“Stop. Run Away. Tell a grown up,” he says. I asked him why that’s important. “Because you could get killed,” Dean added.

Or, you could injure or kill someone else.

“You always fear that,” Deans’s Dad, Larry Caryl, told New Ten. “They can be very dangerous, you know, if not handled correctly.”

Larry said their gun is hidden away from Dean, locked in a vault and stored in a high spot in their home.

But, Dean could find a fun anywhere, like on the playground or sleeping over at a friend’s house. So, Dean’s Dad wanted to make sure he and his son had the conversation.

“You have to teach em, if you don’t teach em … they’re very curious and you see em on TV, they’re in video games and it’s just that want to touch and to feel ’em I would imagine,” Larry said.

It’s an inclination Instructor Sarah Taylor is hoping to prevent.

“It just strikes a nerve with me how serious that can be,” she said.

Serious and deadly.

“Video game – restart button, you’re just all of a sudden back alive and you get to go to the next level,” Taylor said. “There is no next level if you get shot. None, you know, and to think that a kid could take that as a toy and just go and there’s no ramifications, no there is. There is.”

So, she’s hoping like any other form of safety training, this one sticks with them.

“That way there is no hesitation. They know those four rules very clearly. I kind of compare it to ‘stop, drop and roll.’ Kids learn that at a very young age and you know that for years and years and years to come,” Taylor said.

And important lesson, she said, because guns aren’t going away.

“People are trying to protect their 2nd amendment right, so more people are getting firearms. And,” Taylor added. “I consider Michigan a hunting state, you know, and there’s a lot of firearms in this state and a lot of guys and women who do hunt and have big rifles.”

Jackson County Sheriff Steve Rand said those gun owners need to take their responsibility for that right seriously.

“No amount of education is going to fix the fact that if there’s a weapon in the home, there’s a higher likelihood that somebody’s gonna be injured by it in the home. And, whether it’s for personal protection or you’re a collector, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

So, the Sheriff says don’t just put the weapon out of reach. Make sure it’s locked up to keep everyone, especially kids like Dean safe.