GUNS AND CHILD SAFETY

What about at their friends’ homes?

“You know gun safety; do the parents of your child’s playmate?,” Jan. 17 Life & Culture article.

Thank you to Denver Post reporter William Porter for his excellent and wellresearched article about gun safety in regard to children.

The recommendations on safe locking and storage of all guns in the home are right on target. We “child-proof ” our homes in many other ways and assume our friends and relatives do the same. However, we and they often do not take adequate precautions with our guns.

Children may be instructed to not touch guns, and they may get safety training as they get older — but they are still children. They are curious — that is how they learn. Curiosity around lethal weapons can be deadly.

As a 12-year-old growing up with hunting parents, I was instructed how and how not to use guns. As I was carrying a shotgun into the house after a pheasant-hunting trip, I carefully pointed it down; but I just couldn’t resist putting my finger on the trigger and pulling. I and my parents had assumed the gun was not loaded, but there was a shell in place. The shot missed my foot by less than an inch. I deserved and was punished for that; but had I been pointing it up or out, no punishment in the world would have wiped out the damage done.

Mary Blegen, Aurora

In the article discussing gun-safety practices at homes visited by one’s children, Denver parent Kim O’Brien described asking a woman if she owned any guns. “They did, and they were in a gun safe. But the gun safe was in their 8year-old’s room. What? I never let my kids go there again.”

If the guns are locked up, why should it matter where the safe is? Second, that placement shows commendable forethought on the part of those parents. Awakening to the sound of a break-in, they wouldn’t need to first run to their child’s room and collect him or her, then to another location to access a weapon. Having a weapon secured in the child’s room allows them to most expeditiously defend themselves and their child. It also suggests that those parents are serious about communicating the tenets of responsible gun ownership to their child. If I had children, they would definitely be allowed to visit that home.

Mark Vanderbrook, Morrison

Reading William Porter’s article on the need for parents to ask about access to guns in the homes their children visit made me wonder about the wisdom of the new policy to allow concealed weapons in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Thousands of children spend time at the museum each year. Parents have no way of knowing the skill or the mind-set of those who will carry concealed weapons into the museum.

If we want guns to be safely stored in homes where children are playing, shouldn’t guns brought to the museum at least be stored in a safe place too? The only control that I see that parents have is to keep their children away from the museum in order to ensure their safety.

Marilyn Leff, Denver