One of the things that happens when you have a kid is visits to the pediatrician; and it seems they’re asking parents about whether there’s firearms in the house. This is being pushed as a safety measure, a chance for the pediatrician to discuss “’firearms safety” with new parents. My question is, why specifically firearms? Firearms are fairly safe, after all. Much safer than, say, kitchen knives; since those cannot be unloaded, can cause serious harm or death simply by being grasped incautiously, and they’re far more commonly ignored as a safety hazard. Or pools which kill FAR more children every year than do firearms, but wasn’t mentioned by our pediatrician at all.
In fact, my Buckyball magnetic ball bearing toy is much more dangerous to my child than my firearm right now, since he hasn’t the strength to pull the trigger, but is about to explore the world by mouth, and swallowing a pair of small, powerful, magnets is painful and potentially deadly. Eventually, he will get stronger, and I’ll have to teach him the 4 Rules. Furthermore, it’s a quite serious felony in NJ to allow unsupervised access to a firearm for a young child; just to reinforce how stupid an idea that it. (Not that I necessarily agree with the law, plenty of good ideas don’t need to be enshrined in law.)
Somehow I don’t think the safety advise I’m going to get from the pediatrician is going to be “obey the 4 Rules and teach them to your kid,” though. Not when he says “and of course you don’t have firearms.”
