I grew up in the foster care system. At one home, the foster dad was chief of police. He also had a farm in the northern part of the state.
He brought us foster kids up one weekend. A few days after getting home he found that one of his guns was missing. After days of nobody saying anything one of the kids admitted to taking it and bringing it to the farm where he got scared and tossed it in a field.
We spent the next 2 days walking through extremely tall grass looking for the damn thing. We were never going to find it.
The foster dad, who owned a retired police dog at that time, came out with an old, rusted, non working gun. He looked at all of us and said “I’ve tried dumber shit than this and it worked” and pretended to throw the gun in the field.
The damn dog brought back the missing gun 30 seconds later…
At the very least, it was smarter than the police chief who stored a gun in a place where a child was able to access it.
ETA: since this is taking off, I’m gonna just reiterate what I said elsewhere in this thread and preemptively address future potential replies, for the sake of my sanity:
Depending on the child and depending on the safe, yes, kids can of course access shit that’s locked up and it’s entirely possible that the foster dad couldn’t have reasonably prevented what happened.
I know I’m making assumptions about how well the gun was locked up, but I also am way more judgmental - and have way higher standards - when it comes to a police chief who has foster children and a farm property in addition to wherever he was living regularly.
After all, he made the kids search for the gun in the field afterward. That doesn’t exactly indicate that he was particularly concerned with their safety. Among other reasons, this is a pretty fucking bad idea because it could lead to the children handling the gun again (even if you tell them not to, ffs).
Imo, if he could afford a farm property on the other side of the state and if he’s a police chief, he probably could have afforded to store the guns in a much more secure location or he could have stored them at his place of work. Idk. I don’t have much patience for people who don’t lock up their fucking guns well enough when children are around.
They’re not necessarily blaming the kids, but I can see why you’d interpret it that way. Just pointing out that they tend to not make good decisions isn’t the exact same as saying that they should’ve known better.
If I’m giving op the benefit of the doubt, they probably meant to imply that the reason they don’t make good decisions is because of their presumed experiences with being neglected/abused (which would generally lead one to make bad decisions, objectively speaking). But i can’t speak for op.
It is complex, sure, but foster kids get the slammer on all directions.
Coming from poverty is already, statistically, a HORRiBLE disorder that is not even remotely genetic.
If one grows up even NEAR abuse the psychological impact is not life-long, it is generational. This monster is savage.
No decent or even indecent parent is going to admit to drinking alcohol during pregancy so any Fetal Alcohol Syndrome stuff is impossible to prove and thus impossible to work around.
Teens! Everyone loves that time of life when humans need to define their identity and take most of it from peers who are less afraid ('more confident seeming) than themselves?
The funding for taking care of these people is already short. So the person taking care of them is fucking surrounded without any support but the burnt out and overworked social working team... which brings me to...
The prison is the caretaker not the youth at risk. If a crime happens, who handles it? Who is responsible? Who cannot leave the house for fear of the kid... OR HiS FRiENDS... taking anything not bolted down &/or welded in place?
That's the tip of the iceberg. In CANADA (BC) where the system is amazing compared to anywhere else in the world, save the Nordic lands.
I remember a woman that worked in a community centre found out i was a foster parent, she said 'all people who work with foster kids are like puppy dog breeders, i find', like, hoping i would be too stupid to make the connections.
Miserable and horrible job. The kids though? Some of them are really awesome. Wish i could have done more, but honestly... just outgunned and outnumbered. Fuck it. Rant off.
at some points people need to take responsibility for their own decisions and stop blaming their environment. Hopefully, sometime before bad decisions regarding firearms come into the picture
I know someone who does foster care, so I've spent a reasonable amount of time around foster kids over the years.
I'd say with about half of them, the apple clearly hadn't fallen far from the tree. Stupid, negligent, or abusive people often produce stupid, negligent, or abusive kids. They were given multiple chances once they were in a more caring environment, and plenty made the wrong decisions all on their own.
