Can anyone remember when you were just a hair too short for that cool ride at the amusement park? Trying to walk under the height stick on your tiptoes or sticking your chin out only to be told by the ride operator that you are just too small. Well, my son and I are pretty vertically challenged. My son is 6 and he just loves to go shooting with me. I bought him a Walther p22 and an M&P 15-22. His little hands are just too small to reach the trigger and his arms are just too short to shoulder the rifle. He knows how to load and work the actions but just can’t get the sight picture. I get a tear in my eye when he goes to the line and runs off a mag in his guns. A true shooting buddy.
A family that shoots together stays together.
Please find him some eye pro- I think we can all agree if given a choice we would take our sight over our hearing any day.- Don’t take that as anything other than face value It’s nice to see a fellow dad taking the lead on educating his son in the shooting sports instead of relying on outsiders to do it for him.- I can’t wait to get my four year old out on the line with me in a couple of years.
I just took my 8 year old son out last week. He’s shot plenty of rifles (mp5’s, ak74 and ruger 10/22’s) but still can’t keep an ar steady enough to let him shoot it. Last week was his first day with a pistol (walther p22 as well) and he shot a bullseye with his first shot, and kept the rest within about a 6" moa. I don’t know who was more proud, him or me. Thanks to the fine mentoring from TheKatar and GutshotJohn I was able to teach him to shoot correctly from the start. Just keep trying, I had to wait for my son to be able to get a good sight picture as well but since he had already been used to shooting he handled it pretty well and knew how to act.
I was 6 when my father sat me on the bed and showed me the Ruger 10/22.
He taught me how to load the magazines, how to unload, how to charge the weapon and how to safely unload as well.
We went out in the back yard and shot soda cans and pie plates. It was a blast…I loved it.
Then he put a watermelon down range and shot it, causing pink stuff to fly. He stopped shooting and looked down at me and said “That could be you or one of your friends…you never, ever touch this thing unless I’m there and say it’s ok. Understand?”
I did, and that graphic example made an impression on me.
Kids who are exposed to guns and their safe handling at an early age tend to stay out of trouble with them. Those whose parents treat guns as a taboo, that’s where/when they get into trouble when they’re exposed to them.
Your boy looks like he know exactly what he is doing down to the T and dot. Just the way he holding it in that pic shows you taught him well. Get them while they are young. And better to knowledge them early and get their curiously little mind and unsupervised hands out the window.
I taught all of my kids gun safety and how to shoot plus one grand daughter. I never had to worry about one of them playing with a gun they found out of curiosity. Only my son likes to shoot now. But they still learned. (3 girls)
We lived in a rural community for a few years and the school actually taught gun safety because of the hunting environment. I think more schools should do this.
I sat my son down on the bed just like your dad. I feel it is better to do it inside so the distraction of just shooting the gun isn’t there. Concentrate on basics and let the excitement kick in when he knows what he is doing.
I hear ya about having a son that is short in stature. He is 10 1/2, a genius, and so far a dead eye. But he is too small to even hold a 10/22. So he is limited by his size to his “cricket”. He can shoot my AR, but it has to be from a rest. He wants to go hunting so badly, but there really isn’t anything that he can hold that will take down a buck.
My early experience with firearms pretty much mirrors that of Templar, I could shoot anytime I wanted but was not allowed to touch anything unless my grandfather was there.
I think the recommendation for a Cricket is spot on, ideal for the 5-7 y/o size.
That is great. I have two boys just like that (5 and 8). Chips off the old block.
It is a great age to start. I was given my first real firearm at age 5. It was a .410 shotgun. I loved all of my rifles and shotguns as a kid and besides all of the hunting I did as a kid, it came in handy one day. When I was about 13 we had a guy show up at our house and try to break in. It was just me and my mom and this guy had been stalking my mom. She was pretty scared and called the police. I walked up to my room and grabbed a 12 ga. and some buckshot. I told the guy that if he made it through the door I would blow his F’ing head off. He decide he should leave and then I apologized to my mom for the use of foul language. Never too young to teach a kid not to be a victim.
My son just turned 5 and this winter I started practicing with him with a nerf rifle. Not as cool as the 22s out there, but he is a little high strung and I wanted to work on his general understanding of safety rules. I simplified it to muzzle discipline, only shooting targets and finger off the trigger till you are ready to shoot.
Nerf gun is a pump and has 5 round mags. Even it is too long for him and I had to take off the stock. Working with him on changing mags and keeping the gun up in his workspace. Got the setup to make Kydex, so I’m going to make some mag holders for him. Probably get him into some airsoft before we go whole hog.
I picked up a CZ-452 Scout from Virginia Arms last Thursday for my 8year old. He has an internal port so contact sports are out of the question until he completes his leukemia treatment. The Scout is a pretty easy setup for kids to use, he loaded his magazines, worked the action, cleared the weapon which was good for me, I was able to work on his marksmanship instead of working the weapon.
I talked to a guy once that told me about how his father showed him how dangerous guns could be. His father took him out and made him watch as he shot the family dog. He said that it devastated him for a while. He liked to shoot but did not hunt much, he figures that was why.
When my kids were young the rule was you could look at any gun in the house with a couple of provisions:
The child had to ask
My wife or I had to be present.
They had to prove it was empty and follow the safety rules (which were gone over each time).
I always made a point to accommodate any “can I see that” request as quickly as I could. Actually the rules still stand. I always felt it’s the forbidden fruit that is the most tempting.
