FIL, DH, DC and guns

[pacifist]

This incident happened a while ago but DH and I still have a fundamental disagreement over it that we want the MN jury to resolve. I am happy to back down if you all tell me I am wrong.

We were staying in my PIL's French house when FIL offered to take DD1 (aged 12) out to shoot with a high velocity air rifle. I said no: I do not want my DC involved with guns. DH remembers it as my saying "I would not be at all happy with that. It would not be safe. You would be dangerous".

FIL insisted that his family had always had guns, none of them had been shot and that I was being ridiculous. I still said no, VERY firmly.

10 minutes later I heard gunshots in the garden. I could not find DD1/FIL or DH in the house. I didn't dare go out to investigate and get DD1 back because I had no idea where the shooting was so I did not want to take DD2 (aged 9) out with me and into danger, nor to leave her alone in the house where she might run out looking for me, and into the gunfire. Actually I was terrified that DD1 might be in danger - that perhaps FIL and DH had gone out shooting together and DD1 had wandered out to look for them. I kept DD2 away from the windows and waited it out. Afterwards, I found that FIL and DH had indeed taken DD1 out shooting in the garden (not a big garden, just an ordinary one). DH says one of them "stood guard" and it was all very safe.

DH thinks that because I implied my FIL was dangerous, and FIL believed he was not, then FIL/DH were right to carry on against my express wishes. DH says I should not deny the DC experiences. He says in any case this was not a "gun", it was an air rifle. My view is that a lot of clever people in England have decided this high velocity air rifle is dangerous enough for it to be illegal and anyway I don't want the DC to shoot with any guns/rifles at all.

1. AIBU to expect my wishes to be respected regarding the DC whether or not DH/FIL agree with them. DH argues I should have respected HIS wishes to let the DC shoot, and why should I be the one with the final say; and

2. AIBU to not want my DC to shoot high velocity rifles, even under adult supervision, or am I "safety mad"? 3. If you ARE going to go out shooting, shouldn't you tell everyone else in the property where, when and with whom as a basic safety precaution?

You said no so they should have respected that. If they felt strongly that it was okay there should have been a discussion to prove to you that it was.

Er, WTAF?

1. You said NO, that should be more than enough and your wishes should be respected regardless of what the activity was, you didn't want your DD involved.

2. You're not safety mad in my book, you are concerned for your DC's welfare.

3. Yes, all neighbouring houses should be made aware, especially is they are attached to you FIL's property. If it were me, I'd let them know. We ,et our neighbours know when we are BBQing or burning leaves and of course on bonfire night.

I guess that this has caused a bit of 'trouble' in your household.

several things here.
Yes, he should have respected your wishes and backed you up, although it seems as if there was a general misunderstanding about what exactly was the danger issue.
no, your wishes should not take precedence over your husbands, but the moment when something is being offered is probably not the right time to have a big discussion about it.
yes, they should have let everyone know when shooting is going on.

My thoughts on shooting come from 2 extremes of experience of OH's and guns. My ex i wouldnt trust with a gun as far as I could spit. He comes from a culture where a gun is used as an extension to the power of a knife or a fist. Who has a gun determines who gets his own way, and it appears to be a bravado thing. They also seem to glorify guns and power and have no value for life. a gun is just evidence that you are more of a man than the next bloke. With that background I would be wary and this does seem to be where you are coming from - errant youth/gang culture who will put a bullet into a cat just for the fun of it, and i can fully understand that, as we are not a country that has much experience of guns apart from the bad press and tv.

My dp comes from a farming/shooting family and he learnt to shoot at a young age, with an air rifle. His father runs a weekly pheasant shoot through the season and its his objession and joy. dp isnt so keen, but he knows what he is doing. The way he was taught demonstrated safety and responsibility from the offset. Showing a child what an air gun can do to a coke can shows what harm it can do to a soft object like a living thing. They shoot vermin, and they shoot for sport (and the sport birds ALL get eaten) They have respect for the gun and do not view it as anything more than a tool to perform a job, which is dangerous if mishandled - as is a chainsaw, a tractor, a combine harvester.

I would trust my DP with a gun any day. I would trust him to teach the children to shoot, as I know he would pass on the knowledge in a way that would be safe, and produce a child who understood the danger. My daughter knows how to safely use a knife, my son will learn this year. the way they have been taught is the total antithesis of the gang culture view of knives and guns.

just added my children dont shoot for sport - its the FIL and friends!! DD is 11 and DS is only 5!!

That doesn't sound very safe to me. My cousin is gun crazy and has shotgun and firearms licences and spends all his free time hunting but he won't even let me touch a gun unless its got parts of it taken out (so I can't kill us all accidently). He would definitely not shoot a gun near the house or allow a child to 'have a go'. As I say he loves guns and feels 100% comfortable around them but he knows you can't take any risks at all. If you are 'safety mad' then my cousin is even more so!

