Talk to your kids about guns

The education of children about guns in the United States is a very important, and very underdiscussed 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.