Your kids are grown and out of the house and you’re enjoying your empty nest (more room for gun stuff). Most of your guns are safely locked away in a safe or stagged around the house for your home defense. You have set up one of your adult kids’ rooms as a gun room, complete with a gun cleaning table where you currently have a .45 taken apart for cleaning.
A friend brings over their 5 and 7-year-olds and lets them run roughshod all over your home. The kids are opening cabinet doors, drawers, and exploring every nook and cranny they can find. The 5-year-old comes back with the car gun safe you had on the gun cleaning table so you could check the size for your carry gun. Your back up gun is in the car safe, loaded, and the 5-year-old is shaking the car safe.
@Dawn, kids running around is a recipe for disaster, no matter if you have guns or not. Yes, if you have youngsters in the home, you are likely better prepared for that kind of behavior. If you don’t - like us these days - kids arriving gets all the alarm bells going off at once.
If we know kids are going to arrive, we take proper precautions - breakables are stored up and away, head swivels are lubricated, etc. If kids show up unexpectedly, that’s a…well…um…that’s never happened before, so I would have to say we would probably quietly panic while taking previously noted precautions.
My gun room is my office. The door stays closed when I am not working and is frequently closed when I am working (it’s my signal to my wife when I can or can’t be interrupted). “Working” includes gun maintenance. My guns are in my safe or on my person. I lock my office when we have groups of people over. I would do the same were a friend to show up with kids in tow. My office door is right next to the main entrance door, so it is very easy to lock the office door before answering the doorbell.
First off I’m yelling at my friend; get your kids under control. They also know I do not tolerate unruly kids in my home, I will personally address the kids. Second, throat punch the kids…they can’t run roughshod all over my house and get into my guns if they can’t breathe. Throat punches solve a lot of behavioral issues. lol
For real though, I am getting on my friend to get their kid under control. Then I am 100% getting on the kid and telling them they are not allowed to run through my house like that and they are not to grab anything that does not belong to them, which is everything. Then I am grabbing the save, checking the gun in the spare room, then shutting the door and explicitly telling them they are not allow in that room again.
Immediately take off one shoe and fling it across the room, hitting said kid in the head and swiftly knocking him out, momentarily,then walk across the room and retrieve safe
This has never happened and will not gonna happen in the house where I live…
However this is a good question and I will keep looking here to see other’s answer.
My granddaughter is very mobile now and we’ve put child locks on all of our low cabinets - it’s a pain in the butt, but it’s worth it to keep her safe.
There are certain rooms she’s no longer allowed in unsupervised - my bedroom is one of them. There’s a second room in the basement she’s not allowed in. She’s also shorter than me (at this point) so we can still store things up high, but not too high because I’m short.
I do not let children run around my house - if a parent isn’t watching the kids enough, they are asked to leave.
Older kids are told where the restrooms are and informed that all other rooms besides the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and main room downstairs are off-limits. They are also warned that if they want to stray from the main room downstairs to explore the rest of the basement they will be doing all of the laundry they encounter in the laundry area of the basement… They don’t stray.
I have no issue “barking” at ANY child in my house. If I was in the middle of cleaning a gun, I would finish what I’m doing. Other than that, I don’t leave guns unattended. I also have locks on my interior doors. I don’t trust people.
Only child that visits here is my 2 year old granddaughter. She’s never left unattended and all firearms are locked up except the one I’m carrying. Besides, my wife won’t allow another person’s child in our house.
I would politely take it from the kid. I would suggest very strongly that my friend take his kids home and set up a time to have a serious conversation. It is not just weapons. If those kids get into tools, chemicals, or other things by not being supervised or taught to respect someone’s home, they need to be somewhere else if their conduct is not mediated.
It may seriously strain or end a friendship. Such a person is not truly your friend.
Frankly, my gun room has it’s own locking door. I leave and close it. It locks automatically.
In this case, the person with the gun room needs to reevaluate their safety and handling procedures.In fact, some federal and most states have laws that demand this of owners of firearms. You could be held liable for anything that happens.
If there are kids in my house any sensitive rooms are locked before they get there. We tell people our house is not “kid friendly” and gate off areas in addition to locked doors if we have any come over.
They are never allowed to run amok in my house, ever. We have friends that are close to hoarders and their kids try to run around our house because we have so much space but I don’t let them, ever. The first time one of them tried to hit my dog I was there in a blink. Nobody knew I could move that fast. I grabbed both kids and told them if they ever did that again they would never come back. problem solved.
Anyway, I would have locked the room if there were a gun apart or anything within reach. If they showed up unannounced, I would have excused myself to lock the room. That’s just how I am.
I lock up my guns for 2 reasons, we have company or I’m on vacation and one of my house sitters has my guns on her permit.
I have offended more than one guest in my house due to their children. I have also spoken quite sternly to a child or two (to the parent’s utter amazement that they listened). I have also body slammed a dog that bit me in my own house. My Aunt and Uncle are welcome in my home but their dog will be shot on sight and they know it. I’m generally pretty easy going but it IS MY house and I take that seriously.
