Kids and Gun Safety
First Trip to the Range
By Kathy Jackson
- Is your child old enough to learn and intelligently follow the Four Universal Rules of Gun Safety?
- Does your child have a healthy level of respect for adult authority?
Will she immediately stop when you say "STOP"?
- Do you have adequate safety gear for your child? If so, is she willing
to wear it?
- Is she old enough to keep her fingers out of her mouth and off her
face?
- What are your state laws about children at the range?
- Is your range child-friendly?
If the answers to all these questions
are positive, your child may be old enough to learn to shoot -- provided
you yourself are ready and able to give her your absolute and undivided
attention while she does so. That means that on the first outing (and
perhaps for a long time afterward) you will do no shooting yourself. Your
only job will be to hover over your new shooter and make sure she stays
safe.
Taking a child to the range can be a lot of fun. Done properly, the first
trip to the range can be a great parent-child bonding time. It might even
be the beginning of a healthy, lifelong hobby for your child. The first
trip to the range can also be a lot of work. Done poorly, it can result
in a grumpy child who didn't have any fun at all. Even worse, a poor first
outing can even result in tragedy if safe gun handling is not a central
and primary concern.
Whether your child's first day on the range turns into a fun triumph or
an unhappy disaster depends upon you, the responsible adult. Your actions
and attitudes directly influence how your child sees this day.
If you want your child to have a good first experience, the most important
thing is to keep first things first. Your twin goals are to keep your
child safe, and to have fun with your child. Every other possible concern
is far less important than these two goals -- and staying safe is far,
far more important than having fun. If you get wrapped around the axle
about your child looking good, shooting well, impressing the range owner,
or making you look like SuperMom or WonderDad, you will NOT be thinking
about the things that really matter. So let those other things go. The
only essentials are that you and your child stay safe while having fun
together.
THE GOALS:
Stay Safe and Have Fun
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Stay Safe
Staying safe is far and away more important than anything else
you might do on the range with your child. This should go without saying,
but it is surprisingly easy to let non-essentials get in the way of this
important goal.
The very first step, before you even get to the range, is to make sure
your child knows and understands the basic
firearms safety rules. These basic rules are not at all hard for
even a young child to learn, nor are they difficult to explain. Because
they are so basic and so fundamental, once your child knows these rules
it will become very much easier to explain any other range-specific rules
you might encounter with her along the way.
For example, one common range rule requires shooters to stay behind a
painted line and not touch anything on the shooting bench while others
are downrange. Such a rule might sound silly to a child, at least until
her mom explains that when people are downrange, it is really, really
hard for anyone to handle a gun without accidentally pointing it at someone
because there isn't any safe direction to point it. So the range rule
just helps people remember to obey one of the basic safety rules that
even grownups sometimes forget. This kind of explanation is very helpful
because a child who understands the reasons behind such a rule is far
less likely to break the rule.
When teaching the basic firearms safety
rules to my children, I always tried to concentrate most of our
energy on the "why" behind each rule. For example, when telling the kids
to treat every gun as if it were loaded, I would stop and ask them why
they thought that might be important. What would you do differently with
a gun you KNEW was loaded? How would you treat it? Would you
be more careful, or less careful? By asking this type of leading question,
I allowed the children themselves to figure out how important the rules
were. The kids became my allies in our plan to stay safe on the range.
Important
If you truly believe that your child is too young to understand the safety
rules, even after you have explained them, then your child is too young
to be on the range with you. It is that simple. Since the consequences
of ignorance can be deadly, a live range is no place for a child too young
to understand and follow basic safety precautions.
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At this point, someone reading this is probably thinking, "But my child
is only five years old, so he's not old enough to understand ..."
Explain the rules anyway! Maybe your explanation will get
through. Even if it does not, your careful explanation plus your
modelling of safe behavior on the range plus your committment to
keeping a close eye on your child at all times, adds up to a far safer
day than any one of these elements alone. Even a child who does not remember
the full lecture may remember enough to prevent a tragedy.
On the flip side, a surprising number of children are capable of understanding
far more, far sooner, than their parents give them credit for. The best
way to find out whether your child "gets it" may be simply to ask questions
while you are going over the rules, and really listen to your child's
answers. This can help clear up some dangerous misunderstandings.
After the basic firearms safety rules,
the next-most important element of safety is good protective equipment.
What's needed:
- Eye protection
- Hearing protection
- Protection from flying
brass
- Protection from overexposure to lead
Eye Protection
True safety glasses feature lenses big enough to cover the entire eye
area, with sideshields to prevent brass or other materials from entering
behind the lens from the side, and are made of materials sturdy enough
to stand up to significant impacts without shattering. For this reason,
standard prescription eyeglasses are not enough to protect your
child's vision on the range.
