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 Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @09:02PM
> Tom says he could not fathom why adults allowed the 9-year-old girl to shoot an Uzi.
It is the same phenomenon that is behind rollin' coal. [soylentnews.org]
Some people get so caught up in the politics that common sense takes a backseat.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 29 2014, @09:09PM
My Lesbian aunt and her female life-partner, both from San Francisco, were watching an opinion about the matter on MSNBC and said, "That's horrible! No kid should shoot until they're sixteen! Or, we should ban all guns, period!"
I replied, "Just another Darwin award. we're doing the world a favor in letting stupid fucks die."
They both gasped in horror and then began scissoring on the living room rug when Rachel Maddow came on, then I walked out to the canyon and hunted rabbit and squirrel with my M-240 Bravo and hand grenades.
Silly liberals.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:18AM
I'm going to put out my opinion that this story is fabricated.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Pseudonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @09:52AM
A liberal muslim homosexual ACLU lawyer professor and abortion doctor was teaching a class on Karl Marx, known atheist
”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Marx and accept that he was the most highly-evolved being the world has ever known, even greater than Jesus Christ!”
At this moment, a brave, patriotic, pro-life Navy SEAL champion who had served 1500 tours of duty and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all military decision made by the United States stood up and held up a rock.
”How old is this rock, pinhead?”
The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied “4.6 billion years, you stupid Christian”
”Wrong. It’s been 5,000 years since God created it. If it was 4.6 billion years old and evolution, as you say, is real… then it should be an animal now”
The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Origin of the Species. He stormed out of the room crying those liberal crocodile tears. The same tears liberals cry for the “poor” (who today live in such luxury that most own refrigerators) when they jealously try to claw justly earned wealth from the deserving job creators. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, DeShawn Washington, wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a sophist liberal professor. He wished so much that he had a gun to shoot himself from embarrassment, but he himself had petitioned against them!
The students applauded and all registered Republican that day and accepted Jesus as their lord and savior. An eagle named “Small Government” flew into the room and perched atop the American Flag and shed a tear on the chalk. The pledge of allegiance was read several times, and God himself showed up and enacted a flat tax rate across the country.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and was tossed into the lake of fire for all eternity.
Semper Fi.
p.s. close the borders
(Score: 4, Funny) by Leebert on Saturday August 30 2014, @11:35AM
That story CAN'T be true. A Navy SEAL would never say "Semper Fi".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:51PM
Hercules says God is dead! [youtu.be]
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Saturday August 30 2014, @06:21PM
I could swear that I've read this before, but... so... relevant!
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday August 30 2014, @08:26PM
Ethanol-Fueled is fabricated.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Wednesday September 17 2014, @05:25AM
Sir, can I please subscribe to your newsletter, your posts absolutely brighten my day no matter how fabricated some folks believe them to be :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @09:09PM
> Tom says he could not fathom why adults allowed the 9-year-old girl to shoot an Uzi.
Perhaps they regretted their choice to be parents?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:11AM
It's more like giving a 16 year old a 1400cc Suzuki Hayabusa and sending him on the freeway with no training or practice. Something's going to go splat.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:10AM
Looks like that is correct.
At least based on the gifs that vacca liked to post on his facebook account, [rawstory.com] he was big time into the stupid part of conservative ideology.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday August 29 2014, @09:34PM
Letting people make decisions for themselves and their children is dangerous because they might pick differently from ourselves.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SlimmPickens on Saturday August 30 2014, @12:35AM
I suggest it's dangerous because your gun culture is totally out of control. Do you realise the USA has over 50% of the worlds guns? I can't even remember the last time a shooting went through our newspapers that wasn't in the USA. The second last one happened because someone thought it was OK to give an uzi to a nine year old girl that couldn't shoot.
I'll "pick" staying down here where there's an almost zero chance of getting shot over whatever it is you're getting out of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Saturday August 30 2014, @12:51AM
have you SEEN the guns the US Govt has....?
The Founding fathers knew what they were doing , when the 2nd amendment was included.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:08AM
Flamebait? It's an honest and well reasoned opinion.
I care deeply about truth, and finding truth requires not being emotionally attached to ones beliefs.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:25AM
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf [harvard.edu]
I strongly disagree with your opinion - but I wouldn't have modded it "flamebait". But, there is no moderation available that indicates disagreement, so mods use "flamebait" instead.
Personally, I agree with TFA. My first firearm was a .22 single shot. I taught my sons the same way, with a .22 single shot. When I thought they were ready for it, I got them .50 caliber muzzle loaders. In my world, a bolt action rifle that holds five (or more) rounds in the magazine is a weapon for a maturing teen. A semi-automatic should be reserved for young adults. Fully automatic weapons? Those are CERTAINLY NOT the weapon of choice for a novice. Novices should be discouraged from even touching one. I'd rather that novices not even be allowed in the same room with a fully automatic weapon.
