One is no more or less dangerous than the other. Both are tools capable of inflicting great harm. When I was 6 years old, there would have been absolutely nothing dangerous about handing me a knife or a gun in any condition. I was also taught how to safely use power tools at around that age.
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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
There isn't an option for "neither". I'm the father of a 5-year old. He's barely allowed to use scissors. Any parent/guardian/caretaker that allows either to happen needs their own "timeout" to think about how they managed that. This is how kids get unnecessarily dead, and one of the reasons why there's a bias against guns in the US.
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A parent has to guage their own child's maturity and abilities, then teach them accordingly. Not all of the kids in my family were handling dangerous items of any kind at the same exact calendar age.
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Originally Posted by telekinetic
I checked "pistol" because, even with the safety off, she doesn't have the finger strength to pull the trigger on any of the guns I have yet. She can't even use nerf guns that aren't specially modified for light pull!
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Slightly off-topic, but have you tried letting her pull the trigger without your direction? For instance, if you put her hands in place and tell her to pull the trigger the way you would when carefully aiming it, it'll be with one finger on the trigger. If she picks it up on her own and one finger doesn't do the job, she might make Jeff Cooper roll over in his grave and wrap both fingers around the trigger to try to get it to pull. Something to think about anyway.
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Originally Posted by Willravel
Interesting thread, Zeraph.
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No kidding.
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Originally Posted by yournamehere
The gun represents the worst case scenario. I would rather my child face a greater chance of a non-lethal wound than even a minuscule chance of a lethal one.
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What determines the lethality of the wound, or any wound at all for that matter?