do you ask about guns at a family's house before letting your kid go to a playdate there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the gun owners, if I expressed concern over guns, might you also be worried that it's because my kid is curious/shows interest in guns? (my actual kids are 1 and 3, so not an issue now). My nephew is 8 and a curious kid, and I think that if I owned guns I would want to know that the kid might be vaguely interested, and I would want to be aware to ensure the kid doesn't go hunting for them...

My boyfriend has a gun. Our bedroom and bathroom are the only things on the very top floor of the house. The gun is in his closet. The kids know they are never to bring friends up to that level of the house. They know they are to tell us if they can not control their friends and need adult intervention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I wouldn't expect someone who had guns in the house to be responsible about locking them up. Almost all of those people assume that nothing will happen - that's the reason they allow guns in the house. They ASSUME they're safely locked up and that their kids don't have the combo or can't access the key, they ASSUME the kids know never to go into the room that has the guns and ASSUME their kids are good kids who don't disobey the parents, they ASSUME their kids aren't the type of kids to try to impress other kids, assume their husband could never ever get distracted by something important and forget or not be able to secure the weapon after using it or maintaining it and therefore leaving it accessible to the kids JUST THIS ONCE, etc. And then they're a statistic and say on the news "but I never ever thought it could actually happen to US!"

So I feel like it's a bit of a pointless exercise asking them anything. It would be pretty rare for any parent of a younger child to say "yeah, we have a gun and the kids can easily access it but they know not to, so don't worry".

They will always lie and/or assure you that there's NO WAY the kids could POSSIBLY access them.

Personally, I just don't let my kids go somewhere unless I know the parents pretty well. I'm the type of person who talks about important stuff and doesn't just make small talk fluff all day, and I can usually trust the reading I get from people. Accidents can always happen of course, but I do what I can to minimize risks of not just gun casualties but other things that I'm concerned about too.

Every single person I know who has guns does have them stored in a completely safe manner. And many PPs who have posted on here state the same. None of those people are relying on assumptions to keep their own children safe. They're relying on the precautions they have taken to store their guns so that children cannot access them. Your sweeping generalizations make you look like more of an idiot than the people posting about how people knowing they have guns is a safety issue.

Even this very thread (on a forum that is heavily skewed towards highly educated, high SES people) has examples of people who are indeed relying on assumptions to keep their own children and those of others safe.

Your sweeping generalizations make you look like an idiot. Maybe you could learn to read and think before you post.

Why don't you work on your reading comprehension? I didn't make a sweeping generalization. I spoke about the people I know and a few of the PPs who had posted on here what their situation. You're the one who said "almost all of the people who own guns." Better luck next time.

What? I said that all gun owners assume that nothing bad would ever happen in their house with their gun. Are you saying that's not the case, and that there are some gun owners who assume that something bad WILL happen in their house with their gun?

Even if a gun is usually locked in a safe, it is taken out to use and maintain it, at which time it's vulnerable to being left outside the safe in an emergency/urgent situation (things that are uncommon but do happen to people sometimes no matter how much they think they won't, such as a kid screaming his head off from the yard because he's fallen and badly broken his arm, a phone call saying that someone has been in an accident and is in the ICU and you need to come right this minute if you want to talk to them in this life again, a sharp pain in the abdomen from food poisoning). Also many kids find the keys to the gun safe and never mention it to their parents. I've heard it from a child myself - "the gun is in the safe but I know where the key is! I found it one day when I was looking for ....".

People are idiots if they think that it's 100% safe just because it's usually stored in something called a 'safe'. And they're total jerks if they don't even bother using a safe.

[Anonymous]

FWIW - before my kids were capable swimmers I did not drop them for playdates at homes that had an open pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I always ask. And no, I would not let my child go to a home that has firearms.

I would rather be uncomfortable and impolite than have a dead child. Simple as that.

So you wouldn't even care how they store their guns? Just if they have one then you won't let them go there?

Some people are like that and it's OK. Maybe they are pacifists, maybe they have trust issues. Maybe it's a cultural values thing - if you have guns (even though they are secured), then they don't want to have social interactions with you and it applies to kids.
It's a free country, people can decide what's best for them (and hey, if you have the right to own a gun, then I (and by extension my child) certainly have the right to avoid vising your house). Different strokes for different folks, that's all. Let's all breathe out. Your kid can play with other kids whose parents also own guns, or whose parents don't ask about this.

By refusing to acknowledge that some people may have their guns stored in a completely safe manner, you are no longer about protecting your kids. You're saying you refuse to be friends with someone who owns a gun. The irony is the people who say stuff like this seem to be the ones who pride themselves on being open-minded, yet that's the exactly opposite of what they're doing in this case. I get the safety issue, I do, and you have every right (and obligation) to protect your children. But when they are in no danger of coming into contact with a gun at someone's house, that's no longer what you're doing.

