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

[Anonymous]

I don't always ask - but I should. I ask sometimes and volunteer that we have no guns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I’ve never asked about guns before a play date. I live in a part of the US where everybody owns guns. Many of the vehicles on the road carry guns. People openly carry. Nobody blinks an eye. We call people with guns good neighbors around here.

Are people back east really that paranoid about guns? Kids here learn about guns at a very early age. It’s seems insane to me that something we consider perfectly normal would be considered evil where you’re at.

We used to live in Arizona with the same lax and nonexistent gun laws and a child in my son's preschool shot his sister with his father's gun. And a neighbor's child found a loaded gun in a bathroom stall at a rest stop off the 10 Interstate near Phoenix.

Yeah - I am happy to be out of that nightmare state. Clearly kids learned about guns in our old neighborhood at a young age too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not disclose that we have guns. They are safely stored. If you ask, I will lie. It's a security issue.

a security issue?! what the hell do you think is going to happen if you tell people you have guns?! I promise, no one is coming to forcibly take your guns from you.

you're psycho.

You could not be more incorrect. My DH and I are both liberal Dems who are active in a group working for gun control and stricter gun laws. We have donated thousands of dollars to that cause. I'm not disclosing that we own a handgun exactly because I don't want crazy people knowing it's there. There is a reason that we need a gun in our home.

What the hell could this reason POSSIBLY be? I would love for someone to finally answer.

[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 am truly curious PP...you know how dangerous having a gun in your home is, clearly, by the extreme lengths you go to keep it locked away.
So, could you please explain 1. why you feel the need to own something that is, as displayed by your own caution, incredibly dangerous and 2. how you think keeping this in your home would help in any type defense situation (if it is truly so difficult to access with your multiple points of failure system )??
I am baffled by your logic here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not disclose that we have guns. They are safely stored. If you ask, I will lie. It's a security issue.

a security issue?! what the hell do you think is going to happen if you tell people you have guns?! I promise, no one is coming to forcibly take your guns from you.

you're psycho.

You could not be more incorrect. My DH and I are both liberal Dems who are active in a group working for gun control and stricter gun laws. We have donated thousands of dollars to that cause. I'm not disclosing that we own a handgun exactly because I don't want crazy people knowing it's there. There is a reason that we need a gun in our home.

What the hell could this reason POSSIBLY be? I would love for someone to finally answer.

I’m a criminal prosecutor. I’ve gotten countless threats on my life from criminals who I have prosecuted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not disclose that we have guns. They are safely stored. If you ask, I will lie. It's a security issue.

a security issue?! what the hell do you think is going to happen if you tell people you have guns?! I promise, no one is coming to forcibly take your guns from you.

you're psycho.

You could not be more incorrect. My DH and I are both liberal Dems who are active in a group working for gun control and stricter gun laws. We have donated thousands of dollars to that cause. I'm not disclosing that we own a handgun exactly because I don't want crazy people knowing it's there. There is a reason that we need a gun in our home.

What the hell could this reason POSSIBLY be? I would love for someone to finally answer.

I’m a criminal prosecutor. I’ve gotten countless threats on my life from criminals who I have prosecuted.

Are you trained, PP? You are educated - you know the statistics of gun owners being killed by their own guns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, given the right motivation, kids can hack into gun safes, keyed or otherwise. I learned how to pick locks and combo sets at 15 to get petty cash out. Not hard.

And it's apparently getting easier:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/12/top-selling-handgun-safe-can-be-remotely-opened-in-seconds-no-pin-needed/

Breaking into mommy’s clutch for a quarter isn’t the same as breaking into steel anti-pick, anti-pry gun safes. My safe cost over $5000, has over 20 1.5 inch-thick locking steel lugs and an independnt alarm that is better than many people have on their homes. Five guys with hydraulic tools and blowtorches could break in, with enough time. Your little Larla isn’t, and to say it’s “not hard”’demonstrates how little you know about any of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 am truly curious PP...you know how dangerous having a gun in your home is, clearly, by the extreme lengths you go to keep it locked away.
So, could you please explain 1. why you feel the need to own something that is, as displayed by your own caution, incredibly dangerous and 2. how you think keeping this in your home would help in any type defense situation (if it is truly so difficult to access with your multiple points of failure system )??
I am baffled by your logic here.

“Gun owners don’t take precautions!!”

“Here are all the precautions I take.”

“Gun owners taking precautions proved they shouldn’t have guns!!!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 am truly curious PP...you know how dangerous having a gun in your home is, clearly, by the extreme lengths you go to keep it locked away.
So, could you please explain 1. why you feel the need to own something that is, as displayed by your own caution, incredibly dangerous and 2. how you think keeping this in your home would help in any type defense situation (if it is truly so difficult to access with your multiple points of failure system )??
I am baffled by your logic here.

