The parenting website SheKnows helped us spread the word about gun safety in a recent article. On the SheKnows blog, Isobella Jade wrote about Why It’s Never Too Early to Start Teaching Your Kids About Gun Safety.
Her article explains why parents are the earliest teachers about how to live safely when we’re all at close range. She referenced me in the blog.
“It’s most important to have a talk with your kids like you would for safe sex, sober driving, drug use, or even texting on the road,” Ross told me via email. “The days that lead up to kids leaving for college or the first week of high school are often the best times for what I call the New Talk.
“The best place to start a talk is in our own homes, riding alongside them, or anywhere we have their undivided attention because the cell phones are silenced,” she continued. “Starting the talk by asking who’s in their group of friends who owns guns is one easy way to begin. We model responsible behavior for them by doing role play.”
When it comes to what parents should know about storing a firearm, Ross said, “We say to gun owners that it’s not a safe home unless there’s a home safe. A quick-access gun safe costs under $100 and keeps guns from falling into the hands of kids and even young adults. Separating ammo from the gun is important, too, even if it’s just locking the gun in a different place than the magazine. A loaded gun isn’t a safe gun, and hiding a gun isn’t a safety measure, either. Cable gun locks make guns safer and impossible to fire while locked. A safe is better.”
Isobella also talks abour moving to Texas and learning gun safety in a new way, even as a parent. “As a child growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., I didn’t even own a water gun. My family didn’t hunt. No one brought up the word gun. It just wasn’t a thing at all. Moving to Texas opened my eyes to how casual the word can be and how quickly gun ownership can become the norm. Suddenly, my family had a huge gun safe, firearms were stored in our home, and I had to memorize the safe’s lock code.”
Parents are the starting point for gun safety in a young person’s life. Whether parents own a gun or don’t, this conversation about how to keep yourself safe around guns is crucial. In my book At Close Range, I call this The New Talk. We talk about sober driving and safe sex. Guns deserve their time, too.