As for your DH and FIL, they have undermined you in front of your DCs and if its guns or ice cream or whatever, they should not have done that. I think guns and safety are a bigger deal than most parenting issues and need a proper discussion between you and DH. Your FIL sounds like he's a bit of a gung-ho old know-it-all. I'm guessing he's not got to go to the police and the magistrates to get his licences renewed so isn't motivated to stick to the rules? I would be

yanbu, i would have been fuckin livid.

I believe very strongly that children should be brought up to respect guns as the powerful tools they are.

I shoot and I will be teaching DD to handle a gun safely and under supervision as soon as she is able to (probably around the age of 7).

Because I know what guns can do they are never allowed to be play things and I do not allow any of her peer family group to play with guns around her. I despise toy guns as they do not teach children the reality of what shooting can do.

Having said all that, I think that guns are something you and DH need to have a sensible conversation about away from your FiL's home. It does sound like they were acting in a safe manner, but they were going against your express wishes. However, if DH does wish the children to learn about guns in a safe and sensible manner, you are going against his wishes. So somewhere you need to find a compromise.

1. Well I think that asking for one person to back down is wrong for anyone unless there is some very good reasons to do so.
   So in some ways, in the discussion you've had, you both have been undermining each other. You by saying that your H or your FIL wouldn't be safe enough. Your H by just ignoring your comment and doing it regardless.

2. There is actually 2 issues there. Are you a convinced pacific who is against anything to do with guns, whatever they are (and therefore you would not want your dcs to use a gun). If this is the case, I would imagine that your H is aware about it (and then it makes his actions look quite bad). If it'sjust a 'I don't like guns' situation, have you ever talk to your H about your pov? Has he ever talkk about his pov on guns and how they are used?
   Then there is the safety issue. Have ever seen your H and FIL use a gun and how do you know if they use it safely or not? As you choose not to go out, I assume that, one you didn't think they would be reasonnable with the guns and that they would ensure none could get hurt. but was it really the case or more a matter of what your H told you they did but you actually don't quite believe him. Is the issue just 'You shouldn't use guns in a garden but only in a designated area for guns' rather than knowing your FIL attitude to guns is unsafe?
   I am surprised that you didn't go out to look for your dd if you though that she might be in the garden but unsure if she was with your DH. If your FIL is so dangerous, it would have been an idea to actually go out, look for her/shout for her to be sure she was in a safe place, no?

3)Well I would if there was no area in the garden usually uised for that purpose. In whuich case, having heard the shots, you know you shouldn't go that X place but go round to go to Y place where peopole are? Do you know what are the unspoken rules of what to do when one is using a gun in the garden (because they must have some)?

Sorry so many spelling mistakes......

Hi, thanks everyone. artvandelay yes, perhaps it is not even about guns but about having my feelings rode roughshod over. I would like to think that DH would support me in something where I clearly feel very strongly and where he does less so (he presumably doesn't feel STRONGLY that a 12 yo must go out shooting).

Although FIL's house and garden is modest in France, there are no neighbours (it is amongst someone else's fields) although there could easily have been passers by as a (very quiet) road runs alongside the garden and house.

FIL's family is not farming - they all work(ed) in offices these days but he was brought up huntin', shootin' and fishin'. I am fine with him taking the DC fishing.

Perhaps IWB a bit U as Eglu I don't think I would have been persuadable. I just don't like guns.

Just to correct you on something OP, air rifles are not illegal.

Your DH should not have undermined you and you have every right to be very annoyed. But he's right that it's not just your decision.

Plus you do sound a bit, er...silly for want of a better word. Sorry, that does sound much harsher than I mean but keeping your DD away from the windows??!! And being scared of her running out into 'gunfire'? This was an air rifle in the back garden, think you need to keep some perspective.

As it's in France I understood it as being a more high-powered air rifle than is legal in the UK? The maximum legal in the UK is 12 ft lb, above that you need a Firearms Licence. I dont know what the laws are in France, I remember seeing rifles for sale at a supermarket though that was some years ago?

he presumably doesn't feel STRONGLY that a 12 yo must go out shooting...

Sorry Op but you seem to think that your H must know you are against guns and you just presume he isn't so keen to teach his dd to use a gun.
Perhaps it's time for a talk?

Re France, I assume your PIL are french? can I just point out that, if this is the case, it's not because they are not farmers that hunting, fishing etc... isn't something very important for them. There is even a political party representing people who are hunting there (not just farmers etc..)!!

What was DD1's opinion? Was she just going along with her father's wishes?

For me it's the fact that he asked you about taking DD out shooting, you said NO, and he did it anyway.

Why ask you if he was going to go out with her regardless of your feelings?

