In other words, no kids 13 or younger may go shooting or hunting alone or just with their friends. Mollenhauer advises parents to have their children wait until age 16 or 17. Another state law all parents should know, advises Jon Roesler, senior epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health Injury and Violence Prevention Unit, is that loaded guns must not be accessible to anyone under age 18. Conservation officers say that, despite the conflict in wording, the law was not intended to keep guns out of the hands of supervised youngsters or those who have earned a DNR firearms safety certificate. Contact the DNR Information Center for more information and a copy of the current Minnesota hunting and trapping regulations.
Statistics indicate that hunting and shooting are safer than many other outdoor pursuits.
Nationwide, roughly 100 people die each year in hunting accidents, while 1,500 die in swimming incidents. Minnesota averaged four hunting-related firearms deaths each year during the 1990s. Two reasons for hunting's safety record in Minnesota are the requirements for firearms safety training and that no youth under age 14 may hunt or shoot without adult supervision. According to state health officials, a firearms-related death occurs in Minnesota roughly once per day, mostly from suicide and homicide. Guns accessible to kids are accidents waiting to happen, says Laurel Briske, a pediatric nurse practitioner and mother of three adult sons who hunt.