
Anonymous
She will say "yeah yeah" and then continue her unsafe slack behavior. And you never know when she'll get additional guns that you don't know about, and not put those in the safe. She simply can't be trusted and you should adopt a "zero risk" attitude about the safety of your kids. |
Anonymous
| This is also a good time to remind parents to teach their kids that when they have playdates to never go into the parent's bedroom. We taught our kids that there are only a few rooms we wanted them in in other peoples houses. Found out well after the fact that our next door neighbor kept a loaded handgun IN his bed. How do you do that and not accidentally fire the thing? |
Anonymous
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I would not be comfortable bringing my child to her house, ever. She sounds so cavalier about it, even if she told you she would put it in the safe, I would never be able to trust that she didn't have another gun laying around somewhere. And even if you are there with your kid, it is so easy for a toddler to wander off in 20 seconds and they could get to the gun before you even notice they are gone. It would just not be worth the risk to me.
I would also have a hard time trusting her to babysit even in my own home. To keep a loaded gun in bed, and then let her daughter go in there without warning her, takes such incredibly poor judgment. I'd be worried she would take a similarly lax approach about other safety issues. I did not grow up around guns so I may be more cagey than others about this issue. But it seems so monumentally stupid, is have a hard time getting past it. |
TwistdMike
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Research your state laws, there should be something in regards to access to minors, it’s illegal. Maybe highlighting this will help? However, typically the laws do not stop with minors, includes family, visitors, contractors, etc.
Most LTC holders are lawful and will not infringe. I always have control of my firearms or they are secured. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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Sad. You can be certain she never took an NRA course, where reasons for, and methods to, securing firearms around children are central. If it were my relative I would gift them an NRA course. Beginner Basic Pistol, or intermediate "Personal protection in the home," are great courses.
For an adult who lives alone or with no children a gun in, or even on, a nightstand at night is not an issue when one is home. A loaded gun in or on a bed when you are in or on the bed it is not safe. If there are minors or people with known issues there are small "quick access" gun safes that are bio-metric or that can be settable push-button, that can be used. Street assaults are very quick, and firearm access time needs to be very quick. . But in a home, while police hardly ever arrive in time to interdict crime even in urban areas with quick police response times, and you are better off with a firearm, you still generally have a minute or two to react, and adding five seconds to open a bio-metric or quick access lockbox near your bed is not an issue. A firearm in the lockbox, and a small high quality flashlight on top of the lock-box are a very good idea.
You do have to be careful with those stats. Firstly most of those are above 16-years-old in the data sets where CDC uses 16-22 year old cohort, or 16-19 the CDC uses as "child." CDC had issues because even in more recent reports limited to age 19 they failed to mention over half the incidents were all in the 18 and 19 year old cohort and lots of 18 and 19 year old adults committing crimes were included in the data. The fact is actual incidents say involving toddlers pre teens and young teens are down. Lots of people don't even know US fatal gun accidents involving kids are way down, and overall US gun murder rate is also on a long term sustained decrease. Secondly, when I was at grad at John Jay we looked at those and the great majority, on the order of over 97% involving minors being shot in a home, or shooting someone else, were the result of a criminal with an illegal firearm domiciled or visiting a home. Criminals in illegal possession of a firearm are unaffected by laws mandating gun safes, and also greatly increase risk for non gun violence to children as well. In fact I would not let my kid visit any home with anyone with a criminal record living there, that is the real risk factor. |
Anonymous
Could Americans' lack of knowledge on this subject be related to the fact that Congress hasn't allowed the CDC to fund gun violence since 1996? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/04/gun-violence-research-has-been-shut-down-for-20-years/?utm_term=.6dde278ec851 |