One company producing eyewear of an appropriate size for children is EnviroSafety Products,
which offers both eyewear and ear protection in child sizes. I'm passing the URL along because
child-sized safety gear can be difficult to find.
If possible, avoid purchasing oversized eyewear that slides down your
child's nose and leaves her eyes unprotected. If you absolutely must use
adult-sized eyewear on your child, the type held on by an elastic strap
is probably a better bet than the more common earpiece type. The elastic
strap is also less likely to interfere with her ear muffs.
Hearing Protection
Basic hearing protection is a must, even if you are "only" shooting .22-caliber
firearms. Children's ears are almost invariably more sensitive to sound
than adult ears, and their hearing can easily be damaged. Double whammy:
while protecting child-sized ears is maybe even more important than protecting
adult ears, it can be difficult to find ear protection that is comfortable
and sized correctly for the little folks.
There are two basic options for hearing protection: plugs and muffs. Ear
plugs have the advantage of being generally more comfortable and less
likely to get in the way when shooting shotguns and rifles. Ear muffs
are bulkier and harder to fit, but tend to provide better coverage of
the entire area around the ear, including the bones behind the ear which
tend to conduct sound, which in turn may provide more efficient
protection.
The primary drawback of both plugs and muffs is that, when you put them
on a young child, the child may not be able to tell whether the hearing
protection is adequate. If the muffs are knocked askew (perhaps by the
earpiece to the child's safety glasses), or if the plugs fail to expand
properly, the sound waves can still get in and cause problems. And the
child may not tell you this is happening.
If your child's ear canals are still too small for even the smallest plugs,
the plugs can be split in half lengthwise to make them skinnier so they
will fit. However. When you do this, you will have reduced the
plug's rated effectiveness by some unknown quantity, so it is best to
do this only if you really have no other viable choices -- and even then,
a set of muffs worn over the plugs would not be amiss.
The effectiveness of both plugs and muffs is measured by NRR,
or the product's Noise Reduction Rating. The higher the number, the better
the product is at reducing noise from the surrounding environment.
This should maybe go without saying, but once you put your child's ear
protection in place, she will have a harder time hearing you. If you need
to get your child's attention, especially about a safety issue, speak
loudly and clearly!
Protection from Flying Brass
Even if you and your child are firing guns which do not throw brass (such
as revolvers or bolt-action rifles), it is important to protect your child
from flying brass which may be produced by other shooters on the range.
This is important as much for comfort as it is for safety; not only is
hot brass painful on the bare skin, but the unexpected pain can cause
a young shooter to dance around and do dangerous things with the firearm.
A brimmed cap or hat is your youngster's first defense against getting
hot brass caught behind his eyewear. Most shooting glasses, even those
with sideshields, are unprotected along the top. This means a piece of
brass can easily arc right behind the glasses, perhaps leaving a blister
on an eyelid or causing even worse damage on the eye itself. A brimmed
hat worn low on the brow prevents this quite handily.
Next, your youngster's clothing should be sensible. If possible, have
your child wear a tucked-in shirt with tails long enough to stay
tucked in. If tucked in isn't in the cards, consider a shirt with tails
long enough to cover every inch of waistband even when bent forward to
shoot. A shirt without buttons tends to be a little less brass prone than
a buttoned shirt. Avoid scoop-necked shirts, in favor of a standard tee
shirt collar or even a turtleneck.
If the weather permits it at all, long pants provide better protection
from brass than shorts do.
Shoes, too, should be brass-resistant. Avoid open-toed sandals because
hot brass between the toes can really hurt. Flip-flop sandals are a definite
no no, not only because of the danger of flying brass but also because
they greatly increase the risk of a dangerous stumble with gun in hand.
Protection from Lead Overexposure
While lead contamination can be very dangerous for children, avoiding
lead contamination not difficult. It mostly involves simple hygiene and
other common sense actions which can reduce or entirely eliminate your
child's exposure to harmful amounts of lead while you enjoy family time
together on the range.
See the article titled Aiming for Lower Lead
Exposure for more information.
More Safety Tips
On the way to the range, go over the safety rules with your child and
make sure she does not have any last-minute questions about what will
be expected from her. Remember that it will be harder to talk to your
child on the range because you will both be wearing ear protection, so
get all your last-minute stuff out of the way before the hearing protection
goes on. If she does have a question or a problem on the line, consider
retreating to your car to talk, if you are shooting on an outdoor range
where you can sit in your car and still keep an eye on your belongings.
On an indoor range, remember you can simply stop her from shooting and
wait for a ceasefire to remove your ear protection if you need to talk
in depth.