I strongly believe in my second amendment rights, but I believe even more strongly in responsibility.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SlimmPickens on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:47AM
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety
I'm a firm believer in this in general, but obviously that ends somewhere. Few thinks it's OK for Syria to have a nuclear weapon, for example. Where the 'line' is depends on how responsible society is. But what's going on the USA has gone far beyond a reasonable philosophical debate. One poster above tried to tell me that I would understand if I only knew just how big the governments guns were. Fix the gun problem with guns!
But, there is no moderation available that indicates disagreement,
I'm pretty sure in that case they're supposed to tell me why I'm wrong, as you did, not moderate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:21AM
Far beyond debate? I think that's debatable. Do us a favor and look up some statistics. What are the comparative chances of dying by gun vs. by car? Since it's many times more likely that you'll die by car in the US, you should logically be arguing against our out of control car culture.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by arslan on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:09AM
False logic, you can almost always find another stat to eclipse your own. If you really want to be clear on what that stat actually means, why don't you compare the ratio of death by cars vs death by guns in a country with a ban on guns with a similar population size or some size factor and interpolate it and compare that ratio to the U.S.?
I'm not against gun ownership in the U.S. given its history, I used to be, but having understand and heard a lot of reasons from actual level headed people with unprejudiced reasons on the matter I can see why the U.S. is unique enough to have this right.
I do however think the government should have tighter controls though to prevent events like this, essentially controls to prevent people who do not possess the adequate mental or physical faculties to easily access firearms. What that is I really don't know, the U.S. have to work it out, but unfortunately both size of the fence is so polarized that its no where near any sort of sane objective discussion
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:15AM
> What are the comparative chances of dying by gun vs. by car?
Motor vehicle traffic deaths
Number of deaths: 33,783
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.8
All firearm deaths
Number of deaths: 32,351
Deaths per 100,000 population: 10.4
Source: CDC FastStats [cdc.gov]
> Since it's many times more likely that you'll die by car in the US, you should logically be arguing against our out of control car culture.
How many car deaths are intentional?
(Score: 1) by richtopia on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:37AM
We should have stricter licensing on automobiles! Driving in other countries where people obey traffic laws and ways of the road is refreshing.
Here are some example nations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate):
annual deaths / 100 000 cars:
USA 13.6
Germany 6.9
Finland 6.6
Chile 5.8
Slovenia 10.5
Poland 17.6
New Zealand 10.3
Greece 13.8
Estonia 13.1
Czech Republic 13
Belize 16.4
I actually had a hard time finding comparable states to the USA, it seems that most nations are either below 10 or quite high.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @02:04PM
incorrect..,,dont use "fast stats" if you want people to actually know truth or have an actual discussion....im sad you were modded insightful because parrits are not insightful, they just hace an agenda....even if its just to get a cracker
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:54AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Saturday August 30 2014, @12:05PM
um, i'd be a teeny tiny bit more impressed by those stats, if it wasn't for the fact that a HUGE percentage of us spend a fair amount of time in our cars EVERY DAMN DAY, multiple times a day, among many hundreds/thousands doing the same... regularly handling, shooting, transporting guns on a consistent, daily schedule ? VERY few of us, what less than 1% messing with them 1% of the time... NOTHING compared to how much we use cars...
IF we were handling guns the same amount, in the same careless manner as we drive, as many times a day, with a million other gun equipped idiots out there, do you have any doubt what the 'stats' would be ? ? ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:29AM
> I suggest it's dangerous because your gun culture is totally out of control.
It is the drugs. The vast majority of non-suicide shootings are by criminals and of criminals. All the white folks with guns in the house as "protection" are just scared of black people. Legalize drugs and 95% of the non-suicide shootings will go away in a decade or so (criminals will still be criminals but business will be a lot less lucrative so it takes a while for them wind down).
I don't have a good answer for suicides and they make up half of the firearms deaths in the US.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:11AM
I don't disagree that gun culture is out of control in the USA, but there is a good reason for it; anti-gun culture is also out of control, and the US government is bordering on tyranny.
Not sure i agree that 50% of the world's guns are in the USA. Maybe according to some idiot US or UN statistics, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the world's guns aren't traceable or accounted for.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Saturday August 30 2014, @08:16AM
Troll my ass, only the meek could think that. Go forth and burn!
Just to be clear, I'm not against owning guns, I grew up on a farm. Just pointing out that there's just a bit more to it than OP's claim that it's just a difference of opinion. Personally, I think you should do something about it.
I was wrong about 50% of the guns being in the US, it's just that 50% of them are owned by the US. http://www.thewire.com/politics/2012/12/guns-in-america-statistics/60071/ [thewire.com]
(Score: 1) by dpp on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:24PM
Except when the "pick differently" endangers either/both the children or the people around them.
