Id like to see some suggestions from people knowledgeable about guns...

What would be a good way to childproof guns? There's got to be some technology out there that would be useful for this purpose. I've read that locks, fingerprint scanning and other things probably wouldn't work for various reasons. Can you think of any other way to keep a child from using a gun, other than a gun safe and responsible parents? Seriously.

there is really no other technology except a trigger lock. I think every gun should be trigger locked that is not in your immediate possession but thats me and i do not wish to push my views on another person.

children are smarter than adults think. the only thing that can really be done is to lock up the gun when you are not home

We pulled it out years after it was put up, it had a trigger lock, and because of that trigger lock, when the action was closed the gun would fire. Take the trigger lock off, and it's a good rifle.

It's not technology, but education that will fix the problem. The kid will find anything you don't want them to. They have to know that that gun is very dangerous when used improperly. The parents also need to keep an eye on their children.

Works the same with swimming pools. At four, some kids can scale an 8-foot privacy fence.

my parents used to cut the TV cables (the power cables) so i wouldnt watch alot of TV- well i saved up my lunch money for 2 weeks and bought wires and plugs....within about 4 hours i had spliced together the wires and had the TV going- all this at age 6

my parents found out 2 months later and were utterly amazed that i could do that

I was hiding in the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets at 18 months. My mother told me she fainted.

But that requires responsible parenting. So, how about an automatic lock that needs a combination to unlock? I know that there are trigger locks available now, but that requires that you use it. The responsible parenting thing again.

As soon as my wife and I have children, this is going up in the bedroom to hold my protection weapon.

http://www.safemart.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=6663

I'm talking about any new technology that would be useful in keeping children from firing guns. Obviously, there are and always will be people who don't keep their guns out of the reach of kids. We need to protect kids from irresponsible adults and I'm looking for real suggestions here.

one that i don't like but it would be on par with what bush and co. have done

we license dog owners, we license dog breeders, why don't we license parenting....there are so many irresponsible parents- there could be a background check, a mental health check, a parental competency check- you would have to take a course on parenting

it would probably stop alot of kids from dying...

I thought you meant in your personal situation. I just think this tool is better than your average gun safe, because you always hve your fingerprints with you, and if an intruder enters your home, you will have the ability to open the safe - right now - and protect your family.

I think responsible gun ownership is the real solution to children firing guns.

There was a child in Indianapolis this past weekend who accidently shot their sibling. The gun was at the top of a 6.5 foot bookcase with only a single bullet. The owner probably thought that was safe to keep 5 and 6 year olds away, but they climbed up the bookcase and got it.

Had he had a safe like the one I linked to, it'd be secure AND easily accessible. I think thats where you run into problems with a lot of gun owners is access. They want to get their gun to protect their family and trigger guards and normal gun safes take too long in a panic situation.

Dude, not everybody who owns guns or likes to shoot is a hunter.

It has a mechanical punch pad for quick access. I push two buttons simultaneously, then another, twist the knob, and lift the lid.

There are others with fingerprint readers and they pop open, but they are pricey and depend electricity.batteries.

ps. I know we argue, but this is a good question, Zanne.

its too unreliable at this stage...i will accept something like that when the police accept it- until then i wont

Usually I have to swipe my finger 4 or 5 times to get it to register properly. If someone's being attacked and their life is in danger, they need their gun to work immediately, not have it lock them out because it couldn't read their fingerprints correctly. And what if it's cold and they're wearing gloves? I wouldn't trust a gun with an electronic lockout system, not even if it cost a million dollars and was handmade by MIT's best engineers.

Some advancements in electronics technology, I suspect. I have a hard time imagining a solid state circuit board capable of standing up against the punishment of recoil over the course of any kind of real-life use, especially on a rifle.

gun aficionado these days, at least while pandering for votes. I'm sure she can tell you what she and Bill did with their guns while Chelsea was growing up.

Just don't contact her at 3AM

She looked ridiculous in that pickup.

But we still can't come up with a safe gun for kids to be around.

its called a safe- almost garunteed to prevent access

less reliable. Less accessible or less reliable are two qualities one does not want in a gun intended for self-defense.

Technology may catch up with the need, but we're not there yet.

but I thought you were asking for something above and beyond.

As a father of a 3 year old, I think about this very issue often.

Kids should become familiar with firearms at a young age, especially if parents have guns. If a child expresses interest in guns, parents should provide good training. Too much of the time a child's "experience" with guns is what they see on T.V.; hence, the "Ruger Ring" of kids forming a circle and talking in hushed fervent tones about a "centerfold" which turns out to be a gun out of a back pack.

