By the time I was old enough to shoot a gun with a hammer, I had a lot of tattoos. From when I can remember I was allowed to keep my guns in my room. One half of my closet had my clothes and other frills and the other half had the important stuff. Gun stuff, hunting stuff, fly tying vice. My dad had the reloading press set up in the garage but my scale, was in my closet on my "bench" (a closet shelf).
And of course my guns. MY shotgun up until I was 14 was an Eastern Arms dog leg 410, with the exposed hammer. If springs wear out with use, then Eastern Arms must have made theirs out of kryptonite. If I cocked and decocked that thing once I did it 1,000,000 times. The same with my grandfathers Colt SAA. (with no ammo of course). Familiarity and practice is how I learned to keep from an ND with a hammer gun.
Are all kids given that opportunity and responsibility not to shoot holes in the walls or do stupid stuff? Well, NO, they're not. First off, if anyone got wind that a guy was letting his 10 yr old boy keep a bunch of guns, ammo, bullets, powder and primers in his closet where he spent most of his free time trying to wear out the actions on the guns, the SWAT team and CPS would descend on him like white on rice. Secondly, a tradition of tattooing the back of a boys head with an Aggie ring isn't deemed proper child rearing these days.
As a result, young men are not capable of being trusted with responsibility.
My boys started shooting when they could pull the trigger. I rode them pretty hard about safety too. As a father, you don't ever get to stop teaching safety, ever. That way, they won't ever stop teaching it either.
Now, even back when, I was probably the exception to the rule. There were plenty of kids who regularly got in trouble. I learned early on not to get caught. That's the best way to stay out of trouble. Don't get caught.
Alan
