Gun access

Lgw

When my LO got the diagnosis we locked up all the guns and ammunition. Suddenly my LO has started asking about the key. He wants to get out the 22. I have acted like I forgot he asked hoping he would forget. What do I do. My families best idea is to blame it on the Dr. Will that work?

ladyzetta

Blame it on the Dr.   Tell him you lost the key.  What ever you do needs to work as you know he should have no assess to the guns.  My DH wanted his guns to go to his boys so as soon as I felt it was time for the guns to leave I had his boys take them all away.  He asked about them at times I would just tell him he gave them to the boys.

RobOT

Lgw, you should treat this like an emergency situation.  Give the guns to his boys now, as long as they understand he CANNOT have them back, look at them, touch them, etc.  Dementia is a disease that causes failure of judgement and failure of self control, often before memory problems are even noticeable.   There doesn't need to be emotional problems for this issue to be a tragedy--my dad was testing his guns to see if they were loaded by pulling the triggers. One was loaded, and he shot a hole through a dresser and one through the window toward the neighbors' garage before he was stopped.  The boys can tell him the guns are being stored and hard to get for now.  Please don't mess around with one, it can be deadly.

RobOT

Sorry, I got mixed up about the boys. The guns should be stored safely away from your home, and you can tell him it's the doctor, they were confiscated, he gave them away, stolen, whatever.  Just get them safely away.

Tross760

Agreed. Time for his buddies to handle those for you and take them out of the home. “Lost the key” is valid, perhaps the empty safe goes away sometime too down the road.

MN Chickadee

The guns need to be out of the house, and hopefully "out of sight out of mind" kicks in eventually. Some people have had luck saying they sent the guns for cleaning/repair and that ends up taking longer than expected. Eventually the PWD forgets about it. You are right to deflect and distract. That's often the only thing we can do.

eaglemom

As other's have said he need not have access to any guns at any time.  

Something that I did was change the safe combination. And I had a different lock installed. No way he can ever get in there - but I can. I think he finds comfort in seeing that the safe is still here.

eagle