[MP-Ryan]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/columnists/the-parenting-divide-if-we-arent-over-protecting-our-tots-were-giving-them-rifles/article11717422/

It's an editorial, but there are some poignant parts:

A five-year-old boy in rural Kentucky accidentally shot his two-year-old sister to death this week, reportedly with a Crickett rifle he’d received as a gift the year before. Their mom had briefly stepped outside their home when the accident happened.

Southern Kentucky is almost a continent away from Mountain Village, Alaska, where an 8-year-old boy, playing with a .22 that police said “he used the day before to go hunting,” accidentally shot dead his five-year-old sister. The two shootings happened a day apart.

It’s an alien world where guns are marketed at children. Well, not marketed at children, of course, because children don’t buy them. Their parents do, or their grandparents, because it’s part of a culture they want to share. You can find their arguments in the online magazine Gunblast: “One of the most important things that we can do as shooters and hunters is to pass along the gift and right of gun ownership to our children and grandchildren.”

Can I just say:  I'm a firearms enthusiast.  I'm licensed for Non-Restricted and Restricted weapons in Canada.  My family follows the laws around storage and then some.  And despite the odd crazy Canadian voice from the gun lobby saying our laws are a sign of the coming apocalypse at the hands of them dem librels, I'm quite happy with the state of firearms regulation in this country.  My son will be taught how to safely use firearms - in a controlled, supervised environment.  He'll have access to them when he's old enough to get a license and acquire his own and not one second before.

However - reading this stuff from the United States, a country close in both proximity and culture to my own makes my head ****ing EXPLODE.  Srsly fellas, WTF?

[General Battuta]

The kid who shot his mom with his birthday present .22 and then tried to rape her because she took his Call of Duty away was pretty nauseating.

[Phantom Hoover]

The thing that really got me about that story was his own reaction in the emergency calls and the texts to his dad: that "what the **** have I just done" reaction is something I can empathise with a lot (although obviously on a far lesser level) and it really gives the lie to the standard line of "it's not guns that are the problem, it's Bad People getting their hands on guns!"

[Dragon]

It's still wrong people getting their hands on the guns. There's a saying that there are two types of gun owners. Those who had an accidental discharge and those who will. Now, a responsible, careful person will have their gun discharge into a dirt mount on the range, or into a piece of furniture at worst. One always has to think when handling a gun. Even an unloaded one (and every gun is always loaded and primed). If you get those things drilled into your head during training, and follow them no matter what you do, guns can be perfectly safe sporting/hunting/defense tools. Maybe there should be a training course, similar to a driver's license course, in order to obtain a firearms license. That won't stop morons from getting their hands on guns, but could reduce them somewhat.
Also, while I think that a gun marketed to children is going a little too far, it's the parent's fault for buying them. A parent should be responsible enough not to give such things to a child. You don't give kids dangerous cleaning chemicals, knives and medicines. It follows that you shouldn't give them guns, except maybe under very close supervision. Even an airsoft rifle or a paintball can be dangerous if mishandled, and kids tend to do just that. .22 may be pathetic for anything except target shooting (it will also do for foxhunting, if you're big on skinning them), but it's still a gun, and still dangerous.

[Phantom Hoover]

You know, when you have to go through this massive list of precautions and checks that must be followed at all times to use guns safely I think the question of "why do you even need a gun in the first place" is a very valid one.

[IronBeer]

However - reading this stuff from the United States, a country close in both proximity and culture to my own makes my head ****ing EXPLODE.  Srsly fellas, WTF?

At the risk of stepping into a burgeoning minefield of a thread, I'd just like to drop off some of my own responses to the quoted article and my own personal experiences with firearms ownership.

I'm inclined to superficially agree with the main thrust of the article: that such radically different extremes in parenting styles can exist in such close proximity is mind-bending. What I have to take exception with, however, is the implied assertion that ALL parents are on either end of the spectrum. Nowhere do I see even a nod to the kids who, like me and (I'm going to assume) MP-Ryan, weren't even allowed to LOOK at the family guns until the fundamentals of gun safety had been drilled in with extreme clarity.