This is dumb. The likelihood is NOT ZERO. The odds of your child getting hurt by a gun is much higher at a gun owner's house than at a non gun owner's home. That's a mathematical fact.
To act like your protections are full proof is stupid. NOTHING IS FULL PROOF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the gun owners, if I expressed concern over guns, might you also be worried that it's because my kid is curious/shows interest in guns? (my actual kids are 1 and 3, so not an issue now). My nephew is 8 and a curious kid, and I think that if I owned guns I would want to know that the kid might be vaguely interested, and I would want to be aware to ensure the kid doesn't go hunting for them...

My boyfriend has a gun. Our bedroom and bathroom are the only things on the very top floor of the house. The gun is in his closet. The kids know they are never to bring friends up to that level of the house. They know they are to tell us if they can not control their friends and need adult intervention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I wouldn't expect someone who had guns in the house to be responsible about locking them up. Almost all of those people assume that nothing will happen - that's the reason they allow guns in the house. They ASSUME they're safely locked up and that their kids don't have the combo or can't access the key, they ASSUME the kids know never to go into the room that has the guns and ASSUME their kids are good kids who don't disobey the parents, they ASSUME their kids aren't the type of kids to try to impress other kids, assume their husband could never ever get distracted by something important and forget or not be able to secure the weapon after using it or maintaining it and therefore leaving it accessible to the kids JUST THIS ONCE, etc. And then they're a statistic and say on the news "but I never ever thought it could actually happen to US!"

So I feel like it's a bit of a pointless exercise asking them anything. It would be pretty rare for any parent of a younger child to say "yeah, we have a gun and the kids can easily access it but they know not to, so don't worry".

They will always lie and/or assure you that there's NO WAY the kids could POSSIBLY access them.

Personally, I just don't let my kids go somewhere unless I know the parents pretty well. I'm the type of person who talks about important stuff and doesn't just make small talk fluff all day, and I can usually trust the reading I get from people. Accidents can always happen of course, but I do what I can to minimize risks of not just gun casualties but other things that I'm concerned about too.

Every single person I know who has guns does have them stored in a completely safe manner. And many PPs who have posted on here state the same. None of those people are relying on assumptions to keep their own children safe. They're relying on the precautions they have taken to store their guns so that children cannot access them. Your sweeping generalizations make you look like more of an idiot than the people posting about how people knowing they have guns is a safety issue.

Even this very thread (on a forum that is heavily skewed towards highly educated, high SES people) has examples of people who are indeed relying on assumptions to keep their own children and those of others safe.

Your sweeping generalizations make you look like an idiot. Maybe you could learn to read and think before you post.

Why don't you work on your reading comprehension? I didn't make a sweeping generalization. I spoke about the people I know and a few of the PPs who had posted on here what their situation. You're the one who said "almost all of the people who own guns." Better luck next time.

What? I said that all gun owners assume that nothing bad would ever happen in their house with their gun. Are you saying that's not the case, and that there are some gun owners who assume that something bad WILL happen in their house with their gun?

Even if a gun is usually locked in a safe, it is taken out to use and maintain it, at which time it's vulnerable to being left outside the safe in an emergency/urgent situation (things that are uncommon but do happen to people sometimes no matter how much they think they won't, such as a kid screaming his head off from the yard because he's fallen and badly broken his arm, a phone call saying that someone has been in an accident and is in the ICU and you need to come right this minute if you want to talk to them in this life again, a sharp pain in the abdomen from food poisoning). Also many kids find the keys to the gun safe and never mention it to their parents. I've heard it from a child myself - "the gun is in the safe but I know where the key is! I found it one day when I was looking for ....".

People are idiots if they think that it's 100% safe just because it's usually stored in something called a 'safe'. And they're total jerks if they don't even bother using a safe.

I’m not the PP, but this is why we should all have systems that allow for a point of failure or multiple points of failure and still provide safe gun storage. In your situation, my guns would still be safe because they are individually locked and disabled, locked apart from ammo, and apart from the combo safe (not a key), the room is windowless and has a locking door with auto code locks (no key). If anybody had to rush out AND the guns are out AND the guns are individually unlocked and operational, AND there was ammo available, the room would still be completely locked off from the rest of the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is clearly not a NW DC discussion.

Eh, you’d be surprised. We’re in NW DC, are both lawyers at progressive nonprofit organizations, drive old foreign cars, listen to NPR, are vegetarian, and we have guns. I don’t think most people would suspect that about us.