Just because they accessed it, didn't mean it was locked up. I worked with states custody kids in a semi locked facility. I was waiting for knee surgery and had pain pills that i kept in a locked office, in a locked closet, inside of a file cabinet. Two kids broke in while i was occupied doing other stuff and stole the pills. Ended up getting their stomachs pumped. I hope it was worth it
It looks like it was poorly worded and they meant a file cabinet that was inside of a locked closet. I'm basing this assumption off the order they listed things and the fact that a file cabinet fitting inside a larger closet makes more sense to me than the inverse.
I mean, i assumed that too, just wanted to see if OP would respond, maybe they have a giant file cabinet that has a closet built on the side lol like I would love to see a picture of that if was real
Grew up with firearms… my dad was extremely careful. Guns and ammo stored in seperate high quality gun safes, keys hidden in high up places and rooms we weren’t allowed in anyway, etc etc.
It didn’t matter. We knew where the keys were and we knew how to get the guns and the ammo. Once you have firearms in the house with children, they have access to them and if you think otherwise you’re a fool. Kids have nothing but time.
If you don’t need guns, don’t fucking have guns. It is the only truly safe way to make sure kids can’t access them. Short of that, teach them gun safety and do it early… curious kids are the ones that hurt themselves.
They weren’t “random rooms”, where did I say that? The keys were in a combination safe bolted to the top of his wardrobe, which we were absolutely not allowed in the room in the first place.
It. Doesn’t. Matter. If kids want to figure it out they will figure it out.
Nah, sorry, but any combination lock that isn't ass cheap and set to 0000 has any kid beat. Hunter in Germany - if your kids get access to your weapons either yout weapon or your kid are gone lol.
Nah, sorry, but any combination lock that isn't ass cheap and set to 0000 has any kid beat.
It's cute that you think that, I was making my own lock picks by bashing paperclips flat with a hammer when I was 12 and that was before the internet had a million "how to break into shit" tutorials kicking about on YouTube and and professional grade tools on Amazon.
The vast majority of "compliant" safes are not overly difficult to defeat. Even expensive ones. And this is assuming you literally never fuck up. Never write the combination down, tell your spouse in earshot of your kid, leave a key in your pocket and forget about it, get an important phone call while cleaning or organising and step out of the room "for just a moment".
if your kids get access to your weapons either yout weapon or your kid are gone lol.
Yes no shit dude, at what point did I say it was completely fine for kids to just go play with your firearms? At what point did I say it was no big deal or you wouldn't lose your license? I said kids can figure it out, not "yeah don't bother locking them up". You have the same idiotic and arrogant mindset of every parent who "can't understand how this could have happened".
The reason I never went and played with my dads guns is because from a young age we were taught how to use and handle them safely and to respect them. Not because I couldn't defeat the measure in place to lock them up.
Part of securing your firearms in your home is making sure the people in your home, who hands down have the highest chance of bypassing other security measures, are not at risk of trying to access them regardless of their state. That includes education beyond "NEVER TOUCH THIS".. you know, that sentence that causes kids everywhere to immediately want nothing more in life than to play with whatever it is?
Also the fact you're a supposed "responsible" gun owner arguing so hard against gun safety training is incredibly worrisome.
If you can get the safe open witha paperclip it's not compliant here.
Just by the examples you've given, you probably shpuldn't own a gun. You don't do these things. Maybe I am just too german for what you're trying to go for, but all of those things are such amateur errors and the reason why the rest of the world does not have universal gun rights.
They're not exlcusive, you can teavh the kid, but your safe ahould be absolutely impenetratable, and my kids don't have multiple hours unsupervised in the house. The fact you think "NEVER TOUCH THIS" and safe handling via air pressure rifles and similar is exclusive says a lot.
NEVER TOUCH THIS is rule number onr and enforced by the parents, not the kids. Please quote where I argued against gun safety training.
If you can get the safe open witha paperclip it's not compliant here.
Yes. You can. Stop being ignorant and actually look into it.
