Sure, let me get that for you. But if you say one more thing about my mother, I’ll kick your ass.
I do hear Brussels is lovely this time of year.
Because it’s dull, you twit. It’ll hurt more.
Shoehorn butterhorse.
Rimfire auto-loaders were specifically exempted in the 1994 legislation. As such your picture of a S&W .22 is not an AW. They are also less dangerous than their larger caliber cousins. Were this not the case, the world’s armies would use them to equip their soldiers.
That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t do anything!
I can’t quite understand why someone would even *want * to have a gun in the house with children. Are you that worried about someone breaking in and stealing your PlayStation?
For cryin’ out loud - spend some money on home security. Not only will you be safer, you’ll never have to worry that the extra lock on the door will blow your 8-year old’s face off.
I wonder what ever happened to him.
Thanks for the info, JX.
Probably the same thing that happened to most of the folks from that heady time - they got disgusted with someone or something, and had no compelling reason to stay. But to address your question more precisely, I think he went to a 4-year college out of town and had to crack down and focus more on school, and thus dropped the SDMB. But I may be thinking of someone else.
Many if most people that own guns don’t own them just for security.
I own guns for recreation and hunting, not security.
My 8-yr-old will be taught the following:
- how to handle a gun safely without discharging it – to the point that they realize that gun safety is tedious and boring
- that any unattended gun means “go get your dad or another responsible adult, because guns are both boring AND dangerous”.
- how to hit a target with my target-shooting .22–and related, “you see what it did to that pumpkin? What if that was someone you liked?”
I don’t have any particular fear of my theoretical 8-yr-old having the ability to crack the combination on my gun safe AND steal my keys for the ammo box and trigger locks.
There have been guns in my home my entire life, not in safes.
They were kept out of my reach, unloaded, i was allowed to hold them and taught about what they were on a regular basis. At 6 years old i was purchased “my” .22 rifle and pistol for the range (before that, i shot range rental 22s, very rarely).
By 8 years old I had “my” own center fire pistol (CZ 75B, a 9mm DA/SA steel frame pistol) and shortly thereafter a .223 “assault weapon” (i use the term laughing, we shooters prefer “evil black rifle,” becauese it more accurately describes peoples perception of them) in the AR platform.
It never occurred to me to play with guns. My grandparents have always had guns in the house, in a gun cabinet, my mothers husband had a pistol on the nightstand, my father had a hand full in the closet. Before i was old enough to hold on, i was taught not to play with them. By the time i was old enough to be interested, I was allowed to shoot them.
Would this work for all kids? No. Is it how I’ll treat mine? No, I’ll have a gun safe and strongly recommend anyone that owns firearms – regardless of kids – has one. But clearly, owning forearms and having children in the home are not prohibitive of one and other, even if they are used for protection (which most are not).
To build on this: even if you MUST have a loaded gun for protection, if you can afford a decent home-defense pistol you can afford a bedside safe with a no-look combolock or biometric lock.
At 8 years old, I could do both. And did. Except it was explosives. (I made stop motion films!)
I am operating under the assumption that if my 8-yr-old can crack a safe, I have bigger problems than his access to my guns. =P
I also started shooting at an early age. I got my first rifle at 9, my first shotgun at 11. It’s so natural to have them that it’s hard for me to understand why people are so uniformed and afraid of them. I would prefer education that teaches more than ‘Do not touch, guns are bad’.
I never really thought about it until gun laws started becoming more restrictive and completely obtuse. And after reading opinions on the SDMB.
I was thinking that it would be impossible to find a middle ground between non gun owners and those that shoot. That was going to be the point of my post, until I considered my Wife.
She never shot a gun until she met me. I went through the drills on safety, and she has shot them. She just does not share my enjoyment of target shooting though. That’s fine. There are different things that we enjoy. We are married, not joined at the hip.
I’m sure that my Wife would think it unwise to get rid of the guns. Yet she is not a shooter. She knows that I enjoy shooting, and also sees them as the practical tool that they are.
So there is a middle ground.
My Wife doesn’t share the fear and bias against firearms that I see here. She sees them for what they are. It’s sad that so many folks will stand so firm on issues without any education about it. They then close their eyes when information is available and presented to them. I see that from the anti-gun folks again and again.
It’s funny you say that, because my wife (MsRobyn) has not only come around to my way of thinking vis a vis guns, but she bought one herself and got her CCW permit. Imagine that. When we met she was so anti-gun I thought there was no hope of convincing her, yet there she was buying a Ruger LCP at a gun show (NICS check, no less… gun show loophole my ass!).
Not only does she NOT hate guns, but there she is with one of her own. Will miracles never cease. Of course, now that she has one I have gone the extra mile and equipped her LCP with a Crimson Trace and a Pearce grip extension. All that’s missing is a Hogue Handall Jr. and it’s all set.
I have to say that it’s fun converting an anti-gunner. It definitely took some time, but it’s time well spent if you ask me.
I was stunned, myself.
Boy, i don’t know. Most 8yr olds can barely carry milk to the table without spilling it. I would no more give a gun to an 8yr old than I would put him behind the steering wheel of a car.
If guns aren’t for protection (and I don’t see how they could be if you’re storing them properly) why not just go to a shooting range if firing guns gives you such a thrill?
Well, yea. I did not convert my Wife to a shooter, and had no intention too unless she enjoyed it. And I did not have to convince her that guns are not evil. She recognizes them for what they are. Tools.
The don’t touch/find an adult aspect of the Eddy Eagle ‘education’ is OK I guess. But it bothers me that so many people take such an approach. That’s not education.
I mentioned that my Wife would think it unwise to get rid of them. My neighbor down the road is a Marine (there is no such thing as an ex Marine). He is one of the calmest levelheaded guys I have ever met. He is also a nurse. After a few years of living up here, and after the third bear tried to break into his house, and after he got charged by a bear he decided to get a gun. No histrionics, it just made sense. I suspect he carries when he walks his dogs. :shrug:. I’ve never been charged, but I have used guns to scare them off.
Sure, where we live and our situation is a bit unique. Everyone’s situation is unique.
My Wife doesn’t want to take up shooting as a hobby anymore than she wants to tinker in mechanics. I don’t want to compete in IronMan races either. We have our own things, and understand that. I wish the anti-gun folks would also understand that.
I started driving when I was 9. Running tractors too. Motorcycles at 11. Had my own. Yamaha LT2. Best thing that my folks every did for me. Country living is the life. By the time I got my license, I was so used to driving that it was and absolute snap. To date, after nearly 40 years of driving, I have never been involved in an accident of any kind.
Same with guns. I think it is best to instill these good habits and training when you are young. You never forget them. I did some target shooting in Costa Rica a few weeks ago. Pellet guns. The ‘instructor’ waved the gun around like it was dusting brush. Even though it was ‘unloaded’ I kept ducking out of her way. No training on her part, a reflex on mine. Let me stress that. It was a reflex on my part. Proper gun handling needs to be a reflex. It is best taught at an early age so it becomes one.
It really bothered me. It does not matter if it’s an unloaded pellet gun or a 30-06. You do NOT point it at people.
My shooting range is my property. Always has been. No need to go to a range.
Eh, it was a combination of being interested in magic and hero-worship of Richard P. Feynman. Both were perfectly cromulent enterprises.