I'm going to go further out on a limb and claim, based solely on my own experience living in Texas for the past ten years (a place that a lot of people still think is quite literally the old Wild West with guys on horses and a gun in every belt), that even here most parents fall into the mold of "normal" ..."gun growth" (maybe? I need a catchier term). As in, I'm pretty sure that while most parents would buy a single-shot .22 (perhaps even a model cited in the article) for their kid as the child's first gun, those parents would not allow their child access to the weapon without vigilant personal oversight and perfect understanding of safety rules.

By the way, @Dragon, no responsible gun owner should EVER "expect" to have an accidental discharge. The first rule of gun safety is that "the gun is always loaded". Not "treat the gun as if it were always loaded", or anything other than the exact wording I first established. Even after confirming the absence of a round in the chamber or in any magazine, the next rule is to "never point a gun at something you wouldn't want a hole in". Nothing less than perfect adherence to the rules is acceptable- no shooter should ever have an unintended discharge, end of story.

I was going to launch into a somewhat personal exploration of my own experiences with learning to use guns, hunting, and so on, but I think my rebuttal in the previous paragraph hits the points most relevant to this thread.

tl;dr-
*I do think that the main thesis of the article is correct in that there are two diametrically opposed groups of parents in the US, but the thesis is flawed by implicitly over-representing the numerical significance of the two fringe groups.
*Yes, there are parents that would (or do) buy their kids a single-shot, small-caliber rifle, and some make this purchase before their child understands the responsibility of owning a firearm, but I think most parents time this purchase properly.
*No accidental discharge should be tolerated or "expected".
*Ms. Renzetti mixes statistics at the end of her article by citing the total number of child/teen gun injuries in the US. While accidental shootings are a serious problem, I do have to take exception with Ms. Renzetti's use of such an over-arching statistic in relation to a specific issue.

ed- I now noticed that another main point of the article was shock at the sale of weapons marketed specifically towards children. Bad on me for missing that initially. While I think (some) children are capable of responsibly using firearms (albeit at different ages and only under direct adult supervision) I do agree that it's not healthy to market weapons indirectly to kids.

[Dragon]

By the way, @Dragon, no responsible gun owner should EVER "expect" to have an accidental discharge. The first rule of gun safety is that "the gun is always loaded". Not "treat the gun as if it were always loaded", or anything other than the exact wording I first established. Even after confirming the absence of a round in the chamber or in any magazine, the next rule is to "never point a gun at something you wouldn't want a hole in". Nothing less than perfect adherence to the rules is acceptable- no shooter should ever have an unintended discharge, end of story.

I know that, this is the theory that gets pounded into your head during training. And yes, perfect adherence to those (and a few more, but I'm not going to quote all of them here) is the only acceptable way to behave around guns. It's true that a shooter should ever have an accidental discharge. But they do occur anyway, sometimes without apparent fault on the owner's side (though unless it's an old, military SKS rifle, it's usually his fault, for instance due to poor maintenance). With a responsible shooter, even if it does happen, it usually does no harm. Also, quite contrary to what you said, a responsible gun owner always expect to have an accidental discharge to happen, even if the gun's unloaded, on safe and with the bolt open (treating the gun like it would fire if you as much as look at it funny is a generally good advice).

[Nuke]

dont interfere with redneck evolution!

[An4ximandros]

(...) redneck evolution!

Aren't these antonyms?

 This topic has become quite... sore to avoid. Might as well give it a shot with how often it loads up into the forums.

 I am against "gun rights." I understand why people want the right to posses guns, and I sympathize. But articles like this clearly say to me people should not be trusted with weapons. They are (as showcased) incapable of comprehending that the "right" comes with responsibilities. Such as not allowing children, who are at their age incapable of properly using them or even comprehending the idea of killing someone, access to them. At the end of the day it comes down to hackish parenting, unfortunately the only way to make it stick that rights are not "free" is by taking them away. So I say: Ban the guns.

