I first want to start off this post with a little story.

First of all, I want all of you responsible gun owners to keep your guns in a locked or inaccessible place if you have kids around.  My sister just moved up here from FL.  Her two kids, ages 2 and 5 get in to everything.  Obviously, I mean, they're kids.  My sister has grown up around firearms and absolutely loves and respects them.  She would like me to teach the 5 year old how to shoot, pistols and rifles alike.  Before they moved up here, I had my rifles leaning up against a book case in my bedroom and my pistols tucked away in my closet.  From day one, I told the children that the guns were COMPLETELY off limits...no ifs ands or buts about it UNLESS I was present.  To ensure this, I put a lock on my bedroom door.  Well a couple of days later the 5 year old is in my bedroom playing a game called Return To Castle Wolfenstein, some of you may have heard of it (1st person 3D shoot'em up)  I didn't want him spending more than an hour on the game for pretty obvious reasons. After telling him to stop the game, I stepped away...just for a brief moment (less than a minute) And after I had come back, without even knowing it, he had grabbed the HK91 trigger pack (frame and all) I had out for cleaning and proceeded to point it at me and pull the trigger.  First of all, a 5 year old cannot discern between a trigger pack and a pistol, so he had disregarded my all important rule...(or had he?) I said to him "never touch ANY of my guns UNLESS I am around"...my God, he didn't break my rules, he was exactly within their boundaries.  I believed a blanket rule like "NEVER TOUCH ANY OF THE GUNS UNLESS I AM AROUND" would suffice.  Something like this had completely slipped my mind.  I got angry with him at the time, but realized later that he didn't know any better... it is these things we have to think about. This incident occurred over a week ago, but I can't help but thinking what if...what if it was my USP that remains loaded at all times?  what if it was my .22 pistol?  For all of you with kids, please, if it hasn't already occurred to you, keep them locked up.  If you're like me, have all but one locked up and keep it within your visual range (out of kids' reach)  I am all about home protection and killing intruders, so I'm not going to preach socialist views about how to secure weapons.  Just be extremely safe and let your children know the boundaries.  With that being said, the new addition: [img]http://www.vzavenue.net/~mrequivocal/pistol/hkusp.jpg[/img]

Input welcome in this matter

Take em to the range and show them what really happens when you shoot something. Try a milk jug full of water and RED food coloring. Then let him shoot it, assisted of course. Then patiently teach him gun safety and not only will you have a shooting partner for life, you will teach a youngster our marvelous sport.

If you happen to try to teach them to shoot, start out w/ something small (22LR) and load 1 round only. We don't want a repeat of that tragic story of someone posting.  (Was a father teaching a 6(?) year old how to shoot w/ a 45 ACP semi auto.... had more then one round in the clip.)

Can somebody direct me to the above mentioned thread? ^

[url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=135099[/url]

I'll be the first to say, NICE GUN!!!  I have one just like it [:)].  Sometimes when I come home from work I dim the lights a little, get the HK out of the safe, lay it down on a nice cushy towel,.......   DOH!, never mind [:)]

*LOL* at schapman...I just dim the lights and fondle its parts

Serious question here.
At 5 years old does he make the connection between shooting in the first person shooter game and shooting in real life?  Does he realize that the game is a representation of a gun and that the goal of the game is to shoot stuff?

If he does, than be VERY careful that you are not sending mixed messages to a 5 year old.  On the one hand, showing them how to play a game as entertainment, and showing the child that this is all right (even encouraging the behavior) you are saying that nothing bad actually happens when you do this.  Thus, when he aimed the trigger pack at you, he did not expect anything bad to happen, no bad consequences, because he has no real life experience with firearms and shooting people in the real world.

My girlfriend is about to get her master's degree to be a teacher and she's taken more child development classes than I can shake a stick at.  She says that a 5-year old can NOT comprehend the difference, is not at the cognitive developmental level, to understand the seperation of reality and fantasy in this type of situation.  If he's playing a realistic representational game, he will not understand the difference.  The game looks close enough to reality that he can't seperate it.  Some of this has to do with the realism of the Wolfenstein game--I've beat the thing and it looks far more real than Elmer Fudd shooting at Bugs Bunny.

She says the bottom line is that if you don't want the kid to think that guns are ok to play with, don't let him play with them in a simulated reality such as Wolfenstein.  Find a more age appropriate game and let him get back to the more realistic war games when he is old enough to understand better what is going on.

By the way, my girlfriend DOES shoot with me, she's not an anti-gunner or an anti-video-gamer.  She just knows child development a hell of alot better than I do and she says you are probably confusing the kid with mixed messages.