I am the PP you’re responding to, but I think some other PP’s responses may have been confused with mine? I don’t consider the guns as a true home defense tool. DH does and I do think there are situations where he could quickly access a gun. It sounds like a lot of steps, but in reality with practice DH could access a gun quickly. My view is that it doesn’t even have to be loaded to scare people away. DH grew up with guns in the extended family and I know they were used defensively at least a couple of times (not fired, nobody killed). I own lots of things that are incredibly dangerous and frivolous and so do other people. People do certain water sports and ride motorcycles, for example, which I find to be incredibly dangerous but I don’t judge that they shouldn’t do those highly dangerous, unnecessary hobbies. I do understand that improperly stored guns are dangerous and I am on board with a more tightly regulated state run system for allowing people to purchase and own guns. People seem to love portraying it as all or nothing, but I’m a gun owner who believes in tighter gun control. I don’t think of myself as a nut and guns are a hobby, not a lifestyle or a major facet of my identity as a person. We do have a gun problem in this country and a mental health crisis in this country, and I am for addressing both of those things. I don’t think being a gun owner makes me a bad person and I do not lump myself in with the NRA and the militant types.

[Anonymous]

What have a listserve and what we do is identify any address with a criminal domiciled and spread the word!

it all came about from a similar non-anonymous question on guns in homes, and it turned out the person advocating outing of firearms owners had a stepson with an assault record!

A list member who was it the PD identified that person, and we found that a number of us because of Human REosurces jobs or law enforcement jobs had access to databases with arrest records whihc in the US are public .

Half or more of country owns guns that is not the risk factor, the risk factor for violence, be it bating death, knife fightng or attack injuries or death, sexual attack -- is arrest records.

about 10% of DC has arrest records and those are 90% of people who commit murder. Know where they live. If a kids big brother or step father or mother's boyfriend has an arrest record OUT THEM so everyone knowns!

[Anonymous]

No, I'm French.

In France the people with guns are hunters and know how to safeguard their weapons. It seems terribly intrusive to ask point-blank about guns, especially between families who are educated and presumably care about their small children.
Note that we don't do playdates willy nilly with people we barely know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm French.

In France the people with guns are hunters and know how to safeguard their weapons. It seems terribly intrusive to ask point-blank about guns, especially between families who are educated and presumably care about their small children.
Note that we don't do playdates willy nilly with people we barely know.

DC has a 26% gun ownership rate (170,000 people) and about 0.5% is legal (4,500). Those 4,500 people and their homes are probably much safer to be around/in than any demographic. Certainly safer to be around than the large proportion of DC that has arrest records

[Anonymous]

My kid doesn't have playdates yet and since we live in DC it is pretty unlikely that his classmates' parents own guns. Nonetheless, I will ask and if the answer is yes I will ask to see how they are stored. We do have some friends who have a couple of hunting shotguns and rifles in a gun safe in their basement. I have seen how they are stored and understand the safety precautions they have in place and know them well enough to trust their judgment when it comes to things like accessing the guns for use or cleaning or whatever. Without that level of information and personal acquaintance, I won't let my child have a playdate at the home of a family that owns guns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What have a listserve and what we do is identify any address with a criminal domiciled and spread the word!

it all came about from a similar non-anonymous question on guns in homes, and it turned out the person advocating outing of firearms owners had a stepson with an assault record!

A list member who was it the PD identified that person, and we found that a number of us because of Human REosurces jobs or law enforcement jobs had access to databases with arrest records whihc in the US are public .

Half or more of country owns guns that is not the risk factor, the risk factor for violence, be it bating death, knife fightng or attack injuries or death, sexual attack -- is arrest records.

about 10% of DC has arrest records and those are 90% of people who commit murder. Know where they live. If a kids big brother or step father or mother's boyfriend has an arrest record OUT THEM so everyone knowns!

Actually less than half of Americans own guns: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/. But the average gun owner owns 8 guns. Is it really so mysterious that the rest of us think gun owners comprise a high number of psychos? Who needs 8 guns? And let's be real: most of these people aren't well-educated and conscientious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What have a listserve and what we do is identify any address with a criminal domiciled and spread the word!

it all came about from a similar non-anonymous question on guns in homes, and it turned out the person advocating outing of firearms owners had a stepson with an assault record!

A list member who was it the PD identified that person, and we found that a number of us because of Human REosurces jobs or law enforcement jobs had access to databases with arrest records whihc in the US are public .

Half or more of country owns guns that is not the risk factor, the risk factor for violence, be it bating death, knife fightng or attack injuries or death, sexual attack -- is arrest records.

about 10% of DC has arrest records and those are 90% of people who commit murder. Know where they live. If a kids big brother or step father or mother's boyfriend has an arrest record OUT THEM so everyone knowns!

Actually less than half of Americans own guns: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/. But the average gun owner owns 8 guns. Is it really so mysterious that the rest of us think gun owners comprise a high number of psychos? Who needs 8 guns? And let's be real: most of these people aren't well-educated and conscientious.

Why does the number matter, would you rather have a gun owner with 8 guns who keeps them responsibly secured in a safe or someone with just one who keeps it out lying around in arms reach?