View Full Version : Kids safety and toy guns (.22 long went off in toy pistol today)
Hey guys,
I feel compelled to let all you guys and girls who have kids out there know what happened to my neighbor and best friend's 6 year old boy this morning. We have a make shift range right behind his house where we shoot .22's. His wife doesn't like anything louder going off that close to the house! Any way at a gunshow approximately 2 months ago he bought his 6 year old one of those plastic 6mm bb guns. 1911 style mag fed and slide rack for every shot. Well he gave me a call at work today pretty shaken up. He was at work and while his wife was home she heard a gunshot go off right outside the house. Their son had found a .22 round loaded it from the muzzle side pulled the trigger and it fired off the round. Thank God he had it pointed away from him or his buddy that was playing with him. I took the pistol apart tonight and found something interesting. The case was mushroomed out at the very top only slightly with no cracking and the rim didn't have a scratch on it. When I took it apart I noticed that behind the case were 2 bbs that I can only assume transferred the force from the 'striker' to the round and lit it off. I tried to take some pics of the shot casing but my camera would not allow to take a clear shot that close. If you buy one of your children or someone else's child one of these type toy guns please be aware of where your ammo is stored and make sure there is constant supervision when they are using these things. In retrospect he told me the his boy was way too young to own one of these guns. Just wanted to let you guys know. Have a good one.
-Jax
P.S. Here is a photo of the gun and ammo used:
5244
Belmont31R
06-11-10, 20:45
Why I dont let toy guns in the house with young kids.....no need to mix toys, and real ones that function and look alike....
Yeh we had that same discussion tonight belmont. It's kinda hard to teach muzzle/trigger discipline when they are waving a toy gun at everything and everyone.
Having grown up with both toys and real guns, I strongly think complete supervision is a must even with toys. I was constantly reminded not to mistake one for the other and to properly check just incase, regardless of the fact that one was obviously plastic and not that the real thing was lying around within my reach but more to ingrain the practice of checking and clearing. However, judging from my own incident (not quite as severe as this one), It wasnt a matter of knowing how to handle both as I did very well at a very young age but the sense of responsibility, or lack there of with the toy.
count me down as another parent that has no toy guns in the house
i caught my oldest son (8 years old) reprimanding my youngest son (4 years old) because he had grabbed my work keys with the glock key chain on it and was pointing it at him
we absolutely do not point guns, be they real, bb, toy, squirt, or keychain, at anything we aren't willing to destroy
(of course what I didn't reveal to my oldest is that I absolutely believe that his little brother is willing to destroy him :) )
Thankfully he's alright.
I must have been the smartest kid ever to live. I even had a set of those cap guns that had the real looking bullets you took apart and put the paper cap on the bottom of the casing and seated the bullet on top.
But I knew from day one a toy was a toy and a gun was a gun. I even knew a bb gun could hurt (asshole brother) at my grandfathers house ammo was kept in the box right next to the gun in the open on the rack. I never felt the need to screw around with the guns ( on occasions I would count how many .22's where left in the case. I liked to count shit as a kid)
I will say I didn't learn finger outside of the trigger until I became an adult, but instead we simply didn't have the gun loaded until ready to fire, and it wasn't don't point at what you're not willing to destroy. But don't point at anything I wasn't willing to kill.
Thankfully he's alright.
I must have been the smartest kid ever to live. I even had a set of those cap guns that had the real looking bullets you took apart and put the paper cap on the bottom of the casing and seated the bullet on top.
But I knew from day one a toy was a toy and a gun was a gun. I even knew a bb gun could hurt (asshole brother) at my grandfathers house ammo was kept in the box right next to the gun in the open on the rack. I never felt the need to screw around with the guns ( on occasions I would count how many .22's where left in the case. I liked to count shit as a kid)
I will say I didn't learn finger outside of the trigger until I became an adult, but instead we simply didn't have the gun loaded until ready to fire, and it wasn't don't point at what you're not willing to destroy. But don't point at anything I wasn't willing to kill.
+1
I had both toy guns and real guns.
I even had one of those Replica Models 1911s that was the same, size, weight and fields stripped just like the real thing. And at 10 years old, even though I had .45 ammo that would have fit in the magazine I knew damn well real bullets didn't belong in a replica gun.
I knew the plugged chamber with the rod sticking out would cause "problems" if one attempted to chamber live ammo. This is why the dummy bullets looked like hollow points. I also knew that if I did successfully fire a live round in the replica gun the thing would explode as it was made of cheap metal.
