The term “gun safety” gets thrown around an awful lot these days. For some of us, it means learning how to co-exist with firearms, either as a user or in a world where they exist. It’s why we teach our kids not to touch them without permission and supervision. Things like that.

Others use it as a euphemism for gun control, which isn’t helpful.

However, a couple of Houston parents are asking parents to teach their kids about actual gun safety after an incident at a restaurant playground.

A family in The Heights is asking parents to teach their children about gun safety after their two boys found and picked up a loaded handgun at a restaurant playground during dinner Wednesday.

“All of sudden, my youngest whose five walks up holding like a platter with a black thing on it, saying ‘Mommy, Daddy! We found a gun!” said the mom Stephanie Pretorius.

Pretorius said Matthew, 6, and Christian, 5 were on the Live Oak Grill property located at 10444 Hempstead Road when they found the weapon in its holster in a grassy area.

“We put it down, and the chamber fell out, and we realize it does have bullets. Hollow-point bullets to boot,” Pretorius said.

Pretorius said she doesn’t blame the restaurant but is speaking out to remind parents to talk to their children about gun safety.

Now, based on Pretorius’s description of what happened, it’s safe to say she’s not a gun person. I mean, I think she’s trying to use the right nomenclature, but her description of what’s going on is just wrong.

But that’s fine. Not everyone has to be knowledgeable about firearms. Her overall point stands. Parents need to teach their kids about guns, whether they own guns or not, and whether they approve of guns or not.

In her case, she’s fortunate because her children didn’t do it right. They picked up the gun and brought it to her. What they should have done is get the adults and brought the adults to the gun so they could handle the weapon.

It worked out OK in this instance, but it might not have.

Again, though, Pretorius isn’t wrong. Gun safety needs to be taught to children. If parents don’t know, there are a number of books that will help. John Petrolino reviewed several of them here recently. I highly recommend you look at them and buy several of them to reinforce the message.

See, it sounds like this was someone who dropped their carry weapon. It was in a holster, after all, and criminals rarely wear one of those, so the likelihood of it being a dumped crime gun is minimal. This shouldn’t have happened, but lots of things happen that shouldn’t.

It just makes sense to arm your children as well as you can, which is Pretorius’s message. That’s one we all agree with here at Bearing Arms and throughout the gun community as a whole. We desperately need our children to know basic gun safety, not for any political reason, but because it’s better for them.