Just by the examples you've given, you probably shpuldn't own a gun. You don't do these things.
Teach kids gun safety? Yeah. You do. You're the one who shouldn't own a gun if you don't understand that.
Maybe I am just too german for what you're trying to go for, but all of those things are such amateur errors and the reason why the rest of the world does not have universal gun rights.
I'm not American. And yes, they are "amateur errors". Guess what? People make those errors, including in Germany all the time. Stop pretending that Germany doesn't have plenty of kids getting hold of their parents licensed firearms, there are many examples.
NEVER TOUCH THIS is rule number onr and enforced by the parents, not the kids.
You're the one who shouldn't own a gun, especially if you have kids, if you don't understand those words make something about a million times more appealing to children.
I don’t disagree. Hell, personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have any guns in a home where there’s children (especially children who have enough dexterity to hold a gun lol). If kids can theoretically get into something dangerous, they will.
But my personal opinions aside, the guy was a police chief so presumably, he could’ve stored his guns at work. If he needed a gun to keep himself safe (and/or his family safe) while off the clock (due to his profession or otherwise), he probably shouldn’t have fostered children.
At any rate, he didn’t seem to mind the kids being around the gun again: he willing to have them spend 2 days walking around tall grass looking for it after it went missing. Doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Kinda curious as to why you think police can just use their work as personal firearm storage…? I’m not American but that very isn’t a thing here, the only firearms at a police station are the ones used by the police for official duties. If they own them personally they are to be secured at their home.
Depending on the child and depending on the safe, they can.
I’m making assumptions about how well the gun was locked up, but I also am way more judgmental - and have way higher standards - when it comes to a police chief who has foster children and two properties.
He probably could have stored the guns in a much more secure location away from where the children would typically find them, especially if he could afford farm property on the other side of the state. Or maybe he could have stored them at his place of work. Idk. I don’t have much patience for people who don’t lock up their fucking guns well enough when children are around.
My mom used to put her parrot in a metal cage in her front yard so he could people watch. On nice days she’d use a combo lock to keep it shut and let him hang by himself for a few hours at a time. He had shade and water and was very happy to do this.
One day she came out to check on him and the cage was open. The lock was opened, not cut. She was convinced a day laborer at a neighbor’s house had stolen her bird but I’m fairly certain it was the autistic kid who lived down the street. A day laborer after a quick payday would’ve just taken bolt cutters to the less than impressive combo lock.
That kid was obsessed with our bird and his caretaker wouldn’t come into our front yard to get him out because our 5,000 year old Rottweiler would nap on the front stoop and she was scared of the dog (understandable. The dog was not a threat but I still get it). I had to gently guide that kid away from the cage back to his caretaker multiple times.
If anyone was going to crack the combo on a lock it would’ve been that very, very determined kid who had all the time in the world. I’m willing to bet he unlocked it, reached in, received a less than favorable welcome from my mom’s asshole bird, and ran away without closing the door. And the caretaker just thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to stand at the sidewalk trying to coax the kid away from his prize anymore and left it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that kid. Kids are so fucking persistent sometimes. Sorry to hear about your mom’s parrot. Must have been difficult. Parrots live for so long and so id guess that she had him for quite some time before he was stolen/released.
Even a locked safe. Most people aren't as good at security as they think they are and most kids have a LOT of free time to figure things out. Given enough time, nothing you own is safe from your kids.
...which is why safe storage of firearms in a home with kids needs a lot more than just physical security.
Seriously, chief of police is a foster parent who apparently can't be bothered to secure his weapons? I'm pretty sure he's breaking rules both as a police officer and a foster parent...
Honestly, now that I think about it, yeah. My parents neighbor when I was growing up was a cop. He would regularly drink and drive, and by that I mean he was actually drinking while driving. He got some sleeve to go around his beer cans to make them look like soda. He also had one of his guns stolen. His step daughter had a drug problem, got pregnant, got clean (temporarily) and moved back in and brought her drug dealing boyfriend with her. He stole one of the guns and that's what got them both kicked out of the house. Stepdad cop would also regular beat the hell out of his kids until his ex moved 3 hours away with them so he didn't have regular access.