Agreed. Our closest friends who are gun owners are Asian-American, both physicians in Academia, listen to NPR, and go to the symphony a lot. You never really know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are the gun owners so afraid to tell people they have guns?

It's not privacy, as someone on here claims. Or fears of their guns being stolen. They just don't want society's judgement.
And when are we embarrassed and afraid of judgement? Because we know we are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is clearly not a NW DC discussion.

Eh, you’d be surprised. We’re in NW DC, are both lawyers at progressive nonprofit organizations, drive old foreign cars, listen to NPR, are vegetarian, and we have guns. I don’t think most people would suspect that about us.

Agreed. Our closest friends who are gun owners are Asian-American, both physicians in Academia, listen to NPR, and go to the symphony a lot. You never really know.

I agree. Of the people I know who own guns: 1 non profit worker, 2 lawyers, 2 schoolteachers, 1 Asian-Am lady. All have advanced degrees and you would think most of them were liberal Democrats if you met them out and about. I do wonder who among my acquaintances own guns that I don’t know about!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the people that think it's none of anyone's business. There are thousands of accidental gun deaths per year because parents don't keep their guns locked up. It's a legit concern and completely valid question to ask if you are sending your child over to a friend's house, especially if you don't know the parents that well.

We keep our weapons locked up. There will be no accidental deaths. If, God forbid, one of our guns ever causes a death, it will be intentional, that I can assure you.

Therefore, it's none of your business what we have LOCKED UP.

Why are you so sure that you and your spouse are perfect?

We're certainly not perfect. But our weapons are locked in a safe.

How often do you take them out? You don't take them to a range?

I’m not the PP, but another gun owner. We take them to the range. To do so, we unlock the door, unlock the safe, unlock trigger locks, and load ammo. The guns get put in a designated carrier to the range. After they are fired, back in the bag, back home, trigger locks, safe, locked door. It’s not like you lose track of guns, wtf?

So do no gun ranges allow you to store your weapon there? I know nothing about it, just wondering if its purely for recreational use, why you can't store it over there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the people that think it's none of anyone's business. There are thousands of accidental gun deaths per year because parents don't keep their guns locked up. It's a legit concern and completely valid question to ask if you are sending your child over to a friend's house, especially if you don't know the parents that well.

We keep our weapons locked up. There will be no accidental deaths. If, God forbid, one of our guns ever causes a death, it will be intentional, that I can assure you.

Therefore, it's none of your business what we have LOCKED UP.

Why are you so sure that you and your spouse are perfect?

We're certainly not perfect. But our weapons are locked in a safe.

How often do you take them out? You don't take them to a range?

I’m not the PP, but another gun owner. We take them to the range. To do so, we unlock the door, unlock the safe, unlock trigger locks, and load ammo. The guns get put in a designated carrier to the range. After they are fired, back in the bag, back home, trigger locks, safe, locked door. It’s not like you lose track of guns, wtf?

So do no gun ranges allow you to store your weapon there? I know nothing about it, just wondering if its purely for recreational use, why you can't store it over there.

Yes, some do offer it, but it’s not common. It wouldn’t work for us as DH insists on going by the book and cleaning his guns after every single range session. That would add a ton of time to each trip and I’m not even sure where we could do the cleaning on site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is clearly not a NW DC discussion.

Eh, you’d be surprised. We’re in NW DC, are both lawyers at progressive nonprofit organizations, drive old foreign cars, listen to NPR, are vegetarian, and we have guns. I don’t think most people would suspect that about us.

Agreed. Our closest friends who are gun owners are Asian-American, both physicians in Academia, listen to NPR, and go to the symphony a lot. You never really know.

I agree. Of the people I know who own guns: 1 non profit worker, 2 lawyers, 2 schoolteachers, 1 Asian-Am lady. All have advanced degrees and you would think most of them were liberal Democrats if you met them out and about. I do wonder who among my acquaintances own guns that I don’t know about!

I’m the vegetarian, old car driving, nonprofit lawyer from above - I should add that we are both super liberal Democrats who fully support gun control!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the gun owners, if I expressed concern over guns, might you also be worried that it's because my kid is curious/shows interest in guns? (my actual kids are 1 and 3, so not an issue now). My nephew is 8 and a curious kid, and I think that if I owned guns I would want to know that the kid might be vaguely interested, and I would want to be aware to ensure the kid doesn't go hunting for them...