Ignorance and unhealthy images of guns, sex and competition lead to unhealthy and dangerous behavior.

Your phone doesn't have to be smacked with a hammer repeatedly, like, 200 times a week every week for 20 years and still be as near to 100% reliable as possible when you do need to use it. The reality is that it's a tough job - recoil is not kind to electronics at all, you have to make the system extraordinarily compact (there just isn't a lot of free space in a gun to pack electronics), and it has to be Absolutely Reliable, every single time, both in locking out unauthorized users and in allowing the owner to fire.

As with a lot of technology, especially new stuff, "smart" guns are a good idea in theory but the practical implementation is lacking so far. I'm not opposed to the idea, but until it is pretty much foolproof (i.e. law enforcement will use it) I'm 100% against to making it MANDATORY.

So till then, I have to agree with everybody else, safe storage and education. I don't have time to look up the stats, but I'd wager that accidental poisoning of children due to unsecured medicines/cleaning products/what have you is probably more common than accidental deaths by firearm. I KNOW swimming pools are worse.

The five-inch dual-purpose gun on U.S. warships and some ground AA was loaded with shells containing a miniature (for the time) electronic circuit which "told" of a nearby attacking plane and exploded quite close to it (recall the game of horseshoes). The device was a success, but being made up of gobs of tiny hearing-aid vacuum tubes, there was a known 17% failure rate. In that case, I assume the shells exploded at pre-set altitudes as a sort of default.

I am still utterly amazed that this advanced device performed as well as it did in a ballistic projectile. But it only had to perform once, unlike proposed circuitry for firearms.

But the collective might of the entertainment industry can't stop people from downloading movies and music. Science and technology aren't magic solutions to every problem. Creating a viable smart gun requires you to create an extremely reliable and durable electronic lockout system and integrate it into a firearm without compromising the reliability and durability of the firearm itself. That's a tall order, especially if the resulting firearm is going to cost less than $10,000.

The first problem is the power source. Electronics need power to operate; a pistol lockout device would probably use something like a watch battery. Problem is, batteries aren't completely reliable and their power is depleted over time. If a gun's owner forgot to replace its battery in a timely fashion or got a dud one with much less life than normal, the gun could fail to work in an emergency and get them killed. Can you think of a solution to this problem? Particularly one that's remotely affordable to mass produce? If you can, there are a dozen more highly complex engineering obstacles for you to tackle before you can put a reliable smart gun on the market.

Ready, accessible, and safe for the kid to be around.

even one that as marketed as child-resistant?

I wouldn't. You still need a safe.

Anything can be unsafe. Well, there may be a few exceptions that I am not thinking of. Anyway, there is no way to make anything 100% safe and holding such a standard is unrealistic. In the end, the safety of anything really comes down to the competency of the user. Even then it is not 100%. One of my friend's father has worked in the timber business for many years and just recently had a chainsaw kick back and gouge the top of his hand. It did no permanent damage, beyond scarring, but he certainly knows how to handle a chainsaw. Another problem with such a standard is that if we want to make guns inaccessible to children we must also make them less accessible to the adult population. Since children are just small people, the only way to make weapons inaccessible to kids is to make them inaccessible to people in general. An adult may have a better chance of defeating whatever device due to greater experience and theoretical knowledge but you get the point. Also, any device that can be deactivated by an adult can also be deactivated by a child, providing the device does not rely on pure force to be defeated, and even then, most children quickly figure out machines.

Technology is a not a substitute for safe handling and/or education.

All of these fancy electronic technologies encourage people to think a gun is safe. They are not a substitute for treating all guns as if they were loaded. It lulls you into a false sense of security. I can leave this loaded gun out because Johny can't use it without my ring... malfunctions happen.

On top of that these safeties are one more thing that can make a gun not work when you do need it.


So.

Education for adults and children first... demystify them.
Storing ammo away from guns second.... never leave an weapon unsupervised if it is loaded.


Every household is different. Everyone's kids are different. Intelligence and safety isn't going to happen through any act of legislation... with the exception of free gun education programs and free locks.

I got my first gun when I was about 10. It came with some very strict instructions on gun safety. It was a right of passage event. To this day, I'm now 57, whenever I pick up one of my guns, the first thing I do is check to see that it is unloaded, even though no one else in my home would load a gun but me, I still check. It is, in my opinion, about educating your children about guns and gun safety. It is not a solution to pretend that your children won't be curious, they will be, but if you de-mystify the whole thing, kids can be taught gun safety.

