Because the guns are out there, and they’re not going anywhere.
The education of children about guns in the United States is a very important, and very under discussed issue. Guns are ubiquitous here. We have more guns than people. And guns, being instruments of death, are dangerous if mishandled. In my opinion, a US parent not speaking with their children about gun safety, and how to behave around guns, is about like an Australian parent not speaking with their children about venomous snakes. No, a gun doesn’t have a mind of its own like a snake does, and isn’t going to bite you while you sleep, but they’re still dangerous, and good parents should talk with their children about gun safety whether they’re pro gun or anti gun, whether they’re gun owners or gun teetotalers, whether they’re in the gun culture or not. Every culture, if it’s a United States culture, needs to talk about guns to their kids. Like sex, or drugs, or Rock and Roll. And the gun talk needs to happen way earlier than the sex or drugs talk, in early elementary school. But there’s no good template about how to have this talk, at least that I’ve found. I thought it might be helpful to share my stump speech, and a story about the most interesting time I gave it.
I don’t have a lot of guns, by gun culture standards. We’ll say “quite a few but less than ten.” The scary black tactical stuff and the pistols live in locked cases away from view, but the long guns with wooden furniture live in a locked display case in my living room. A 20 gauge over-and-under shotgun. A side-by-side 12 gauge double-barrel that’s so old it’s probably dangerous to shoot. A Ruger 10/22. An old .410 from the Sears Roebuck catalog. A Korean War–era M1 Garand. It’s what Redditors might call a Fudd Case.
July 4th 2018, my wife was struggling with cancer and had a break in her chemotherapy, so she invited all her old high school girlfriends to our home for a cookout. They brought their kids. It was a good time. Half a dozen very liberal moms talking about momstuff. A dozen kids playing in the yard, generally in the 4–7 age bracket, give or take. Other than my children, and those of the one Army wife among them, none of the kids had ever been around firearms. I didn’t think twice about it until one of the boys came up to me with big, wide, apprehensively curious eyes and said, “Mr. BJ, are those guns?” Referring to the display case. They were obviously guns. This wasn’t an honest question. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the actual question was very likely “This is the first time in my life I’ve been near a gun, may I see it?”
By BJ Campbell
