Weapon lesson
BSO class serves as reminder on gun safety
Although Vincent Caputo has never held a real gun, it’s the 11-year-old’s second time taking part in a gun safety class. His grandfather keeps one in a locked chest. And law enforcement officials like Broward Sheriff ’s Office Sgt. Robert Chenoweth will be the first to say the Caputo family aren’t being overly cautious.
On Oct. 5, the Broward Sheriff ’s Office organized a gun safety class at Constitution Park in Deerfield Beach. The class was proctored by Chenoweth, who spent 28 years as a military policeman, did a tour of duty in Iraq, and worked as a range trainer at Markham Park.
The sargeant, a gun owner himself, can quickly rattle off sobering American Academy of Pediatrics statistics: 1,297 children are killed annually from gunshots, another 5,790 are treated for gunshot wounds.
Consider that U.S. residents barely outnumbered firearms in circulation (323 million vs. 300 million) and that’s not surprising, but gun control isn’t the answer, Chenoweth said, holding up a crude, slender weapon. “You take away the guns and people are going to find a way to kill each other. This is a homemade gun.”
What to do? Kids should remember four rules if they see a gun: Stop, do not touch it, leave the area, tell a grown up.
Parents should know that guns are in 35 and 50 percent of all Florida homes and that it is important to teach their children gun safety before a situation occurs.
The class also emphasized teaching children to always assume a gun is real and that even plastic guns can be real.
And Chenoweth’s four rules for parents who own guns? Treat every firearm as if it is loaded, keep a finger off the trigger and on the designated safety spot, never point at anything you are not willing to destroy, and finally - be aware of what is in front of and what is behind the target.
For Caputo, his take away this second time through a gun safety course was potatoe chips and BSO hand sanitizer. But he gave it a good review.
“It was pretty positive,” he said.