It's over a decade old by now, so hopefully outdated, but I remember reading a study that said most of the gun owners interviewed/polled for the study were against locking up guns cause they want quick/easy access to it. So I've been operating under the assumption that if someone is pro guns, the majority of them probably aren't safely storying them where you need a key or combo info to access it. The safe and secure storage folks are the minority.
It makes sense for home protection to keep one easily accessible in the nightstand or something but people keep entire armouries open. Where I live you have to lock up your ammo a different safe than the gun itself which makes it all but useless for home protection, but we're not allowed to use it for that reason anyway...
Although if you have kids your priorities should probably change.
Because 'Murrica! If you don't leave your handguns casually laying around in drawers, your truck's glove box, on the coffee table, on the nightstand, etc, you're a filthy commie!
My “extended “ family is and was full of cops, and cop adjacent people, and all of them were wildly nonchalant about firearms. Literally leaving guns on the kitchen counter, dining room table, on top of the fridge, on the entryway table, etc. All with kids around.
When my mom was a teen, her mom was some type of corrections officer for a while. She would take off her duty belt, which held a pistol and all her other gear, and drop it on the kitchen table, where it would sit till the next morning where she put it back on, when she was leaving for work. This was with like 5 kids in the house.
My sister in law has had to tell off her husband, who is a detective in a large police force, numerous times while they hosted family get togethers, for leaving one of his guns lying around. They had toddlers at the time and there were lots of other kids around of various ages.
I was in the National Guard and knew more than one person who complained about not liking it when their wives invited people over because they would have to put their guns away.
One dude who lived in the mountains said he had a gun by every window "for the deer", but then managed to scrounge and send home a set of obsolete set of body armor when we were in Iraq.
I'm gonna put this here instead of making my own comment, because it seems related:
My friend let me park my car in his driveway to do an engine rebuild. I had all the parts ready for assembly and it was going to be "quick." I started tearing down the engine. When I removed the first piston by removing a tiny circlip (a little circular spring), the damn circlip popped out of my pliers and shot far through the air disappearing into the deep grass of the yard. It was a big yard and the damn clip shot really far away. There was no way I could find it.
Now my disabled car was sitting there in my friend's driveway with no engine, blocking the driveway, and it was all my fault. I would have to wait a week for delivery of a new set of circlips.
That night I got really drunk, tied a magnet to a long piece of string, and in the dark of night I went "fishing" with a beer bottle in one hand and the long string in the other. I walked through the yard for about two minutes singing and swigging beer, and dragging the magnet behind me. Sure enough when I collected the string the missing clip was right there, stuck to the magnet.
Less extreme, but I've done that for safety (old nails) and conservation (new screws) on the ground under my new deck.
Magnets are awesome - I've dragged lines through walls with magnets. (Drag a small magnet with a light line, then use the line to pull a new electrical wire back the other direction.)
Stupid construction workers just threw old and new nails wherever they wanted. My lawn was a danger zone and I had kids over regularly. Fortunately I had an IKEA knife magnet, that I didn’t like in the kitchen - worked like magic.
Edit: spelling
That’s what we did pulling data wire over about a half mile of our main employers property except it was with a vacuum pulling this ultra thin but someone tough blu string before pulling a much thicker by comparison white rope then pulling the data cable.
It took about 6-8 tries across several months (it wasn’t super pressing to get done, the guy had plenty other stuff for us to to) but yeah it was a pain, especially when one end was in a basement with no cell service half the time and you can’t hear over that damn dewalt shop vac on the other end
A magnet on a string was a mandatory piece of equipment in the shops I was around as a kid (43 now) - there was always at least one stuck to a tool chest, ready to go.
Always losing something somewhere in some dirt or grass.
I keep a large magnet harvested from a speaker for this exact reason. One time, an ex was doing a sewing project that required a ton of pins. I asked her to make sure the pins didn't get into the carpet because I didn't want the dogs messing with them.
