A few days ago a child reached in his mom's purse, grabbed her legally carried firearm, and managed to shoot both the mother and father with a single shot. This prompted me to issue the following plea:

Please! A loaded, unlocked firearm should never be accessible to children unless they have been trained in firearm safety, and are proficient in their operation. By this, I mean actually shooting them at your property or at the range. If you have children and own firearms, please take a few minutes and do yourself, and your loved ones a big favor and teach them what, and what not, to do with them.

Please remember that firearm safety is not just for adults!

The reason I stress this is because it dawned on me during recent gatherings and outings that I know a lot of hunters, neighbors and others who own and possess many different weapons, but none of their wives or children have a clue about how they should be made safe, loaded, unloaded, handled, or not handled. It's really a shame in this day and age because you never know when their knowledge of firearms might someday save YOUR life when that burglar might get the drop on YOU because you fell asleep on the couch while watching the game.

Sorry for the safety rant but maybe it can save someone a great deal of sorrow and grief. If I can save one incident with my rant, it's worth a million to me, and if an incident that was prevented was intended for you, it'll be worth a million to you as well.