Hypothetical

Gun or Pool?

If your child had the option to play at a house where there was a loaded gun stored or a house with a swimming pool and asked your permission, which house would you choose?

Published by

Kim Siever

Queer Mormon poet with radical political views. I have been married 27 years, and we have 6 children. Sunday school president. Served in the Utah Provo Mission.

16 thoughts on “Gun or Pool?”

  1. I’m going to say the house with the pool.

    My kids have been taught all about pool safety. They also would enjoy the pool, and could use it as a group.

    Additionally, swimming is a great form of low joint-stress physical activity.

    Now if the house with the loaded gun had an X-Box 360 I might have to think a little bit longer…

  2. I know where you’re going with this because I read Freakonomics but I’m still going to go with the pool because swimming is fun, and I plan to teach my kids all about pool safety.

  4. I have not read Freakonomics and I don’t understand the question. Do I have to choose just one? Because I wouldn’t have a problem with either. Neither of those things needs to be dnagerous if the child is taught to respect them.

  5. I would have a problem with both because I can’t guarantee the parents will be vigilant enough.

    It would depend on the age. An older child can be more alert, more aware, but you can’t control what other children do either. Sure, MY child might be safe and stay away from a gun, but what about the child s/he is playing with? And with pools, things can go bad very quickly. My children know how to be safe, but I still want to be there to be watching over them. But then my children are quite young.

  6. It depends how old my children are and my familiarity with the friend’s parents. Are they responsible? Is the gun locked in a cabinet? Is the pool gated? My instinct leans towards the pool though, as I do not own guns and my kids are unfamiliar.

  8. We have a trampoline. I wonder where that puts us one the dangermeter?

  9. Hands down I would choose the swimming pool. I think that a loaded gun is far more dangerous than a swimming pool.

    We have older kids that have taken swimming lessons and therefore know how to swim well, CPR, and all about pool safety. We also have a family member with a backyard pool, so they understand the safety issues with a pool w/ cousins and jackassery, and no lifeguards, etc.

    On the other hand, my Dad has guns at his farm, and so I have talked with the kids about gun safety as well.(With example of the sheer stupidity that my brothers managed with the guns, and are very lucky that no one was ever shot.)

    I also witnessed my neighbour getting shot when we were young, because they weren’t being smart while shooting gofers.

    So I guess it is all about educating your children, and only hoping that the other kids that they associate with are also being educated also. It’s like driving, you can teach your children about driving safely, and let them take Drivers Ed., but there are a lot of crazy drivers out there, and that is a real danger, even if you teach them to be defensive drivers as well.

    I think that trampolines are more of a death trap than anything though. Our son broke his leg on our neighbours tramp when he was younger, and the ER Doctor said that he has never allowed his family to have a trampoline because of all the injuries that he has seen from them.

    I guess everything is dangerous to the ignorant.

  10. “I think that a loaded gun is far more dangerous than a swimming pool.”

    More people die from a swimming pool each year than from a gun.

  11. There are just too many other factors not accounted for to make a choice: How well the pool is safeguarded, how securely the gun is stored, how responsible the adults at the other home are, how responsible the children at the other home are, how old my child is, how well my child is taught to respect such things, etc. etc.

  12. Suburbs: Gun
    Inner City: Pool

    Suburban ERs see more drownings than gunshot wounds and vice versa.

  13. How many people have pools in the inner city?

    If the place where you live doesn’t have more than 10 building with more than 10 floors each, you don’t live in a place with an “inner” city anyway. You have a downtown.

  14. “More people die from a swimming pool each year than from a gun.”

    “Would you feel any better if they were pushed out of windows?”

    – Archie Bunker

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