 As for the CoD child... I have no words.

[Dragon]

So I say: Ban the guns.

This is an overtly simplistic (and frankly, quite idiotic) approach that would never work. Also, you're talking about "people". That's a pretty wide group, which includes me, you, the entire American military and Darwin Awards runner-ups (oh, and keep in mind that you effectively just insulted a few thousand Marines by saying they can't be trusted with guns. Sleep tight. ). So some people can handle guns, and some can't. You can't oversimplify like that. Even if you take "people" as "majority", it's flat out not true. I'm pretty sure that majority of gun owners don't allow kids to mess with their guns. What you're seeing is a tiny sample of American gun owning population who happen to be unbelievably irresponsible about their guns and children, two things you really need a lot of responsibility to handle. The question is, how to prevents such morons from getting access to guns before they do something stupid with them?

[Mika]

Strange how different outcomes you get when kids get firearms when they are young

My dad bought an air operated rifle that we could start with when I was about 7 years old. He basically taught the gun safety with that one, you don't point it towards people unless you want them dead, otherwise keep the barrel pointed to a direction with the least harm. We did shoot quite a bit of those pellets during those years. I think I got a six-shooter first time on my hand to when I was 11, but then dad made sure to be in the immediate leaping distance and made very sure that we could not get our hands into that, which included several locks for the gun case AND separate locks for the bullets. That's most of the stuff I did, despite my family being relatively known for having some quantity of guns (I think we had a Mauser, six-shooter, two shotguns and a hunting rifle - note I say I think since I never saw the Mauser or the other shotgun). Higher caliber stuff, I don't think I got to touch them until I was like 28 when I went to hunting with the local club.

However, military service sort of changed how I perceive firearms. There I shot all sorts of things, including assault rifles, light machine guns to anti-aircraft machine guns, a light RPG as well. And to be honest, military succeeds quite well in making that stuff quite boring. The same sort of rules applied there when we were carrying loaded guns, you simply didn't point them towards anyone and you got pretty good at that pretty quickly. Especially after somebody cleaned his rifle in a tent where the rest of the guys were sleeping and made an accidental shot. Nobody was injured, but everybody in that tent had to go to hospital for ear inspections. This accident was mainly contributed on being really tired.

I was pretty close to two three similar sort of things, first one being getting nearly shot at by accidental discharge of a person cleaning a gun outside in clear sunshine. He probably wasn't the sharpest pencil in the pen in the first place, but three days of continuous war exercise does take its toll. During the same exercise when we were dashing in the snow, my rifle's safety switch had moved to OFF position. I picked it up quite quickly, but was scared ****less when I realized that there were people belonging to the squad in front of me. The only thing that kept the thing safe was that I wasn't keeping a finger next to the trigger. Third incident was by one of my sergeants, he was, get this, kicking an unexploded mortar shell around for something like 50 metres until I told him to stop. His defense was that he simply didn't realize what he was doing or the danger of it, despite being told of it in the beginning of every exercise. Needless to say, sufficient safe perimeter was established around the shell which was then blown to pieces by demolition experts.

Moral of the story being, if trained adults make mistakes with guns, how can you trust a kid on how to use that thing if you aren't watching?

EDIT:
Now that I think of it, the hunting law requires us to remove the bolt from the rifle when entering a vehicle. It is not enough that you remove the magazine and the bullet from the chamber, but also need to keep the bolt separated from the rifle. If you don't do it and police catches you, you'll get a hefty fine of something like $500. And police does patrol the hunting grounds around here.

[deathfun]

playing with a .22

...

...

...

Anyone annoyed that the wording implies the worst possible thought? That the kid thought it was a bloody toy?


