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@mrsjazz: funny story, when I first moved to NYC and saw all the po-po with guns everywhere I was freaked out. It reminded me of paramiltaries in unstable countries. Of course now I don't even notice one way or the other.
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@plantains: I think it's more of the "just in case" mentality! I'm sure it seems weird to some people but it's completely normal here! I'm in NC btw, so we're not up north
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@MrsTiz: yep, you are totally right everything is relative. I bet if I moved down south I would stop noticing soon enough.
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@MrsTiz: oh my lord! my mind is blown!!! I would be terrified if I saw someone with a gun. Are those loaded?? I'd never let my kid go to someones house if their parents carried a loaded weapon on them, it would be easy for a child to accidentally get at it, right?
Being in Canada I don't have to worry about this! Thank god.
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@MrsTiz: My jaw is on the floor!!!! (UK girl like @plantains:).
It's just amazing how we look the same but we are culturally so different.... If I came to NC, I'd be scared to go out of the house!! Thank you for sharing that. My mind is BLOWN.
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@Mrs. Champagne: DH's is, i'm not sure about the other guys (the black one) but i'd be willing to bet it is. DH doesn't wear his at home though.
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@MrsTiz: So when he gets home and doesn't wear it, what does he do with it? I'm so curious. I'd literally never seen a gun in my life until DH started hunted, and that's only rifles.. and even those I only see when he is transporting them to and from the safe before/after hunting.
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@Mrs. Champagne: Well right now we don't have any LO's running around, so if it's just DH and I home alone he keeps it on top of the fireplace mantle because we're mainly in the living room. If we have guests coming over he puts it either in our room with the door shut (if it's just our parents or whatever) but if we're having a group over or our niece he'll put it in the gunsafe. (Key is on his keychain)
It'll stay in the safe once LO is here
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Whoa. I'm a New Englander and I don't know anyone who has a gun in their house except my FIL. I have already told DH that our kid is not going over there without us until we know how he stores that gun (and that has nothing to do with gun owners and everything to do with his personality and his tendency to not be safe about anything). Even the hunters that I know keep their guns at their hunting lodge. I never even thought about asking this question.
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@MrsTiz: I'm actually surprised you're in NC and the guys have holsters. I just thought that was a Texas thing. Didn't think it was prevalent anywhere else. I'm in super redneck-ville central FL, and only cops carry in holsters. Unless you're hunting, and then you just holster carry for protection against bears. I'm also in construction. Everyone has a handgun in their truck, though.
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@BananaPancakes: All the southern boys wear holsters, the ..hoodlums.. just put them in their pockets/waistbands. When in a truck I think they're just tucked in between the seat, DH just puts his there and keeps his holster on. DH actually makes holsters! He made both of those haha
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DH owns a gun. He's also an expert level marksman, certified by the military. Almost every male friend we have owns at least one gun, and some of the females do too. Some are hunters, some are hobbyists, some are in law enforcement. Some of them have a conceal and carry and carry a concealed weapon on their person.
I know how to shoot a gun, how to safely load, unload and clean a firearm and I have shot everything from a 9mm to an AK.
Not one person I know takes owning a weapon as a joke. Not one of them would allow one to just sit around their house. All own a gun-safe of some kind and their firearms are safely stored, unloaded.
C will learn gun safety. She will learn to be responsible and how to handle and shoot a gun.
It makes me sad that being a responsible gun owner is enough that people would ostracize my child and not allow them to play with her or come to our house.
Thats really all I have to say about the issue.
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I don't subscribe to the idea of not asking because you assume you know someone well enough. Before I knew her, my friend's brother was killed by a gun in their home when he and his friend started playing with it. I was too young to follow the story at the time and I never wanted to ask my friend exactly why they were able to get to the gun, but after knowing their family for many years since, I would never characterize her parents as generally irresponsible people. Quite to the contrary, actually. But, one of their children is dead nevertheless. I can't guarantee that even a person who takes their duty to store guns and ammo safely seriously and gets it right 99.9% of the time won't slip up just once, the one time it matters. So I will definitely be asking if there are firearms in the house, how they are secured, what gun safety measures they've discussed with their kids, etc. I would be wary of allowing my kid to play in a home where guns are present, but will decide on a case-by-case basis if necessary.
