SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The accidental death of an instructor at an Arizona shooting range, killed while teaching a 9-year-old girl to fire a fully automatic Uzi, has touched off a debate among those who enjoy and teach the use of firearms: What’s the proper way to teach children about guns? The key, is training says gun instructor Butch Jensen. A gun is a tool, and like any tool — be it a circular saw or a kitchen knife — requires proper instruction. “It was clear that she was a beginner, and you don’t start a beginner in that type of firearm,” says Jensen, who watched a widely circulated video of the fatal lesson. “If you want to learn how to run Indy cars, you don’t start at Indy.” Blake Carrington, who serves in the Air Force, has taught his 10-year-old daughter to shoot a .22 rifle. “I personally would never give my child a fully automatic weapon,” says Carrington. “I feel terrible for that little girl having to live with that.”
Shooting instructors said in interviews that in some cases, a 9-year-old may be able to handle an Uzi, even though it has a tricky recoil and can fire hundreds of rounds per minute. The child would have to weigh enough to handle the recoil and have some experience with guns. The parent and instructor would have to jointly determine that the child is mature and skilled enough to operate the firearm safely. Tom, who practiced with an M1 Garand Rifle, says he shoots for sport and to exercise his 2nd Amendment rights. “I don’t think you should keep kids away from firearms. This shouldn’t keep people from taking their kids to the range.” Still, Tom says he could not fathom why adults allowed the 9-year-old girl to shoot an Uzi. “I don’t know what they were thinking. My personal opinion is someone under 15 years of age playing with a submachine weapon is not a good idea.”
(Score: 2, Insightful) by UpnAtom on Saturday August 30 2014, @02:58AM
I live in Britain, where rights have been massacred like no first world country since Germany.
Rights exist only up to the point where people with power will defend them, whether a Supreme Court or the media or more recently, social media.
If you annoy people with them, then you tip public opinion against them and empower authoritarian govts to remove those them.
We have seen this in Britain, where the Human Rights Act (which is a pathetically weak version of the US Bill of Rights), is largely loathed by public and the current majority party has pledged to scrap it. Can you imagine even the crazy Tea Partiers pledging to scrap the US Bill of Rights?
To answer your question, I have no idea what rights I have to free speech. I suspect it is Common Law and hence allowed unless specifically illegal ie hate speech, yelling Fire in a cinema etc.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:21AM
libertarians (many of which are part of the tea party movement) are about the only thing that the US political landscape has going for it
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:26AM
If you annoy people with them, then you tip public opinion against them and empower authoritarian govts to remove those them.
Am I reading you correctly? You are arguing that people shouldn't use their rights because it might piss off someone?
Have you considered that attitude is what has enabled british politicians to massacre your rights in the first place?
Just look at those ridiculous ASBOs you guys freakin love. ASBOs are the very embodiment of it being OK to strip someone of their rights if they are annoying.
Your problem in the UK isn't with people exercising their right to be obnoxious, it is with the public not having the balls to fight the authoritarians in the first place.
There will always be authoritarians, don't make give them any more power by making excuses for them too.
(Score: 0) by UpnAtom on Saturday August 30 2014, @10:39PM
Ever considered that maybe you don't know so much about what is going on here?
ASBOs have been abolished.
You are arguing that people shouldn't use their rights because it might piss off someone?
Correction, I am arguing that pissing people off whilst "exercising" rights ie when they're not under attack is self-defeating. It achieves nothing and sets public opinion against such rights.
Not many things are as simple as that, but this is.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:56PM
Last November, the Washington Times ran article on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and the history leading up to it. In the early 1930's before Hitler came to power, the Weimar Republic passed a law banning citizen ownership of firearms. In compliance, most of the citizens turned their firearms, and some Jews were arrested on the spot. Then Hitler came into power, and the stage was set. 5 years later, with the Jews and the rest of the citizenry being unarmed, Kristallnacht marked the beginning of the Holocaust.
Now imagine if a significant percentage of those Jewish store owners in 1938 still had their firearms - Kristallnacht probably doesn't happen at all. So yes, we need to defend our rights if we want to keep them.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:56PM
Now imagine if a significant percentage of those Jewish store owners in 1938 still had their firearms - Kristallnacht probably doesn't happen at all. So yes, we need to defend our rights if we want to keep them.
Just imagine the Jews of Germany exercising the right to bear arms and fighting the SA, SS and the Wehrmacht. The Russian army lost 7 million men fighting the Wehrmacht, despite its tanks and planes and artillery. The Jews with pistols and shotguns would have done better?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @10:40AM
Possibly, the jews wouldn't have been charing prepared positions in an attack
Either way, armed jews would've at the very least made Kristallnacht something a lot less one-sided
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday August 30 2014, @08:50PM
This is a complete lie promulgated by the pro-gun lobby.
The truth is that Germany imposed a complete ban on civilian weapons in 1919, as they had to do under the Treaty of Versailles, as a result of fighting and losing WWI.
Then in 1928 and 1938, there were too further gun laws which actually relaxed gun control.
The regulation that stopped Jews from possessing weapons of any sort, including guns was brought in on Nov 11th 1938, which was two days AFTER Kristallnacht.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht [wikipedia.org]
The pro-gun lobby are liars.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!