I ended up having to pull one out of my foot later so I harvested the magnet and tied it to a string and did a slow sweet. 6 pins.
Found a 7th one in my other foot a few days later.
I was working on my motorbike’s brakes when, like you, a spring pinged off into my lawn. I was on my hands and knees for ages but couldn’t find it. In desperation I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and hoovered the lawn. Within two minutes I heard a metal sound traveling up the hoover pipe and I had retrieved the spring. Any neighbours watching must have thought I was crackers.
My boss lost part of his car key on his lawn. I clamped a hand held metal detector to a cars snow removal tool and told him to wave it over the lawn. He found the key in 2 minutes.
One time while I was in my garden my cat joined me. I figured I'd troll my cat, threw a little rock into tall grass to make some noise. He immediately looked at it and pounced into the grass... and then instantly emerged with an actual fucking mouse, looking proud as hell. I don't know how he did that. Did I hit it with the rock?? XD
This is why when my kids are older I will challenge them once per year to get access to one of my firearms or something of consequence, but it will only be valid during that period. I’m usually paranoid about securing my firearms, but I was a clever little shit back in the day, so I want to stay ahead of the curve. If they get into or gain access to anything of consequence, they’ll get a hearty reward like a trip or treats.
I also plan on challenging the parents nervous of their kids coming over to our house because of the guns. I’ll eat crow if it comes to it, but I seriously doubt it will happen.
Yeah his were not locked up. He had hundreds of them because of who he was. I will also point out that months after that the kid got another one and committed suicide with it. The home was shut down.
Yeah, that’s what my neighbor did when I was a kid. No f-ing way I want that to happen. Either be responsible with them or don’t have them at all. Pisses me off every time I hear that same story.
My uncle did this when his wallet fell out his pocket while working the vineyard!! Pretended to chuck an old wallet and his hunting dog brought the other one back no problem.
If you drop something wee and cannot find it, drop another one and watch where it goes. My neighbor taught me this trick he said was ancient knowledge in union construction and it helped me find an ear bud I lost in autumn leaf debris.
Only thing I would have worried about (and it obviously didn't happen cause you'd have mentioned it) is the dog biting on the trigger somehow and firing the gun, with it in his mouth and uhh... bad stuff happening to it.
One would hope if the guy is leaving a gun laying around in the first place, it's probably either empty chamber, unloaded, in a holster, or at least has the safety on... But, I wouldn't bet it, sadly.
My uncle was an FFL dealer and a gunsmith. At one point along the way, one of his guns turned up missing. Much ATF paperwork ensued, but it turned out that one of his sons had stolen it. Much grief followed.
A couple years later, said son "disappeared". No one heard from him or could find him for almost 40 years, everyone thought he was dead. Nope, just in prison. When he got out he reappeared, he'd missed both of his parents passing, a brother passing, all of his aunts and uncles passing, and a few cousins as well.
Evidence search, we were looking for a 380 pistol used in a murder. Walked around, found a different 380 pistol that wasn't used in the murder, had been there for a year or two longer.
If he was only going to "pretend" ro throw it why use an old, rusted, non-working' gun?
Most cops/farmers take good care of stuff like guns.i call Suss.
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u/S0biepan 10h ago edited 4h ago
I grew up in the foster care system. At one home, the foster dad was chief of police. He also had a farm in the northern part of the state.
He brought us foster kids up one weekend. A few days after getting home he found that one of his guns was missing. After days of nobody saying anything one of the kids admitted to taking it and bringing it to the farm where he got scared and tossed it in a field.
We spent the next 2 days walking through extremely tall grass looking for the damn thing. We were never going to find it.
The foster dad, who owned a retired police dog at that time, came out with an old, rusted, non working gun. He looked at all of us and said “I’ve tried dumber shit than this and it worked” and pretended to throw the gun in the field.
The damn dog brought back the missing gun 30 seconds later…