Dear Editor,

I have children. As a family we often have family fun day. We use higher end German made SK standard plus ammo in our custom built .22lr rifles. As a family we might shoot over $200 worth of .22lr ammo.

Me being 44, my girlfriend being 42, her son being 14 and our daughter being 6 all shoot. This is not the problem.

I have guns in every room of my home and I have a room just for guns and reloading said guns. As a family we shoot — mom, pop, brother, sister. We never not allow them to shoot with us unless they are being punished for a wrong doing.

There are always multiple guns in every room — kitchen, dinning room, all three bathrooms, children’s room,  master bedroom and the overly large gun room in the basement where I reload for everything.

When I leave my home I do not worry about my firearms killing people. I worry more about my pit bull, Ethyl, killing people who try to break in. She has 100 percent free rein of my home. If I come in and she has somebody down, they broke in and got what they deserve. If I’m home, I will hold Ethyl back, and look at what needs to be done. If somebody breaks into my home, I hope they brought their own body bag so that law enforcement doesn’t have to.

Long and short firearms do not kill people. People kill other people doing stupid things like armed robbery, breaking into houses, car jacking and plain old mugging people.

My guns are all loaded. Our children see them. If they ask about a new one I take them right out to shoot it that moment. They know and understand what they are. They don’t play with them. They don’t dream about anything but a bigger buck next year. We shoot as a family and we enjoy it. Just like I was trained to shoot by my father, Lonnie Casey. I feel I have surpassed his abilities because I love the  longer ranges. 700,800-1000 and further.

I hope one day my child will step up and shoot further than I am in matches. It would be a dream of mine to see her out shoot her old man.

Derek Casey

Hustonville