A Straight Shooter

Dear Dr. Guns:

My husband wants to keep the gun in the house. We have kids. It scares the hell out of me. I don't want to be a nervous wreck in my own house. What should I do?

Upset in Foggy Bottom

You'll never get over it, really, and you'll never feel at home. If wife and hubby don't agree on this, it should default to no-go.

Yes, it happens that guns kill children, and here in D.C. there have been some particularly Gothic tragedies. But that said, let me make the case for guns and kids in the same home. It can happen without any mishaps, as I proved and millions of other parents proved over the years.

You can't demonize the gun and fear it, make its presence in the home a kind of antichrist. Again, embrace. Let the kids see it. Having made certain it's empty, let them touch it, feel it. If you make it forbidden, you guarantee they will be fascinated by it. (That's what happened to me.)

If you examine the culture of guns -- that is, the true culture, not the baloney on the tube -- you'll see how positive the values of the firearm are: They train self-discipline, responsibility, stamina, hard work, commitment, respect for structure (the competitive shooting world is one of the most over-structured systems in the world!), deferred reward, the wisdom of waiting for maturity. These are all good things, and kids brought up in such a world rarely blow away competing crack dealers or the football and cheerleading teams.

You also have to preach safety. What are the four rules of firearms safety? If you can't list them now, this second, you're probably not ready for a gun in the house and never mind the kids.

1. All guns are always loaded. Put it another way: All guns are always loaded. That is, develop an extremely short-term memory. It doesn't matter if you checked it one second ago, maybe it magically loaded itself or a cartridge fell off an airplane and not only was it the right cartridge, but it landed just perfectly to fit into the cylinder. (You scoff, but most gun accidents involve extraordinarily unpredictable catastrophe chains.) Check it again. Get in the habit of checking it.

2. Never let the muzzle point at anything you aren't willing to destroy. I see this one violated more than any other, as people, once they know the gun is unloaded, let their muzzle discipline go away. No, no, uh-uh. You can't have different behaviors with guns, one for loaded, one for unloaded. Tragedy lurks therein. Remember, all guns are always loaded. Always. That makes you responsible for it and the direction of its muzzle all the time.

I will admit to three accidental discharges in my 30 years shooting, and all were jokes rather than tragedies because, though I violated Rules 1, 3 and 4, I had trained myself to be very uncomfortable if the muzzle wandered toward something human.

3. Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot. This is probably the hardest to obey, because the ergonomics of the gun make the trigger lure the finger onward, toward destruction, and it's so easy to forget. And the bullet once fired can never be recalled.