A Child Cannot be an Adult

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, 

I reasoned like a child...

1 Corinthians 13:11

 

Of all the horrible stories that currently litter the headlines and news shows, one of the most tragic is the Kentucky five-year-old who accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister with the .22 rifle he received for his 5th birthday.  I have read countless articles "explaining" to the listening audience that children in Kentucky tend to receive guns at an early age, allowing them to go hunting with their fathers.  My father also wanted me, the only girl in the family, to experience the joy of hunting and target shooting, but he did not place a .22 in my hands until I was twelve-years-old.

Although authorities in Kentucky would like us to think that this is an unusual, isolated incident, it is, unfortunately, a lot more common than that.  In April of this year, a four-year-old boy in Tennessee shot and killed an adult woman.  Days later, a six-year-old New Jersey boy was killed when he was shot in the head by a four-year-old playmate.

My father was an avid hunter who owned a wide variety of rifles, shotguns and pistols.  He built a magnificent cabinet to store all of his guns and ammo - locked up tighter than a drum - with absolutely no access by his children without his knowledge, permission and guidance.  On Sundays, he would take my brothers (and eventually me) out to the desert for target practice.  I vividly remember the day he allowed me to shoot his 30.06 - one of the great thrills of my childhood.  Yes, Dad taught us how to shoot, but he also taught us how to stay alive while handling firearms.  He instilled in us a deep respect for the power of the gun in our hands.

A five-year-old has no capacity to think or reason as an adult.  Nor are they capable of reasoning from cause to effect.  A five-year-old is barely out of toddlerhood, and thinks like the small child that he/she is.  I have absolutely nothing against a family owning guns.  However, if your "tradition" is to give preschoolers their own .22, then be responsible for making sure that they never have free access to that gun until they are old enough to truly understand exactly what they hold in their hands.