IMHO - The parents of this 9yo girl recklessly endangered not only their daughter but others at the shooting range.
Re: Why?
The only conclusion I can come to, after watching the video, is it was a *thrill*/*kick* for the parents (probably your typical "gun nuts") to see their little girl firing an assault rifle.
I come to that conclusion because they were their video taping her doing it.
"Teaching her"? I doubt it - why teach your daughter to shoot a fully automatic assault rifle, otherwise illegal and she'd never be able to own/fire. Also, do you think if they were "teaching" her to use another possibly dangerous tool (as others here comment using for example), say a table saw or reciprocating saw - they'd be sitting back having someone show her how and video tape her?
No, I think it was a sick ego-trip gone wrong. They've most likely damaged that girl for life, and recklessly caused the death of the man working at the range...all for their thrill/kicks of (most likely) readying a youtube video to show off their daughter and gun-nut fantasies.
Re: "pick differently"?
Parents can, in most cases, "pick differently" all they like, however not when it comes to recklessly endangering the child or others around them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Wodan on Friday August 29 2014, @09:39PM
guess kids actually shooting is more accepted than writing about shooting pet dinosaurs?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by UpnAtom on Friday August 29 2014, @09:41PM
Rights do not need exercising. They do not atrophy over time.
Usually 'exercising your rights' is synonymous with being a dick. Just sayin'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:22AM
My experience is that the rule for exercise of rights is "use it or lose it".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:32AM
> Rights do not need exercising. They do not atrophy over time.
In perfect nerd-world where everything is black and white that would be true.
But in the world with actual humans societal changes happen all the time.
A right that isn't used is no right at all.
And this isn't just about guns. Look at stuff like "free speech zones" - you still have the "right" to free speech, right?
(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!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Buck Feta on Saturday August 30 2014, @01:58AM
> Rights do not need exercising. They do not atrophy over time.
Which part of the 911 aftermath did you miss? The last 15 years have been nothing but an erosion of personal rights.
> Usually 'exercising your rights' is synonymous with being a dick. Just sayin'.
Free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. Just a bunch of dicks.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1) by UpnAtom on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:03AM
Which part of the 911 aftermath did you miss? The last 15 years have been nothing but an erosion of personal rights.
Maybe because Americans were too busy exercising rights instead of defending them?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:05AM
you're right, rights don't need exercising because they do not atrophy. the "use it or lose it" concept is stupid because it implies that if you aren't using something constantly then its not important, and it means that if you do stop using them all the time you're fine with them being taken away. fuck that nonsense. just because i put something down doesn't mean its ok for you to take it.
rights do not have to be exercised all the time, but they do need to be defended any time somebody tries to take them away or undermine them.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday August 31 2014, @06:58AM
You might not have noticed this, but people, groups, and governments routinely do things that aren't ok.
Ah, I see. They don't need to be "exercised" but they do need to be "defended". I consider that the same thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday August 29 2014, @09:45PM
The instructor was an idiot. He probably got his credentials from a cereal box.
While I fully approve of teaching children how to safely handle and fire a gun you wouldn't give an average 9 year old a torque wrench and tell them to replace the piston rings on a Lamborghini so why the Hell did this guy think it was a good idea to hand a LOADED fully automatic weapon to a child, or anyone, who doesn't know how anything about guns?
Most accidental gun related injuries and deaths are caused by a lack of knowledge of how to handle and use a gun. Even if you don't own a gun, want a gun, or even think you will never be within 30 feet of a gun you should know how to handle a gun in a safe manner. I learned how to shoot when I was 12, my dad gave me his old .22 rifle (still have it), showed me how to handle it, check if it was loaded, how to unload it, clean it, field strip it and store it. He believed that if you own a gun you should also know it inside and out, so if anything ever went wrong (hang fire, jam, etc.) you don't panic and know how to respond in a way that won't endanger yourself or anyone else around you.
I think giving a short (1-2 days?) gun safety class in school (yes to 9-12 year olds). Just the basics (how they work, how to handle safely, what not to do with them) and have the students fire off 10 rounds so they know and understand just how dangerous even a .22 can be if handled incorrectly. It is one thing to be told that a gun makes a very loud sound and jumps when you pull the trigger, it is quite another thing to experience it first hand. When I was given my first gun I was just like other kids my age, running around with toy guns or even just sticks, and going "bang, bang", after I actually heard the report, felt the recoil and saw the clay target explode I stopped thinking that guns were toys.
