By Tayleigh Davis - bio | email
ALBANY, GA (WALB) - Children and guns is a combination that can have tragic results. Over the weekend, a toddler in Gainesville died while playing with a gun, and an 11-year old in Waycross died in a pellet gun accident.
Experts say gun owners must teach their kids gun safety at an early age. That's advice a south Georgia country music star Luke Bryan says he follows.
Luke Bryan was at the Backwoods Outdoors store with his family and friends. The country music artist owns several guns and makes sure they don't come close to his son or nephew.
"Like many other fathers I want my son to spend time outdoors and educate him on what the risk is," Bryan said.
Which is also what Backwoods owner Jackie Sizemore wants for his son.
"First he knows not to mess with a gun because it can be loaded," Sizemore said.
He always makes sure guns aren't loaded when he sells them.
Lee County Sheriff's Major Chris Owens agrees with Sizemore and Bryan about the need to educate kids on the danger of guns.
"Just showing them the gun will take the curiosity out and it will be more safe to do it that way," Maj. Owens said.
Bryan stresses that to his nephew Till Cheshire who told me that he has several different types of guns and enjoys looking at the different varieties at Backwoods. Cheshire says his dad and Uncle Luke showed him how put on his safety lock.
Major Owens says there are several ways to put on a safety lock but there are two main ones he showed WALB. The gun owner can either remove the ammo and put it through the chamber or run the lock through the barrel so a bullet can't enter the chamber.
That's a tip both Bryan and Seizmore can use for their little ones. The safety tips are becoming more important every year as the demand for guns increases. Sheriff's deputies say if kids are in a home and unaware of gun safety, people need keep them unloaded and locked up.
©2009 WALB News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Feedback
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 Worldnow and WALB, a Raycom Media Station. 