My PILs are English but FIL keeps his high velocity air rifle in France as it would be illegal in England due to its power. I don't know whether it would be legal in UK with a firearms licence or if there is something inherently dangerous about it, I guess the former.

Keeping DD2 away from windows - I thought there was a good chance they would have set the targets up against the back wall of the house - in any other direction there were only hedges so a missed bullet could have gone anywhere. if so, then, given DD1 had never shot before, she could well miss the target and the bullet could have come in through a window. I would have thought . I don't know enough about guns to know if that is rational but I suppose part of what I objected to was not being in any way informed what the dangers were, how they proposed to minimise them, which way they were shooting - the house is in the middle of the plot and so wherever they were shooting it would be possible to come across them unexpectedly as they cannot see round corners. But maybe that is indeed silly.

Maybe its a bit silly and 99 times out of 100 everything is okay BUT I've heard plenty of stories about people shooting themselves in the leg because they didn't unload before climbing a stile or shooting their own dogs accidentally so accidents do happen. Do you actually trust your DH and FIL to teach DD safely? Or do you think they are the sort of people to cut corners 'cos they know what they are doing' or whatever. I'd trust my cousin to teach my DS about guns even though I'm not a gun fan.

There are lots of accidents due to mishandling of guns; having said that, if your FIL and DH are competent with firearms, I wouldn't see a problem with allowing your DD1 to shoot if it was her choice to do so.

I would see a problem with them doing it directly against your wishes. You clearly said NO and they went ahead anyway. I'm not saying that your wishes trump your DH's, but it is something you should decide between the two of you, he was totally BU to go ahead with it after you had said no, without talking to you about it first.

Is FIL competent with a gun? Well, it was the first that I knew that FIL even had a gun. He said they all had guns when he was young (this was abroad, not in Europe). My DH has never shot a gun before officially (like in a gun club, or on a moor, or at school) but probably he tried out an air rifle as a kid. So who knows if they are competent with firearms? I doubt it from the way FIL was pointing it around in the living room - I always thought that you NEVER pointed a gun in anyone's direction even if you knew (or so you thought) it was unloaded. I would be amazed if either had ever had any safety training.

I would have gone fucking mental at them, I would literally have been incandescent with rage.

I really really dislike guns though and everything they stand for. I was brought up Quaker and still maintain quite stong pacifist principles.

The safety issue would bother me but less so than the complete disregarding of my ethical principles and my parenting philosophy.

It would be like if I was a hunt sabouteur (have done) and DP took a child of our hunting. Completely not ok.

as other posters have said: it's not really about the gun, though, is it? It's about your DH and your FIL being so disrespectul as to wait until your back was turned and then connive against you and, worst, not just in front of the children, but actually inveigling your DD into it as well. That's what's humiliating and why it hurt.

being worried about guns and 12 years old, in the garden, in the charge of grandpa, is clearly a valid worry. Let's say you were worried at level 9 when it really only deserved level 8.. that's not the point --

What should happen is: wait till DD has forgotten about it and everyone has calmed down. Have an adult conversation about what will happen, and how they are sure it's safe. Come to an agreement. All of you tell your DD that unfornately she's not old enough, OR, if that's what you decide, all of you tell DD she can shoot, but it's going to be like this....

No one should wait until their DP isn't looking for a moment in order to - quick!- let's take the DC out shooting in the garden.

I actually worry more about air rifles than the shotgun because little fingers can load air rifles but I struggle to break DHs shotgun and close it with cartridges in the chamber, there heavy things.

I dont like kids using air rifles at all. They dont have the maturity to deal with what they can do.

FIL sounds like an accident waiting to happen. I went to a shooting range a couple of times and when you were out of the range, if you didn't have your magazine out of your gun in a tray in your hand and your gun pointing at the ceiling at all times, you got a strip torn off you and your gun taken away. I reckon if the real gun lovers stress this much, there must be a good reason.

Can you send your DH for a days shooting so he can see the safety precautions and respect 'real' gun people have for these things?

I don't think they will try it again - that day, MIL was out, but she would otherwise have kept FIL under control. The longlasting issue is feeling let down by DH who I thought should have supported me, rather than going against my wishes, but now I do sound like he is making a valid point when he says why should I always get my own way?

pacifist it is difficult to tell from your post what has been said at the time re the guns.
Your H doesn't have to 'ask' you if it's OK to do X with his dd. And you can not give him 'permission' to do so.
I would take offense if, in the conversation you had, something along the lines of 'I really don't want dd to do that because ' and he then had sort of agreed to it but did it anyway.
If you very tentatively said 'No' but wo any explaination or any ways for your H to know how strongly you feel about it, then I think you are wrong.
If you said 'No' and just expected your H to back down and follow your pov, then YABU.

Just curious, did you feel it became a bigger issue and more important after you heard the shots because it suddenly felt really unsafe?
Is it something that is an issue in other areas of your relationship too?