At the minimum recent completion of a gun safety class should be mandatory before purchasing any gun, even BB guns which I think are even more dangerous than real guns because a lot of people consider them toys.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Saturday August 30 2014, @12:37AM
I'm actually pretty anti-gun, but I would support that. On the condition of course that kids were taught individually and not as a group. I was on a rifle team when I was much younger, my biggest issues with guns being accessible is people don't respect them. As such they become much more dangerous. They'd be a lot safer if people didn't think they were toys and understood the power behind them.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:06AM
I grew up in a country where virtually everyone learned to shoot at an early age (Texas). My first gun was an air rifle I got for Christmas when I was 8. I had to learn how to handle that safely before I was allowed to shoot my uncle's 22 rifle when I was 9. When I was 11 I got my first real rifle, an over/under 22/ 410. Before I was 12, I was hunting quail and dove, also rattlesnake and jackrabbits. Also before 12 I had my first marksmanship merit badges in Boy Scouts. There were lessons to be learned before I was allowed to handle heavier weapons, like my Dad's 12 gauge or 30-06. When I first handled a full auto in my early 20s, I still had a heavy learning curve in handling the recoil. I just cannot imagine handing a full auto to anyone of any age who has not fired any heavy recoil firearms before.
All I can say is thank heaven the one killed was not the little girl. At least the idiot that placed that rifle in her hands won't be doing that any more.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by dpp on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:15PM
" Even if you don't own a gun, want a gun, or even think you will never be within 30 feet of a gun you should know how to handle a gun in a safe manner."
Question:
Why?
If someone is not ever going to pick up a gun, why do they need to know how to handle one?
The coming apocalypse? The violent over-throw of the government that's looming? Wrestling the gun for the murderous home invader and shooting them?
I grew up around/using guns, father was hunter. I was taught to fire a gun when I was young. Similar to you, started with a .22 rifle. And I just don't understand why everyone should learn how to operate a gun.
How many people will ever actually need to, or be able to, shoot someone?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday August 29 2014, @09:51PM
> The Mohave County Sheriff, Jim McCabe, said the full video of the incident was, as one might imagine, "ghastly."
"As one might imagine"? The hell of it is, it was probably ghastly not because of the easily-imagined reason (the gory scene of a guy getting shot in the head) but because of the girl. A child realizing she'd killed a man. That... that's gotta be soul-wrenching, even for a cop who has been around crime scenes his entire career.
(Sigh.) You do not give anyone, child or adult, who you just taught shooting stance to FIVE SECONDS AGO a loaded weapon. With a full magazine. And then switch it to full auto after ONE practice shot. And then stand with your face in the climbing arc where the gun is likely to go if the shooter loses control. He paid a fair price for his stupidity. The girl, on the other hand, has been handed a burden she never deserved. I hope she can come to terms with that before it ruins her.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @12:37AM
The dumbass parent that gives a gun to a 9 year old is a tool also.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:24AM
How stupid can you get? A gun to a 9-year-old? I don't care if it's a simple handgun, you do NOT get a 9-year-old involved with firearms! Dumbass parents.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @03:38AM
gun safety is probably important for a kid to start appreciating by the time they start watching tv/movies/computer games with guns in them
it's not irresponsible to expose kids to things that are dangerous; it is irresponsible to leave them ignorant to learn about realities of life the hard way later on
guns aren't dangerous; idiots with guns are dangerous. if parents teach their kids about gun safety, they're much less likely to become that idiot with a gun
electricity is dangerous too, but if parents don't teach their kids about the dangers of electricity they're likely to get electrocuted
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:10AM
the problem isnt that they gave a firearm to a child; the problem is that they gave live ammo to a somebody who didn't understand the concept of muzzle awareness. nobody, nobody should be allowed to touch live ammo or a loaded weapon until muzzle awareness has been beaten into them to the point of being instinctual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @09:09AM
By the time I was 8 I fired a [hull mounted] MAG and an AK [in a shooting range, not set to full auto, with a single round chambered] among all the other stuff you'd expect to find in your typical gun-show. They made a big loud boom and after discharging a few rounds I got bored and went off to play ball and get something to eat. "Supervision" was a pimply faced 18 year old girl fresh out of boot-camp that was more interested in chatting with the man around her then bother with all the snot nose brats running around.
15 years later and every person I met in the service hated that broom (M16) he/she had to lug around all day and would just toss the damn thing whenever opportunity presents itself...
I also had an M16 laying in a corner of my house with a 30(29) round clip laying beside it during my preteens. When it was brought home I was only told once "Don't touch it or you'll blow your leg off" and that was enough. I knew what firearms were for and it was obvious they're not a toy.
But then again, that was the 90s and we did live in Israel...
(Score: 1) by mathinker on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:00PM
Personally, if I lived in the US, I'd find it unacceptably dangerous to let any school-aged child use a gun, even if there were no risk involved. Why? Because I'd be shouldering the child with a heavy burden --- at the first peep of his/her letting anyone know about it, they'd probably immediately be suspended/expelled from school [soylentnews.org].