[William P]

i dont have kids but as a guy (turning 23 in a few months) who is by my own admisssion, the type who can let his curiosity get the better of him/ rushes into things without fully thinking things through..

the forbidden fruit concept of 'i want' to kids that are forbidden to see/ look at the item allthe time, ill definately agree with for someone like myself like any kid you want to know what the fuss is about and without proper knowledge of whats dangerous and why, youll pick it up and be all like 'this doesnt seem so bad, why was dad being so fussy' right before either cutting/ shooting themselves or dropping the peice of armour on their foot.

having a full idea of what a thing is capable of, is pretty essential.
i like the idea i heard once of shooting a watermelon with a .22 or something, and relating that to the effects of a bullet on people is enough to dispel illusions about the effects of guns.
Or, depending on the age of the kid, theres a photo floating around the internet showing a photo of jfk's head in the operating room after he'd been shot, as you might imagine, its not a pretty sight.
this would in all likelyhood send an extremely clear message about what a bullet does to people although i admit its a tad gruesome and really shouldnt be used unless their like at least over 12. since one doesnt want to give them nightmares...
although nightmares are always preferable to an accidental gunshot wound, fatal or not..

as for actually protecting items id imagine that for swords that dont have scabbards i guess just wrap it in felt or lots of cloth just to avoid it accidently slicing things. aka hands. not foolproof , but its better than nothing.. and this assumes the thing is already on a rack out of easy reach of kids.

or a higher tech solution that might be a little expensive,
encase its blade depending on the dimensions of the sword/ size of your collection. in a clear plastic tube maybe making the sword snug in the tube like it would be in a normal scabbard by addimg material in the mouth of the tube and foam blocks with holes in them that keep the blade from sliding around too much. the box for my hanwei sword had a similar setup with 3 pieces of foam, one in the bottom one near the middle and one that goes over the pommel and it works quite well. keeping the thing from rattling.

(though this might be impractical for people with large collections/ swords with big dimensions although it could work decently well for roman or viking era swords. and you might be able to encase the entire sword in the tube.. which would look cool... i dunno about you guys but the idea of a sword being sorta suspended in a plastic tube would look quite awsome, letting one look at it from all sides, but not actually touch it. )

since i get the feeling while one wants to be very safe i get the feeling one might want to show them off somewhat without having naked sharp blades on the wall that people might cut themselves with

pretty much its like chads glass case idea. except meant to contain just the individual sword/ just its blade rather than a suite of sword blades.

(although im not normally having to deal with kids other than myself so i might not be the best source of advice..

[Daniel Wallace]

hmmm, i remember my dad's way of showing me the effects of a bullet. this was the first rifle i shot - he took a 1 gallon milk jug put it out at 50 yards and told me to shoot it with a 308. well, there wasn't much of a milk jug left and all he said was 'what you shoot with this or any of these, you will kill.' from that time on i put in perspective the power that a bullet had. i was really young - my friends at school were thinking it was really cool i was handling real firearms when they still had bb guns. "what was it like" one kid asked me - it ain't like the movies was all i said.

but for some reason i feel like its a little harder to get the point across of the dangers of a blade. it's almost like you get that first real nick or cut and then you appreciate it more. remember that first burning sensation when you slipped with your knife, you look to your finger and you don't see anything, you have a sigh of relief then it starts bleeding and your mind says 'o crap' and the first thought after that is infection - loss of limb or blood poisoning.

even though it's not typical - untreated wounds can easily become much worse. especially depending on what you were doing with it at the time, dressing game in the field, witling away on wood, test cutting etc.

showing kids videos of tarama - kinda of like what the cops show you before the senior prom i don't think that does it for kids/young adults. they can always see that stuff on their own by the internet - video games that get more and more graphic. they have to be shown in a way that they can relate it to - to put it in their own perspective, your reaction to the experience is dormant until it actually happens.