In my opinion, if you are not willing to teach your kids, you shouldn't own a gun.

and repeatedly both the proper use and proper gun safety. We took them to the range with us at very early ages. They could see and hear the power of the gun. We would offer to let them shoot them and they didn't want to until they were like 6 or 7 then they shot .22 rifles and after shooting a larger hand gun once didn't want to again until they were quite a lot older. We tested them by leaving an unloaded gun out with a hair perched on it. They never touched it, not once. They would come and tell us that there is a gun out and we would promptly put it away and thank them graciously for alerting us. As they got older they knew they could shoot any of our guns any time they wanted as long as one of us was there to supervise. Now they ar both getting ready to be seniors and they like to shoot sometimes, they still know the rules and exercise them every time. So yes, education and demystification is the answer.

I'm sure you see to it that your kids cannot get to your guns. I also know that, even though your kids are smart and responsible, that doesn't mean that everybody's kids are. Education and demystification sounds wonderful but a bit naive. Because anybody's gun can kill, something very practical would have to be done to guns so that not everybody could have access to the trigger. And hoping for a change in human nature just won't cut it.

that makes it 100% safe around an unsupervised kid.

Education and access. That's the deal.

Unfortunately there are tons of parents that are not ideal. They also don't teach their kid to eat correctly, wear their seatbelts all the time, drive while talking on the cell phone, smoke, etc etc etc.

You can't fix these problems by legislation... it is awful to say, but in spite of everyone's best efforts shit happens sometimes.


Technology is not a substitute for proper handling and storage.

The fire safety programs have been fairly successful in stopping accidental fires from kids playing with lighters and matches. The problem is the gun issue is so emotionally charged on both sides I don't believe you could ever agree on a program. I was 9 and my brother was 10 when we got our first guns, all of our friends had guns at that age or within a few years of that age, I can't remember anyone every being injured from mishandling a firearm. I hope this helps.

David

You gunproof the child, not childproof the gun.

anywhere a child can get to it. For a semi-auto, rifle or handgun, don't leave a round chambered. By the time they're old enough to rack the slide and chamber a round he/she should have been taught that guns are not toys.

There is only one way to secure firearms from children, and that is to lock them up securely with the ammunition stored separately.

You can get a quick-access handgun safe that works by finger-depression code for a couple of hundred bucks. This allows safe storage, yet quick access in an emergency.

I do not favor gun locks, either attached to or integral with the pistol, because they require finding and operating the key and lock in an emergency. It's going to suck if your gun lock key is on your keychain, which is sitting on the kitchen counter where you left it when you got home from work, and you hear someone breaking in your home at 2am while you are in bed in your bedroom.

No, if you must keep a ready-access firearm, it should be in a combination or biometric-scan locked safe.

If you are not keeping a ready-access firearm, you should either have a gun safe to store all your weapons in, or at least lock up all the ammunition for all the weapons you own.

Most new firearms today come with integral gun locks built into them, but many people don't use them, for the reason I cited above. I will be skeptical of any biometric safety device built into firearms until they are reliable enough that they show up on law enforcement weapons. If the police are using them you know they'll be ready for prime time.

Years ago Smith and Wesson produced a pistol called a "lemon squeezer" (I own one from the late 1800's) that was designed to have a heavy trigger pull so as to make it "safer" around children. Not only does this make for a rather undesirable-shooting weapon, but I don't think it is much of a safety device anyway.

as part of their "Classic" series of throwback guns.

I believe they still are manufacturing them, but since their web page has been off line today, I'm not certain. It looks like they're doing some site maintenance it may be up shortly: http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=64978&langId=-1&isFirearm=Y

A review of the older model can be found at:
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/classics/model40_080607/index.html

Some of the "new" model 40's are still available:
http://www.smithwessonhandguns.com/item/72364_Smith__Wesson_Model_40_C.aspx

While this is a nice weapon and the grip safety might make it safer around very young children, it doesn't provide a serious deterrence to older children.

A gun safe is still the best answer.

I eagerly read the article in this month's Guns & Ammo about their new lemon squeezer. Looks nothing like mine, though. Mine looks just like this one:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=98846524

I'm still waiting for my letter of authenticity I sent off for.

U.S. Olympic Shooting Team.