For the first outing, and for many subsequent outings, you will want to
--
- Find an uncrowded range. Ideally, the
first trip to the range should happen at a time when the range is not
crowded. Outdoor ranges are much less stressful for the first outing than
are indoor ones.
- Take one child at a time. If you have
more than one child, plan to take only one child to the range with
you for on a first trip. Later you can plan to bring up to two children
per adult, but for the first time out, your beginning shooter needs and
deserves your undivided attention.
- Start with dryfire. With an unloaded
gun, make sure she knows how to safely hold the gun. Work out eye issues
as much as you can in dryfire, too.
- Load only one round in the gun at a time.
A surprisingly large number of people, children and adults alike, will
turn around with the gun in hand immediately after the first shot is fired.
Similarly, a very small number of people will drop the gun or nearly drop
the gun because they are so startled by the sensation of firing a gun
for the first time. If there is only one round in the gun, these foreseeable
safety violations will be a lot less dangerous if they do happen. Even
once you are certain that your child is past this stage, loading only
one round at a time allows her to gain experience in safely manipulating
the firearm and understanding how it works, experience which can be gained
in no other way than to repeatedly load the gun herself.
- Keep your eyes and mind on your child's actions
so that your child doesn't have the opportunity to do anything dangerous.
This trip is about the child, not about you, so you are not going to shoot
today. Watch your child's hands while he is shooting, so you can anticipate
and prevent anything dangerous from happening. The target will still be
there when he is done shooting, but you can only spot a problem developing
by watching his hands in the here-and-now.
- Never move outside of arm's reach so
that you can grab and control the firearm if the child begins to do something
dangerous. If you must move outside of arm's reach from your
child, have the child set the firearm down until you are within reach
again.
- Keep the trip short. The first outing
should be just long enough to allow the child to satisfy her curiosity
about firing a gun but not enough to allow her to grow bored or inattentive.
For some kids, that may mean just a couple of rounds. Other kids are more
adventurous, and will want to keep firing until they have exhausted a
box of ammunition. The child will remember your trip to the range more
fondly if it ends as soon as her attention first begins to wander, and
safety dictates that it is best to pack up and depart while the child’s
interest is still focused upon what you are doing.
The big secret about keeping a child or any newcomer safe on the range
is never to allow even minor unsafe behavior. If there's a minor problem,
don't give it a chance to develop into something serious. Nip unsafe activity
in the bud.
If you do spot a safety violation, don't let a small problem grow into
a big one. If she's doing something borderline, stop her early with a
gentle word rather than later with a sharp one. (And enforce that early
word! If it was important enough to speak up, it's important enough to
enforce.)
Finally, a brief word about discipline issues. I won't tell you how to
raise your kids, but for safety's sake, if they're on the range, they
must obey the safety officer. For all intents and purposes, this
means your child must willingly obey you. An unintentional safety
violation that she didn't mean to commit doesn't have to mean the day
is over, provided you are able to get her back on track. But a repeated
violation, or an attitude problem of any sort, probably means it's time
to pack up and go home.
Have Fun
Before I even get around to telling you about all the fun you can have
with your children on the range, I need to remind you again that having
fun is an important goal. This bears repeating simply because a lot of
folks who take their kids to the range are actually fostering fond hopes
of raising the next Rob Leatham or Annie Oakley. There's nothing wrong
with wanting your kids to do well, but a strong desire to turn your kid
into an excellent shot can actually become a self-defeating source of
frustration for both of you. If your child doesn't have fun on the range,
she'll never become an excellent shot because she'll never want to go
shooting in the first place.
Of course it can be very satisfying to develop excellent, precision marksmanship,
but the satisfaction of making very tiny groups at extreme ranges does
not generally arrive until after a shooter has sent thousands of rounds
downrange to develop the skill to do it. For at least the first few trips
to the range, aim for immediate gratification. Get the kids hooked on
firearms fun first, and those thousands of rounds will eventually happen;
fail to hook them, and they'll never have time to develop the skill you
want them to have. So take the time to seek out safe, exciting targets
that are very easy to hit from the very beginning. There will be time
to develop precision skills after your new shooter discovers how much
fun shooting can be.
Gear
For children, as for most new shooters, the ideal introductory gun is
a .22 caliber firearm, preferably a rifle. Rifles are preferred because
it is easier to be conscious of muzzle direction with a long gun than
with a handgun. Depending upon where you live, it might even be against
the law to allow your young shooter to shoot a handgun.1
It is worthwhile to seek out firearms and other gear which will properly
fit your young shooter. Not only will your child likely have more fun
shooting a gun that belongs to her alone, but she will likely be more
comfortable and learn to shoot more easily if the equipment fits her.
