Quote:
Originally Posted by vash
yea..my dad hid his guns. one was a 38 special. a snubby. i remember it vividly and how it looks aimed at my 6 year old head. i remember my sister finding his handgun and aiming it at my head and squeezing the trigger. if that thing was loaded, that would have been it for me. my dad had it in a metal box with a key lock. my sister still got into it.
i dont ever talk about it. never did to my parents. it still chills my spine now...45 years later. i should see if my sister remembers it. oh,..you know what else was in that box? my dad's police mace-spray. i took a full face shot of that stuff later. dropped me screaming to my knees.
i wish i was born into another family sometimes.
now? my stuff is locked up..fort knox locked up. a neighbor kid, a visiting kid..no thanks.
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Yikes!!! Holy crap... I guess we are all glad it wasn't loaded...
Not to keep beating this dead horse (although that is what we do best around here), but that story is
exactly why my dad made sure we all knew what would happen when that trigger was pulled, and I did the same with my kids. There was no mystery, no doubt - just a very clear understanding of what happens when we pull a trigger. I was shown, my kids were shown, first hand.
I believe the only reason your sister did that - the only possible reason - was that she had
no idea what would have happened had that gun been loaded. She had never been shown. She had no frame of reference. It was just an innocent game to her.
I'm a big believer in the concept of the "forbidden fruit". We were all "knucklehead kids" (I love that term...) once, and I'm sure well remember the overwhelming enticement of being told not to do something. That, of course, automatically meant we just
had to see what it was all about. That notion is what drove my own dad, and later myself, to show our kids precisely what guns are "all about". I knew, and my own sons knew by the time they were strong enough to pull one, just what happens when a trigger is pulled. With graphic images of that in all of our minds, not a one of us would have ever even dreamt of pulling a trigger on someone.
So, yeah, two markedly different approaches. Full access, and full knowledge on the one hand, "forbidden fruit" and forced ignorance on the other. I know I was a sneaky little schitt who had no trouble accessing any sort of "forbidden fruit", and I just assumed my sons were as well. Now, as adults, they have provided me with "full disclosure" - and let's just say I'm forever thankful that they knew full well what could happen, and handled them safely. Oh, and kept their conniving little schitt friends away from them, because they knew those friends had no idea.