A good deal both for you and for shooting sports.

On the one hand, when you are using the gun responsibly, you want it to function as close to 100% reliably as possible because you life is depending on it. And you also want a minimum of complexity in operation. This is why revolvers still sell well 150 years after they were introduced and 110 years after autoloading pistol was developed.

But when somebody else has the gun, you want it to become completely inert.

The fundamental problem is figuring out what characteristic the computer system is looking for. The most obvious is fingerprints.

You could go with some sort of firing-pin lock that is activated and deactivated by a solenoid and linked either to some kind of fingerprint reader. Upon positive identification, a little solenoid pushes a firing-pin blocker or lock out of the way, freeing up gun for action. But how do you fit a fingerprint reader on the face of a trigger?

I suppose you could go with a fingerprint reader on an obtrusive part of the gun, perhaps in front of and above the trigger. Hmmm... except you might accidently turn the gun off while in a confrontation. You are suppose to keep your finger alongside the frame of the gun until you're actually going to discharge a round.

Perhaps a palmprint reader? Make the grips of the guns read the entire palmprint perhaps. Of course, this means that the grips will probably have to be smooth and flat and clean, resulting in poor handling because the grip is slippery and not ergonomic.

Some have suggested some sort of RFID ring on the shooting hand, and there is some sort of low-powered transmitter/reciever in the gun. Only when the RFID ring was with a couple of inches of the gun would the safeties deactivate. I suppose that the tranciever in the gun could be activated by depressing a grip safety that would be tied to an electric switch, so the system would only turn on and radiate when the gun was held in a firing grip.


The problem is that ultimately you're depending on electronics to work reliably. Solid-state electronics are very tough. For example, we have artillery shells for the Army and Navy that have a laser-seeker head and guidence fins that can survive being shot out of a high-velocity cannon. But the system only has to work once. Such a system for a gun would have to be able to work very very reliably even after 30,000 sharp, potent shocks from firing. And the electronics systemw would have to be able to work very fast and very accuratly at determining whether you are an authorized user or not.


Another possiblity is putting the fingerprint reader on a holster instead, so that as you draw your conventional pistol from your hip, you would press on the sensor to unlock the restraining strap. The sensor would be located right where the trigger would be so it's in a natural spot for your index finger during your draw. When you were home, you could just remove the holder from your hip and put it in a nightstand or whatever so it is still secure.



That's all I've got.

Education, Education and more Education.

They do, however, shoot other children dead, as seen in the news this week. So the education thing is a little different in the two cases. With sexual activity, we're talking about children of a certain age. with firearms, we're talking about all children. Including the two-year-old who killed himself with a handgun last month.

Most people recognize that it is naive to expect that educating teens and pre-teens about the possible consequences of sexual activity -- unwanted pregnancy, disease, death -- is going to persuade all of them, or even most of them, not to engage in it.

So rational people of goodwill also provide them with the means to significantly reduce the risks: condoms and contraception.

I imagine you were including this in "education", but the actual analogy to "education" about the dangers of firearms is abstinence-only teaching.

What is the firearms equivalent of a condom? I think that's the question.

One that a five-year-old doesn't have to know about; it just has to keep the five-year-old from shooting him/herself or someone else.

At least that's what I was told.... maybe it was the double-stack they don't make.

Those are fine guns... surprisingly accurate. A bit expensive. I was surprised that I would like shooting it. My only remaining gripe is how hot they get on a range-day.

Might be "too concealable" for the people that want handguns banned.


That is probably as close as you're going to get to a child-resistant gun and still have it be reliable enough to use.

The mechanics of firing a gun are mostly just that. Mechanics, with a bit of chemical reaction thrown in. As others here have touched on, the various methods of introducing electronics into the mix cannot yield the necessary reliability.

In my own experience of raising two daughters around firearms, I went with a method that employed education, and a bit of a strength test. I kept a 1911 for self-defense, and regularly tested my daughters (with an unloaded pistol of course) to see if they could rack the slide. This worked well for quite some time. I'd have preferred to keep the thing in "condition one", but all in all this seemed an effective compromise.

In my opinion, there is nothing you can do to a real gun to make it "OK" for a child to play with unsupervised. Even hypothetical "smart guns" would still need to be kept out of the reach of children, and could still be stolen and hacked at a criminal's leisure, so you'd still need a safe even if something like that ever materialized. A safe is honestly the best approach all around.

