When is it Time to Lock up Those Guns?

My  grandfather has been shooting since he was my age. Grandma teases him that the shooting range is his second home. In a way, she’s right. Grandpa has been taking me down there since I could walk. The old codgers there are honorary relatives. Grandpa gathers with buddies several times a week at the firing range.

They talk about their shooting feats and shoot shotgun pellets through the air. That camaraderie is why it is so hard for my grandpa to give up shooting.

So when is it time to lock up  your guns? That’s a hard question. It varies. Each individual is able to do more…or less…depending on health. 

 My grandpa’s neighbor, in his seventies, has symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. His family has watched his decline with great regret. They are wondering: When is the right time to broach the topic of giving up his gun? This is as emotionally charged a question as when should a senior give up driving.

Often like with grandpa and his neighbor, shooting has been a consuming interest in life. Relatives are reluctant to broach the topic even when they knows physical and mental abilities are on the decline.  They dread the look on the face of a long-time shooter and they refuse to do it.

It’s something we don’t often consider about eldercare. But, in a country where the ratio of people to guns is about one-to-one widespread gun ownership and an aging population are a reality. It follows that gun removal is another burden of caring for older relatives. The other two gut-wrenching decisions are taking away the car keys and the checkbook.

So when is it time to lock up those guns? Those who specialize in public safety and geriatric care are asked this question  lot. Relatives feel uncomfortable and ill equipped to tackle this issue. What they often resort to is hiding the car keys and locking up the guns or sneaking the weapons from the homes of their parents.

Sometimes they disable handguns that belong to what seniors who were once sharpshooters. Instead of meeting the issue head on, they choose to avoiding the gun or car issue altogether. Naturally, those involved in elder care and law enforcement officers have grave concerns.

One of the reasons these professionals worry is because of the exploding numbers of those suffering from Alzheimer’s in America. Guns in the homes of people with dementia is a recipe for disaster. 

Scenarios support their worries. Researchers in this issue found that in 2014, more than five thousand people over sixty-five committed suicide using a gun. In addition, over two hundred in the over sixty-five group killed others.

A recent sad incident occurred when a Virginia dementia patient shot his wife before killing himself. The family blames themselves for not getting the gun out of the house when the eighty-eight-year-old was diagnosed.

While these cases do not abound, others like the  ninety-year-old dementia sufferer who killed his son are becoming alarmingly frequent.

The saddest part is that they could easily have been prevented if someone in the family had been forthright about the need to remove that gun from the home.

When is it the right time? Doctors will say that when sharp knives and hot stoves become a danger to a senior then a gun in the home is most certainly something that should be removed. When confronted by cases like the above, family members can see it’s time to act.