Breeze54 (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-20-08 06:43 AM
Original message
My 5 yr old climbed up on a chair and assembled my ex's shotgun
and almost had it all together, assembled, when I found him!! It's very odd that he even KNEW the shotgun was on the top shelf of my closet, as I had hidden it there when the kids were asleep BUT he found it!! YIKES!! I had the shotgun ammo stashed in another place, away from the disassembled shotgun. How he knew it was there, is beyond me but I'm sooo glad I caught the mischievous and curious child in time!! THAT could have been a real disaster
**** you Airhead primitive. If that child had managed to do something catastrophic, it would have been entirely because of you and your fear of guns that it turned out catastrophic.
In my home, I keep a loaded pistol in a drawer exactly beneath my pillow - when it's not on my person. I also have a 4 1/2 year old. Wanna know something? He doesn't go looking for it, because I make a point of not treating it as "Forbidden Fruit" with him. He is allowed in my bedroom when I'm putting it away every night, and has been taught that if he sees the pistol with the slide closed or a magazine in the well, he is to not touch it and come find his mommy or myself (if we aren't in the room with him - exceptionally rare when I'm putting the pistol away) and tell us specifically, "Mommy/Daddy, the pistol has "owies" in it." We then congratulate him for doing the right thing and reward him. When the slide is open on an empty chamber, and there is no magazine in the well, he has also been told that he can ask if he can handle the pistol in that condition. Usually the answer is "yes", and his little 4-year old curiosity is satisfied. As a result, he knows that there are guns in the house, but they don't call out for him to "explore" on his own. No forbidden fruit.