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@MrsTiz: I think most people don't actually carry on them here. My husband and I both have concealed licenses, but I never carry and he only does when he's in the woods. I think just having it holstered in the car is good enough for most in these parts.
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@zippylef: not to incite a huge discussion, but it's close to my heart since it's geographically close to me. Nancy Lanza was a responsible gun owner, she even took her son to the shooting range so that he knew how to handle the weapons that she purchased legally. At the end of the day, it's not just about being a responsible gun owner, it is also about mental health. There are just too many variables to make a blanket decision.
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@zippylef: passing an Internet high-5 your way !
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@looch: I definitely agree with you. Mental health is, IMO, a bigger issue than being a responsible owner. I actually don't care about owning guns. It's not necessarily something I'm super passionate about. I wouldn't care if the US went the way of the UK and banned personal firearms altogether.
It does still make me sad that the fact that we DO have one in our home would cause someone to not allow their child to be friends with mine though.
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@MrsTiz: It is crazy how different things are elsewhere, isn't it? Guns are just normal around here. My dad owns guns, but he has a locked safe. I've never actually seen his in the house out in the open, but I know he goes to the shooting ranges.
DH isn't a gun guy (not that he's anti-gun), but he didn't grow up interested in hunting or anything, so it's doubtful that we'll have any in our house, but our family members do have them. They make me feel a bit uneasy (I remember shooting one of my dad's once and it was just so loud and it scared me a bit), but its not like my kids won't go to my parents house because there are guns there.
I believe I'll just assume there are guns in the houses, and I'll ask if they are locked up, but my kids won't be going if I don't trust them to begin with. Accidents happen, which is why a safe is so important. Around here though, it's safe to say that over 75% of homes have guns.
BTW, MrsTiz and I live less than 2 hours apart, both in NC.
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@zippylef: I don't think anyone is going to disallow your child to be friends with theirs just because you have a gun in your home. Or at least I don't think anyone said that.
I will ask if they have guns and if they do are they loaded? Are they locked up in a gun safe? Is the ammo separate? (See, I learned some things today from this thread). But like @lilteacherbee: said I will also use my own judgement if something rubs me the wrong way (about the parents) then my child won't be playing over there by herself.
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Holy crap. I grew up in PA so I'm familiar with guns for hunting but seeing pictures of people with gun holsters is really shocking for some reason. I guess I never really thought that people did that in this country. I live in Chicago so the only people with guns around here are pretty much cops or gang members so it scares the living s*it out of me to think about being around people in broad daylight with loaded guns- especially if it's for no other reason than just because they can. Thinking that you need to have a gun on your person in 2013 does not compute in my brain.
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@mrsjazz: I'm sad that I learned that guns and ammo should be locked up separately from all the horrible news stories lately. I mean, I'm glad to know that (not that I will ever have a gun in my own house) but sad that it was all over the news so much because of sad events.
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@MrsTiz: Those pictures of your coworkers blow my mind. I'm an American but have lived abroad for many years in countries that happily do not allow guns (UK and Australia) and it is images like that that give Americans such a crazy name every where else in the world.
Fortunately, living in Australia, we don't have to worry about that because no, I am not comfortable with my child being in a house with a gun, no matter how ''safe' the owner thinks they are being with their storage of the guns. The safest way to store a gun is to not have one at all.
As for my child being friends with a child of gun owners, sure, no problem with that, they just won't be playing at their house. The child can come to ours or we can do play dates out and about. My exception to this rule is when one or both parents are required to have guns for their job (law enforcement or military) because then they are forced to have them and darn well should know how to store them. I have no such faith in Joe Blow common man who just bought a gun because he has 'the right' to buy one.
God I love Australia, two of my biggest issues with America (guns and lack of universal healthcare) are non-issues here!
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I should add that most of my friends are part of the small percentage that don't own guns. As a child guns did, and still do, make me somewhat uncomfortable. My grandfather had (up until he passed away 2 months ago) 4 hunting guns displayed on the wall in his house that were not and hadn't been loaded in probably 20 years, and they still made me feel uneasy.