I knew the old junker Mauser (Turkish I think) that my grandfather demilled (plugged barrel, welded up chamber, firing pin removed and ground bolt face) was no longer a real firearm and was at that point a welded up steel pipe in a piece of wood. I knew the handful of Mauser rounds I wore on a bandoleer (fired brass, dented primer, no powder and a bullet pressed into the case) were not live rounds but dummy rounds. I knew the welds prevented me from chambering them and the ground down bolt face wouldn't extract them so I never bothered taking them off the bandoleer.
These were dummy guns with dummy ammo. They made "playing army" a little more exciting than plastic guns did. I may have learned some trigger ability but nothing more. It was about fun.
The real guns and ammo I had was just that. It never occurred to me to "play with them" as that would be stupid and dangerous. Not to mention I took care of my real firearms and "in the dirt" was no place for them.
By contrast, one of my Dads friends had a kid that was such a dumbass he sat on the driveway and struck live .22 rounds with a hammer. To him it was like fireworks and he seemed oblivious to the fact that after the noise that round "went someplace." At least until he put a round into his own thigh. He lived and the parents solution was "No guns period" as far as the kids were concerned. The Dad had to keep his guns locked up like Ft. Knox and get Congressional approval from his wife to go hunting with one.
Bottom line if all your kids know are "toy guns" they won't know shit about the real ones. This lack of knowledge can make their first encounter with a real firearm extremely dangerous.
By the same token, not having toy guns won't make a kid who is irresponsible any safer with a firearm. The kid either knows and respects the difference or he does not. I've seen kids who never had gun and those who did. I've seen kids who had toys guns and those who didn't. And there are those from all of the above that I wouldn't trust as an adult with a firearm and plenty from each group that I would.
The hard part is figuring out which kind of kid you have, even if it isn't the kind you are hoping for, and proceeding accordingly.
FromMyColdDeadHand
06-12-10, 01:41
I've started my 5 year old with the Nerf pump rifles. Same rules as the big ones. Teaching him muzzle and trigger finger discipline, clearing malfunctions, keeping the gun up and in his workspace when he reloads. Would love to get him to 'Check' Drills before we move on any further.
Yeh we had that same discussion tonight belmont. It's kinda hard to teach muzzle/trigger discipline when they are waving a toy gun at everything and everyone.
No it's not, that is how I learned both of those skills. My parents didn't want me to have a toy gun, but all my friends had one. So, they compromised. No projectiles until I was 8 (BB guns) and not after I had proven the following using my toy gun:
When I had my toy gun I had to show complete and absolute muzzle control with my finger off the trigger at all times unless I was shooting the deer or monsters. If either parent saw me break these rules I lost the gun for a week. Needless to say muzzle control is something that is so ingrained in me that it is second nature, and it has been this way since before I ever shot my first BB.
Belmont31R
06-12-10, 03:18
No it's not, that is how I learned both of those skills. My parents didn't want me to have a toy gun, but all my friends had one. So, they compromised. No projectiles until I was 8 (BB guns) and not after I had proven the following using my toy gun:
When I had my toy gun I had to show complete and absolute muzzle control with my finger off the trigger at all times unless I was shooting the deer or monsters. If either parent saw me break these rules I lost the gun for a week. Needless to say muzzle control is something that is so ingrained in me that it is second nature, and it has been this way since before I ever shot my first BB.
I have twin boys who will be 4 later this month. They just don't know any better....8 is a different story.
Maybe I am missing something here but this sounds impossible. First of all it is a RIMFIRE round, a BB would impact it in the center or close to it. Second, if the round was loaded into the muzzle there would be nothing to hold it in the barrel and a BB hitting the round would just make it fall out the end. Even if the round was somehow jammed into the barrel so it couldn't move, the round BB still would not hit the rim. I also really doubt the plastic BB coming out of that gun would have enough velocity to fire the round even if it somehow hit the rim.
Bobert0989
06-12-10, 03:39
It's funny that this be the first post I see when I got home from work this morning, because my wife called me last night saying that my almost 2-year-old son was playing in his Aunt's purse (got it off the table without her knowing, apparently) and found her Kel-Tec .32 in there. I am so very thankful that she wasn't comfortable carrying it loaded, because my son grabbed it right up, pointed it at his cousin (4 weeks younger than himself) and pulled the trigger.