My boyfriend has a gun. Our bedroom and bathroom are the only things on the very top floor of the house. The gun is in his closet. The kids know they are never to bring friends up to that level of the house. They know they are to tell us if they can not control their friends and need adult intervention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly I wouldn't expect someone who had guns in the house to be responsible about locking them up. Almost all of those people assume that nothing will happen - that's the reason they allow guns in the house. They ASSUME they're safely locked up and that their kids don't have the combo or can't access the key, they ASSUME the kids know never to go into the room that has the guns and ASSUME their kids are good kids who don't disobey the parents, they ASSUME their kids aren't the type of kids to try to impress other kids, assume their husband could never ever get distracted by something important and forget or not be able to secure the weapon after using it or maintaining it and therefore leaving it accessible to the kids JUST THIS ONCE, etc. And then they're a statistic and say on the news "but I never ever thought it could actually happen to US!"

So I feel like it's a bit of a pointless exercise asking them anything. It would be pretty rare for any parent of a younger child to say "yeah, we have a gun and the kids can easily access it but they know not to, so don't worry".

They will always lie and/or assure you that there's NO WAY the kids could POSSIBLY access them.

Personally, I just don't let my kids go somewhere unless I know the parents pretty well. I'm the type of person who talks about important stuff and doesn't just make small talk fluff all day, and I can usually trust the reading I get from people. Accidents can always happen of course, but I do what I can to minimize risks of not just gun casualties but other things that I'm concerned about too.

Every single person I know who has guns does have them stored in a completely safe manner. And many PPs who have posted on here state the same. None of those people are relying on assumptions to keep their own children safe. They're relying on the precautions they have taken to store their guns so that children cannot access them. Your sweeping generalizations make you look like more of an idiot than the people posting about how people knowing they have guns is a safety issue.

Even this very thread (on a forum that is heavily skewed towards highly educated, high SES people) has examples of people who are indeed relying on assumptions to keep their own children and those of others safe.

Your sweeping generalizations make you look like an idiot. Maybe you could learn to read and think before you post.

Why don't you work on your reading comprehension? I didn't make a sweeping generalization. I spoke about the people I know and a few of the PPs who had posted on here what their situation. You're the one who said "almost all of the people who own guns." Better luck next time.

What? I said that all gun owners assume that nothing bad would ever happen in their house with their gun. Are you saying that's not the case, and that there are some gun owners who assume that something bad WILL happen in their house with their gun?

Even if a gun is usually locked in a safe, it is taken out to use and maintain it, at which time it's vulnerable to being left outside the safe in an emergency/urgent situation (things that are uncommon but do happen to people sometimes no matter how much they think they won't, such as a kid screaming his head off from the yard because he's fallen and badly broken his arm, a phone call saying that someone has been in an accident and is in the ICU and you need to come right this minute if you want to talk to them in this life again, a sharp pain in the abdomen from food poisoning). Also many kids find the keys to the gun safe and never mention it to their parents. I've heard it from a child myself - "the gun is in the safe but I know where the key is! I found it one day when I was looking for ....".

People are idiots if they think that it's 100% safe just because it's usually stored in something called a 'safe'. And they're total jerks if they don't even bother using a safe.

I’m not the PP, but this is why we should all have systems that allow for a point of failure or multiple points of failure and still provide safe gun storage. In your situation, my guns would still be safe because they are individually locked and disabled, locked apart from ammo, and apart from the combo safe (not a key), the room is windowless and has a locking door with auto code locks (no key). If anybody had to rush out AND the guns are out AND the guns are individually unlocked and operational, AND there was ammo available, the room would still be completely locked off from the rest of the house.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that your method of gun storage isn't shared by more than 1% of the gun ownership population. And you're right, you absolutely SHOULD have systems that allow for multiple points of failure and still be safe. I guess the difference of opinion is that most of us can see that the best way of doing this is to not have guns in homes at all.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I always ask. You are risking your child's life by not asking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never been asked, which I find surprising because of my kids' friends' parents, we're probably the only Republicans. (We do not own any guns.)

+1. Never asked in over 7 years. We’ve hosted plenty of play dates. But we also live in DC, where I generally think this isn’t a necessary question due to restrictions on ownership anyway. FWIW, we don’t own guns and have no desire to, despite the fact that in my youth I won several sport shooting competitions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So do no gun ranges allow you to store your weapon there? I know nothing about it, just wondering if its purely for recreational use, why you can't store it over there.

I don't know of any ranges that have storage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the gun owners so afraid to tell people they have guns?

It's not privacy, as someone on here claims. Or fears of their guns being stolen. They just don't want society's judgement.
And when are we embarrassed and afraid of judgement? Because we know we are doing something wrong.

I am a gun owner, and I assure you I do not give a single fck about "society's judgement". Least of all do I think I am "doing something wrong" by owning guns. You are projecting your own stupid ideas onto gun owners.

It is privacy and security. Simple as that.