Youngsters tend to be awkward anyway, and a too-big, too-heavy gun just
compounds the difficulty of learning a new skill. So, if it seems at all
practical to you, consider purchasing a gun the right size for your child.
Click here for a list of child- and
youth-sized rifles you may wish to research.
If you do not believe that a rifle specifically designed for a child would
be a good financial investment at this time (perhaps your child is just
on the verge of adolescence), consider purchasing a common and widely-available
adult sized rifle, such as a Ruger 10/22 or a similar firearm, and swapping
out the adult stock for a smaller one. As your child grows, you will later
be able to move her into the longer stock without purchasing an entirely
new gun for her.
When shooting at an established range, remember that benches and chairs
on the range will be sized for adults rather than for children. If your
child is very young, she might be more comfortable and shoot a bit better if you bring along
items such as a booster seat, a phone book, or a stack of pillows to enable
her to use the adult benches. Alternatively, if the range allows it, you might prefer to start her out
shooting from the prone position -- just be aware of safety concerns such as
other shooters' muzzle directions, the increased possibility of getting hit
with brass, and the danger of getting tripped over.
Targets
Keep targets big and close. You want your child to have as much fun and
experience as much success as possible!
Click here to read Lawdog's article
about having fun with new shooters; there are more target ideas within that
article.
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No-cleanup Reactives: Necco wafers, saltine crackers, charcoal briquets,
ice cubes
Slightly Messier Reactives: soda pop cans, gallon jugs filled with water or
colored water, gallon jugs filled and then frozen, old CDs, golf balls
Reactives that are a pain to clean up: eggs, rotten veggies, or over ripe fruit
(all are biodegradable but unsightly and smelly).
Purchased Reactives: "exploding" targets, swinging dingers (resetting
steel targets, such as these from
Birchwood Casey).
Balloons. Balloons come in all sizes and shapes. Experiment! You can use balloons filled with
water, with air, or with helium (but be certain the helium balloon is below
the berm). You can add a little bit of flour to an air-filled balloon for a "smoke"
effect when shot. You can tape nine air-filled water balloons to a cardboard
target in a grid pattern, and play Tic Tac Toe. You can tape balloons firmly
to a target stand or let them dangle challengingly from a short string. And yes,
picking up balloon detritus is a pain in the neck. But shooting them is
oh so fun!
Just Cool: Coins (need a solid backstop. Try hot-glueing
them to a board before going to the range). Coins make cool mementos and both
boys and girls enjoy having a necklace with a shot coin as the centerpiece. Outgrown
toys can make good targets too, although again, clean up can be annoying.
Fun Paper Targets: paper plates, Shoot-N-C targets, animal-shaped paper targets, blown up photocopies
of comic books etc.
Targets to AVOID: Don't shoot glass. It's not just a pain to clean up, it's also dangerous to
clean up. Don't shoot anything you are not willing to clean up. Always
leave the shooting area cleaner than you found it!
Other Fun Tips
Praise, praise, praise. Especially praise safe behavior, and make a big
deal of how responsible she is: "I am glad I can trust you to keep
your finger off the trigger!" Or, "It makes me really
proud to see how careful you are to be safe when you are handling a gun."
Or, "You did really well remembering to put the safety on before
you set the gun down."
Build up excitement and confidence, especially when she has to work hard
to hit something: "Wow! Did you see that balloon pop? POP!! That
was great!" Or, "Hey, look at this target! You did awesome!"
Or, "I was really proud of the way you kept trying. You're doing
great!"
Competition? The downside of competition: frustration, hurt feelings, not good for
first time out. The up side: encourages improvement and focus, and some kids thrive on
it. Bottom line? Know your own kid, and only push just barely hard enough to keep
them having fun, NOT hard enough to hurt.
Make it a short trip. Leave her wanting more.
Bumps in the Road
Pack an extra dose of patience in the range bag.
If your child is reluctant to shoot at first, allow her to watch you
shoot. But keep her engaged in what you are doing! Have her interact
with your shooting -- for example, play a game where the child calls
out a target for you to hit. Encourage her to shoot when she is
ready.
Don't make a big deal about missing targets. If she's safe and having
fun, that's all that matters. But if it matters to her, do whatever
you need to do in order to give her a good taste of success: Get a bigger
target. Bring the target closer. Offer to help steady the gun. Ask questions
to figure out where the difficulty is.
Listen to your child. If she says she "can't do" something,
figure out why and help her find a solution. Don't give her a chance to
get discouraged and frustrated.
Remember, she's just little. Don't push her too hard. Her joy in being on
the range is, by and large, joy at being with you. Don't spoil
that for her!
Stay Safe and Have Fun!
See the take a newbie to the range
article for more helpful hints. After all, children are just extreme newbies,
who need shorter words, easier explanations, and closer targets.