Every person I've ever handed a rifle to in order to demonstrate to them what it is, and how to ACTS and PROVE it have always handled them like they should. Carefully, and to my instruction.
Except for that one gal who pointed it at her BF saying "don't worry, it's not loaded" (something I kept repeating to not do, guess it didn't sink in) to which I smacked her metaphorically in the head for having done. I then proceeded to remove the rifle from her hands and scold the **** out of her.

Now that I think of it, the hunting law requires us to remove the bolt from the rifle when entering a vehicle.

Little different in Canada. We just need to ensure it's not loaded. That's the only requirement for transporting NON-RESTRICTED firearms
Anything else that people tell you to do such as keep it in a case and out of sight, is merely social norms.



The best part about Canada though, is when the RCMP calls you regarding your license you're trying to obtain, if you say home defense, they immediately decline your getting a license

[BrotherBryon]

There are a large assortment of views on the whole control thing, it's unfortunate that the most extreme ends of the issue are so loud that it is hard to hear the more common sense and practical arguments. Personally, I view gun ownership as both a privilege and a right. What I mean by that is while it is my right to potentially own a firearm I should be able to demonstrate that I both understand and follow the basic principles of firearm safety and all laws related to it in order own one. I wouldn't be opposed to stricter screenings and licensing laws as I know I can pass them should I ever decide to become a firearm owner again just as long as they don't get too restrictive. For example I don't think there should be an outright ban on assault style weapons or magazine sizes but I do believe they should have their own tier of licensing and registration tougher to get than the average firearms license. It should be handled in a similar fashion as driver's licensing, where each tier requires a certain amount of training, screening, and testing to acquire.

A lot of the issues dealing with firearm restrictions stem from polarized illogical view points that always seem to take center stage. Gun violence is a real problem and steps need to be taken to lessen it but instead we have people in power who want to pull way too far in either direction and are unwilling to look for a middle ground at all.

[Lorric]

This topic has become quite... sore to avoid. Might as well give it a shot with how often it loads up into the forums.

 I am against "gun rights." I understand why people want the right to posses guns, and I sympathize. But articles like this clearly say to me people should not be trusted with weapons. They are (as showcased) incapable of comprehending that the "right" comes with responsibilities. Such as not allowing children, who are at their age incapable of properly using them or even comprehending the idea of killing someone, access to them. At the end of the day it comes down to hackish parenting, unfortunately the only way to make it stick that rights are not "free" is by taking them away. So I say: Ban the guns.

 As for the CoD child... I have no words.

This is an overtly simplistic (and frankly, quite idiotic) approach that would never work. Also, you're talking about "people". That's a pretty wide group, which includes me, you, the entire American military and Darwin Awards runner-ups (oh, and keep in mind that you effectively just insulted a few thousand Marines by saying they can't be trusted with guns. Sleep tight. ). So some people can handle guns, and some can't. You can't oversimplify like that. Even if you take "people" as "majority", it's flat out not true. I'm pretty sure that majority of gun owners don't allow kids to mess with their guns. What you're seeing is a tiny sample of American gun owning population who happen to be unbelievably irresponsible about their guns and children, two things you really need a lot of responsibility to handle. The question is, how to prevents such morons from getting access to guns before they do something stupid with them?

Memories...

An4ximandros, you are me and I am you, from two different threads. I originally tried to resist getting into that discussion but ended up there. I said pretty much most of what you said there, and got pretty much the same type of responses. It's happening exactly as before.

An4ximandros, I can tell you from experience that this will not go well for you if you decide to persist. Please let me spare you the hassle I went through the last time there was a gun thread.

[Phantom Hoover]

A lot of the issues dealing with firearm restrictions stem from polarized illogical view points that always seem to take center stage. Gun violence is a real problem and steps need to be taken to lessen it but instead we have people in power who want to pull way too far in either direction and are unwilling to look for a middle ground at all.

if you seriously are worried that there's any hope of effective gun control legislation being put into place you can assuage your fears right now