THAT QUICK and something can happen. The thing that gets me is, he's never actually watched us shooting, only cleaning afterwards. He doesn't have any toy guns, and nobody in our family takes guns lightly, so nobody would ever show him how to aim at anything, let alone a person, (especially at that young of an age). I got my first BB gun when I was 7, and it took my Grandpa and Dad almost 2 hours of "gun-safety" speeches before they let me even load it. It was aggravating then, but still to this day I follow that same check routine EVERY time I pick up a firearm. The exact same routine I learned at that age with my first BB gun. Every time I look at a gun in a shop, or when a buddy brings over his AK/AR collection for a fun day at the range, the same check system and routine applies.
It hard to imagine something like that happening ever again, but MAN!, one close call like that is about 10 too many!
I'm glad you posted your experience, it's an important reminder to ALL parents out there to make sure their children understand that shooting may be fun and exciting for them, but they should NEVER attempt it on their own. I didn't shoot a gun without my Dad's supervision until I was 15, and he let me go to the other end of the dove field by myself to hunt that season.
To the OP: Thanks for posting
~Bobby
Moose-Knuckle
06-12-10, 09:31
Reminds me of when I was young! :D
Okay I knew better than that...but I customized all my toy guns, even my GI Joes arsenal.
Glad everything's ok.
On a side note, if you're a kid and want to make a REAL explosion, all you need is a can of hairspray and a box of .22 blanks (used for construction hammer-type nail-guns) tossed into a fire. Don't ask me how I know and don't ask me how I got "Super-X" branded into my arm when I was 15. :D
I have twin boys who will be 4 later this month. They just don't know any better....8 is a different story.
No I know. I got my toy guns when I was 5 and my dad started working on me then.
Twin boys though? Congrats man!!! Are they a handful????
I have twin sisters, and use to joke about how I spent my life out numbered!
There are no toy guns in my house. Everything in my house that resembles a gun of any type is treated like it was real. For all the reasons already posted.
Belmont31R
06-12-10, 13:59
No I know. I got my toy guns when I was 5 and my dad started working on me then.
Twin boys though? Congrats man!!! Are they a handful????
I have twin sisters, and use to joke about how I spent my life out numbered!
Yeah they drive us nuts but they are good kids.
Smuckatelli
06-12-10, 14:19
There are no toy guns in my house. Everything in my house that resembles a gun of any type is treated like it was real. For all the reasons already posted.
That is exactly how it is at our house. I used the teach them with a real gun approach to get approval from my wife to buy the CZ 452 Scout.
Maybe I am missing something here but this sounds impossible. First of all it is a RIMFIRE round, a BB would impact it in the center or close to it. Second, if the round was loaded into the muzzle there would be nothing to hold it in the barrel and a BB hitting the round would just make it fall out the end. Even if the round was somehow jammed into the barrel so it couldn't move, the round BB still would not hit the rim. I also really doubt the plastic BB coming out of that gun would have enough velocity to fire the round even if it somehow hit the rim.
While I have no reason to doubt the OP's story my thoughts run parallel to yours.
As a side note I have a little man on the way... I grew up playing guns, whether they were plastic or tree branches, and had no difficulties separating the real from the pretend. Not sure what we're gonna do with out little guy yet.
I had toy guns when I was a kid but I knew they were toys and that real guns were not toys
if I was over at anyones house and guns toys or not were brought out I was to tell a adult and my parents and I did ?
Little boys want a toy gun. Don't give them one and they will find a suitable stick and make their own noises, muzzle dicipline and trigger control will probably not be involved. When little boys stop playing guns, army, cops & robbers, etc. I will be worried.
I had toy guns since I could remember and got my first rifle when I was six. Even though it resided in my room, I never once touched the real thing unless Dad was around because them were the rules.
I also knew that I would get a good session with "The Belt" instead of a "time-out" or whatever people do with their kids now, so I guess times may have changed.
Kids will be kids, and you can't stop that. Just teach them the rules (and enforce them strictly) at a very young age.
I've started my 5 year old with the Nerf pump rifles. Same rules as the big ones. Teaching him muzzle and trigger finger discipline, clearing malfunctions, keeping the gun up and in his workspace when he reloads. Would love to get him to 'Check' Drills before we move on any further.
That is actually pretty awesome, and I see it more as teaching him a skill as opposed to babying him.
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