RIPP:

You are right.

Kids are not morons, unless we teach them to be. And our culture is doing its level best to eradicate the last vestiges of common sense from every living soul it influences. ALWAYS if somebody gets hurt, it is somebody else's fault.

I confess, we did keep guns away from the kids till they could walk, use eating utensils and understand English.

Were there injuries?

Of course.

My son and a friend when little guys were told to bring in the horses, which they did. Horses being the obstinate creatures they are at times, they saw the boys coming and made for the far end of the pasture. Boys being the equally obstinate creatures they are, decided to make the horses pay by carrying them back. No halters, just lead ropes, they mounted up and hell for leather went for the gate. No control at a gallop, they did well till the pair started to pull up at the sight of the gate. Friend went off first around the neck and under, the horse taking the kid's teeth with her shod feet on the way over. My son left his mare when she tried to clear the whole mess steeplechase-style. He was uninjured. Must have landed on his head.

My wife once dropped a bolo knife of mine and opened her leg to the bone. Thing was so sharp she never felt it until she looked down fearful she broke the handle of the knife on the concrete floor {she did}.

God didn't bless me with with gal-attracting dimples, but Rosie did, that is, one at least. She was a foal of ours that permanently added a cute little divit to my face with the application of one of her hind hooves. My gal loves it!

My daughter at diaper-sporting age climbed the washer and jimmied the lock on the medicine cabinet and downed a half bottle of some nasty meds once, too, and spent the night getting her stomach pumped for it. So much for locks.

And same tike at a friend's house crawled out of her car seat and though she couldn't reach the pedals somehow got the pickup in gear and headed for the river, it hanging up on a stump our neighbor's wife had been hounding him for a year to remove! Thanks God for procrastination!

My son was bit by a guard dog. The dog paid by becoming the testing media for a cylinderfull of Lyman cast 454190 .45 Colt bullets, adding yet more proof to the addage that there is no such thing as stopping power when it comes to non-expanding pistol bullets. Dropped at round 6.

But ya'know what?

None of my kids ever shot anybody, and they didn't drop the hairdryer into their bath water, either. They never shoved a butterknife into the toaster, and they never put their hands on the business end of a running chainsaw and they never shoved a pencil into a dog's ear and they never pushed their faces into a pot of boiling water, either.

They must be brilliant, extraordinary people and lucky, too!

Frankly, I wish I'd applied the gun safety training to medicine cabinets and gear boxes. We live and learn. Every bolo knife I make now has a lanyard for retaining it in the scabbard.