My fun would be in his shooting and enjoying himself. I would not shoot with him there. That is reserved for after work on the way home. Weekends are all his.
Mike1951 wrote:Truth is, I don't see how you can do any shooting if just you and he go to the range. Are you going to lock him in your vehicle after he quickly loses interest?
The attention span of a 4 year old is SHORT!
You can't watch out for him while you are shooting.
BrassMonkey, that funky monkey....
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Springfield TRP
Glock 22
Glock 21
Walther P22
Alright, so an airgun it is. I can't go any other direction with this input and still in good faith be a good parent. Sooooo, what am I looking for the highest quality air rifles?
BrassMonkey, that funky monkey....
===========================
Springfield TRP
Glock 22
Glock 21
Walther P22
Well, I am a little late into this and your decision seems to have been made, but...
I also like the idea of starting a four year old with some type of smaller toy gun. The NERF dart guns can be very good for a child that age, and one even has a laser sight built in. Other than that, I recommend the soft BB guns. This will be a great way to start him on both accuracy and gun safety rules.
My seven year old loves the NERF guns he has and is asking for the airsoft BB guns too (well, he keeps asking when he gets a real rifle but will settle for the BB gun).
But, I don't think 4 is too early to actually take him shooting, if you have the right guns and attitude for the range. I took my kids with me when some of them were in that age range. For them too shoot, I would use a 22 and I would be helping them hold the rifle and aim. This kept it safer and let them have some fun. I credit this for also helping to gun proof them so they knew not to touch my guns at home. They were not curious about it and knew what guns were after this, so I figure it helped in the home safety aspect. It must have worked too, since the oldest is 28 and we have not yet had anyone accidentally shot.
For the age to own their own weapon, I chose 10. This was kind of arbitrary on my part, and kind of an older tradition that got twisted. When I was growing up, wrist watches were a little more expensive than now and each child in my family was given their first watch when we reached 10. With all of the watches being given away as toys in cereal and things now, this wouldn't work today, but it seemed like a good age to change the tradition to guns. For the weapon, I have given them several different ones, but the one I prefer is the Marlin model 15Y. This is a .22LR single shot bolt action. It has the advantage of being slow to shoot so they can learn to aim properly instead of encouraging spray and pray. I stick with iron sights until they really can hit a decent target before moving them into a scope.
That seems to work for me, and we are going to try to go out as a family again tomorrow. The two girls (12 and 14) have the new Buckmark pistol to try out and will share their rifles with the 7 year old boy. Older son is coming along with all of his rifles, including a .357 lever rifle he just got from his fiancee's family. Should be a nice day.
My thought was that we would sit on the bench together, at first, he in front of me and learn how to line up the iron sights. Maybe, 3 yards or so, then 5, 7, 9 and so on and so forth. I would NEVER place anything that fires a hard projectile in a 3 year old's hands without me 6" away. That would just be stupid.
Again, he threw all of his toy guns away... He kept his swords though, my son definetely has a liking of weapons of all sorts. I am also trying to figure out when he can try some sort of fencing... Not sure he has the attention span for structured teaching in fencing though... Just he an I with a .22 I think I could handle, but that is now out the window...
BrassMonkey, that funky monkey....
===========================
Springfield TRP
Glock 22
Glock 21
Walther P22
BrassMonkey wrote:Then how do I tell him, "No, you have to go to the babysitter while daddy goes and had fun..." That is the hard part...
Well, I guess there are different ways of doing it....but when my daughter was 4 yrs. old I just said NO!
It didn't mean maybe, it wasn't an invitation to a debate... and I meant exactly what I said. It didn't take her long to figure that out.
She's almost 21 now....and believe or not, she doesn't hate me. Good parenting means saying NO when necessary and sticking to it.
Believe me, I understand the urge as a parent to include "junior" in the things you do/enjoy. But, the child needs to be sufficiently mature for the activity at hand, thats all I'm saying.