Honestly, it's one of the few things that I don't like about the South, but guns really are super common here. When I was in middle school, a distant relative was shot and killed by his friend in a hunting accident in the woods near my grandparents house. Ever since then, I realized how incredibly dangerous guns are and I don't like being around them. However, it's a fact of life around here and I plan to teach my children to NEVER touch a gun and I guess I'll have to use my best judgement when it comes to other people and their homes.
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I'm amused by all the shock over those photos. I've lived in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan... and I know people in all those places that carry.
I just stayed in a friend's home (he's a doctor) that had a "bed gun" (special bed frame holster), 2 AR15's in the garage, and another assortment of guns in a wall case. He lives in TN. His wife is a nurse and she carries a concealed weapon as well.
In my grandparents home where I am right now (in FL), there are three rifles, two shotguns, and two handguns (all in safes).
At my husband's job, 75% of his coworkers carry. Most of his friends (and their wives!) carry. There were probably five concealed weapons at Vivi's party.
This is America ya'll! There are a lot of guns here, it's not just Texas.
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No. We have guns in our house and LOs will be taught at a very young age the seriousness of guns. All houses contain other 'weapon' type items such as knives, bats etc and just like those things, anything that could potentially harm a child will be instilled in our children.
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@MrsTiz: my kids can play with your kids. My brother carries a gun as well. Well he did, he has to get his license for GA still.
Before I would let my kids go and play at someone's house before I know the parents. So if I trust the parents then I would be ok. Everyone I know that has a gun in the house has them locked in a safe.
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@Arden: I think a big part of it is regional? It's not that way here in Brooklyn, at least among my friends...
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@mrbee: Well yes in NY guns are very restricted, but there was a poster that said she was surprised at the guns in NC because she thought that was just a Texas thing. I think guns are common in more states than not!
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@BananaPancakes: Wait, you live in Central FL and you don't think most people carry?! Trust me, you see dozens everyday, they just have their holster UNDER their shirt.
I'm in the Leesburg/Apopka/Eustis area and I know dozens of people that carry 24/7.
It's super common to carry here. -
@Arden: gun ownership in the States is way down over the past few decades... it's was at 50% in the 80s and went down to 35% in the 2000s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html?pagewanted=all
The NRA has been damaged by recent events (at least, outside of its core)... widely supported gun legislation (like background checks) is increasingly likely to happen.
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@mrbee: .Interesting. I'm guessing that survey has bias toward legal gun ownership only though. Too bad it's impossible to track ALL guns!
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@mrbee: I'm not arguing legislation or background checks or anything like that, I'm just surprised that people think that no one they know carries! People need to be aware that just because you don't SEE a gun, or because the person is a normal, average kind of person, doesn't mean they don't have a gun.
It's still quite common. -
@Arden: So true! I didn't realize that til dh became a cop.
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@googly-eyes: the article touches a bit on that:
"The survey does not ask about the legality of guns in the home. Illegal guns are a factor in some areas but represent a very small fraction of ownership in the country, said Aaron Karp, an expert on gun policy at the Small Arms Survey in Geneva and at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. He said estimates of the total number of guns in the United States ranged from 280 million to 320 million."
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@Arden: We have different American experiences. I have friends and family in North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana and none of them are gun owners. I'm sure they know gun owners, of course. The few gun owners I do know live upstate NY and are hunters.
ETA: I should mention that most of the people I am talking about are originally East Coasters who are transplants to the South.
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@mrbee: Yeah I saw that. I just wonder how they track ones that are illegally coming in?
ETA Also ones that are no longer working, etc.
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@Arden: Lol @ "this is America y'all"
I feel like I'm in the minority here now! I think you guys would be surprised at how many people with guns you come in contact with everyday! I can't help but laugh at some of these responses lol
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@Arden: Perhaps, but I don't know anyone with a gun. I don't have a ton of friends though... maybe a dozen.
In Virginia and DC it was a lot more common...
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@googly-eyes: not to mention unregistered guns that are really old. DH was given a gun by his grandpa from WW2 and It was unregistered, so that number only gets higher!
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@MrsTiz: yep, my dad has 3 old, unregistered hunting rifles.
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