When I was a 11 years old, my younger brother and I had complete access to all of the firearms in the house. We were fully trained in their use, and shot on a regular basis. We hunted deer, pheasant, and shot trap. We also learned how to skin a deer in a our back yard tied up to a tree. All of the firearms were located in a wooden gun cabinet in the living room in plain sight of the front windows.
We did lots of stupid things when we were kids, but we never even considered touching the shotguns and rifles. That was something we did "with dad" (who was really my step father).
Setting aside the fact that us kids had full access to them, it blows my mind that anyone could have stolen them at any time. We never locked the doors back then, and they were less than teen feet from our front door. The shot guns were all from Europe and hand carved were worth a lot of money....
It's a vastly different time.
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