The only real drawback to a safe is cost, although a childproof safe is certainly cheaper than a practical fingerprint reader or workable grip recognition would be. You can get a small quick-access safe suitable for a loaded handgun for $50 to $200, depending on security and features. If you can't afford a safe, a cable lock for guns not in use or on standby is an excellent approach (keeps the gun from even being loaded, something that trigger locks do not do).

If you are looking for alternatives to electronic approaches (most of which are unworkable), some sporting guns and a few handguns do come with built-in key locks; downside is that it doesn't prevent the gun from being loaded and cycled, or stolen and rendered useable by a criminal, so you still need a safe.

There was a device some years ago called a Magna-Trigger that could be fitted to revolvers, that would allow the revolver to function only if you wore a magnetic ring on the ring finger of your shooting hand (there was a part inside the gun's frame that the magnet would pull into position, allowing the gun to work). The problem with that approach is you have to wear the rings on both hands, any kid with a magnet can still use the gun, and if you lose the rings (or their magnetism fades over time) your gun no longer works. The company that made it is now defunct.

Some have suggested ultra-heavy trigger pulls that an adult male could manage to pull, but would theoretically be too hard for a child to pull. The problem is, that would make the gun useless for target shooting or hunting, would make it unusable by many adults (particularly women and the elderly), and wouldn't stop an older child. The problem for most mechanical "adults only" approaches is that an eight- or ten- or twelve-year-old has the strength and dexterity to activate most mechanical devices that are usable by the average adult (circle saws, cars, guns) IF they are allowed unfettered access to them. So you still have to control the child's access, and are back to the concept of a safe.

FWIW, there is some very good advice on safely storing guns here:

http://www.corneredcat.com/Kids/kidstorage.aspx

Personally, I think a tax credit to help working-class gun owners afford a UL-listed gun safe would be a good idea. If you read the article at the above link, you'll see that she went without a gun safe for years until she could afford one. So did my wife and I, for the same reason, and I'm sure tens of millions of others do as well.

BTW, for young children (pre-kindergarten), a semiauto with the chamber empty, magazine loaded is probably unusable by a child. But I still wouldn't allow a child unsupervised access to one (or to a completely unloaded gun, for that matter).

years ago. It was called the "Magna Trigger". It required modification of the revolver's front strap to allow for a built in lock that was released when a special magnet ring came into contact with the front strap.

Tests had it at 100% reliable but it was limited to certain S&W revolvers only due to the design of the lock-work. I believe it is still out there but not readily available. It is the method I would choose for a police service revolver if I carried one.

This is an excerpt from a article on Smart gun technology:

The third smart gun safety mechanism postulated is magnetic technology. This is the one least often discussed by the gun-banners. That's because a magnetism-based smart gun actually exists, and has been working for some 25 years.

A full-time inventor named Joe Davis designed something he called Magna-Trigger in 1975, and patented it shortly thereafter. It was a modification of a S&W revolver with leaf-type mainspring (i.e., K-frame or larger) so that it could only be fired by someone wearing a magnetic ring on their middle finger.

The front strap of the S&W's grip-frame is cut away and replaced with a module that holds what looks like a little steel flag and flagpole. The flag blocks the rebound slide, allowing the trigger to be drawn back only far enough to drop the bolt and allow a cylinder rotation check. It prevents the gun from firing.

When the hand wearing the magnetic ring closes into a firing grasp, reverse polarity between the ring magnet and the one mounted at the base of the "flagpole" spins the latter unit. The metal flag is now clear of the rebound slide, and the gun can instantly be fired in double-action mode.



The article can be found here. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_2_47/ai_68704848/pg_2

and should be "must reading" for a excellent primer on smart gun technology.

there there are a few floating around on the second-hand market, still. However, last I saw they were commanding ridiculous prices.

1. Keep them locked up when they are not in use.

2. Gun-proof your kids by teaching them safe gun handling as soon as they are old enough.

Do you mean a 4 yr old, or a 12 yr old?

Are you talking about a child who is capable of defeating trigger locks etc.? Or just preventing unintended discharges?


It's doubtful it will be new technology, or anything electronic, electronics are just not robust enough for firearms. yes, there are laser sights, but there are iron sights to fall back on should they fail.

I will think about it some more though.

This is the opposite of a hair trigger. DAOs literally do two actions before firing. They are less accurate but civilian shootings usually take place at "within a room" distance. I don't recommend safeties except for passive safeties (such as grip safeties - a lever built into the back of the grip, this also prevents firing when dropped). In a life and death moment you simply won't remember or have the manual dexterity to handle a safety, unless you practice until it becomes second nature like cops and military personnel.

but i was under the impression cops didn't safety their side arms

Anyway, there was a thread a while ago about a child who supposedly shot themselves with a DA revolver - heavy pull and all.

Don't know what the determination was on that incident.

...in response to a child shooting accident. This model has a staged trigger pull that is very heavy at the beginning, but light and crisp at the end to allow for a well aimed shot- nearly impossible for a child to shoot.
It is called the New Departure or the New Century and was introduced around 1900.
The politicians and antis have ignored these safety innovations for many decades.

If you have kids around guns, the guns should be locked (trigger locks are available for at least 20 years, for $10 or so) and the child educated about the guns.
You must remember that more kids die in swimming pool accidents every year than in gun accidents, and many more in car accidents.

mark

3rd gen Democrat and gun owner

Every death is a tragedy. There is no denying this. We should not be penalizing all gun owners for the negligence of a few.
The responsibility to prevent a tragedy rides on the gun owners. No matter what expensive technology you implement, you likely will never totally eliminate negligent discharges. Basic simple and effective inexpensive gun locking mechanisms have existed for many years. Not every mechanism fits every gun. That is where people often go wrong. You must find one which properly fits and neutralizes your weapon. In recent years, firearms have been coming from the factory with integral locks. These are an example of simple and effective means to neutralize the weapon.

such as this Glock:

"The GLOCK safety lock is the first safety cylinder lock for pistols worldwide located conveniently in the back of the pistol grip. The GLOCK safety lock ensures that the weapon cannot be used or disassembled without permission."










Since it's a simple mechanical lock, I'm sure it can be defeated with just a little Dremmel work.

But this isn't really isn't that much different from a trigger lock, in that in a crisis situation, you must unlock the firearm before you can use it.

This might not be a bad compromise as long as the key doesn't get in the way while you carry.


In my mind, you should either be carrying your firearm or it should be in a safe.

If you really need one by the bed, then there one of these.

Most rifles and shotguns have removable bolts. This includes semi-automatics, through its takes some disassembly to remove the bolts. In a M1903 Springfield you remove the bolt by putting the Safety in a mid-way point and you can pull out the bolt directly from the rear. In a M16, you have to hit the rear pin holding the barrel to the receiver, then pivot the weapon on the front pin and pull out the bolt. No bolt the weapon can NOT be fired.

In the M1911 45 Pistol, can also be removed (It has been years since I did one, but it is not that hard and I believe I can still do it, but I need a M1911 to remember how and to give a description how). Revolvers and harder, no bolt per se, easier to remove the cylinder that holds the Ammunition (I have never had to disassemble a Revolver, but most are designed to removed the cylinder for cleaning).

When I was in the National Guard, we turned in our weapons after every drill and if we were NOT going to use them for any length of time the bolts were stored in the Local Police Station. Thus if anyone ever broke into the Armory, most times they would get weapons without bolts (Through if broken into before a Drill or before Summer Camp the bolts would be in the Armory).

My father always kept the bolts separate from the guns. As a child I could find the guns, but never the bolts (He kept them well hidden, in his own room away from the guns). He did NOT have a safe for the bolts, but just keeping them separate there was no way I could do much harm when I found the guns. Please note my father only had rifles and shotguns no pistols, as a farmer he had use for rifles and shotguns but had no use for a pistol (Through he did carry one as a night time mail truck driver, but that was kept by the post office itself and he never brought it home, when he had to carry one he picked one up and signed for it and when it was time to quit for the day he turned it in).

Separating the bolt from the rest of the gun makes it hard for Children to get BOTH and do damage. My father rarely had ammunition in the home, but kept it stored with the bolts (if small quantity). He rarely had a large quality of Ammunition, his policy was to shoot off any excess rounds (which I did with him as I grew older) rather then keep the ammunition around the house.

That is the best policy to adopt, bolts away from the weapons and Ammunition in a third place in the house if possible. You can mix the Ammunition with the Rifles and Shotguns, all three can take up a large area, but the bolts if removed from the weapons, makes combining the ammunition and bolt-less guns as safe as if the guns and Ammunition were in two different rooms.

Other than trigger locks and such, there is little that can be properly implemented at this time. I say teach your kids about guns, take the mystery out of it, and when not home, or not in use, lock it in a lock box or safe. If you don't make the guns a mysterious thing, children will not care about it most of the time.