Do I have to 'fess up? I don’t want to go into much detail, but: I think I stole a few things here and there as a kid. One was my mom’s prized collection of old silver dollars in order to pay a shop class fee (I’m still hearing about that one - probably deservedly so - and it happened 35 years ago!). Some others involved animals and I can think of at least two that involved a pellet rifle (one was a “cross-over” bad thing involving an innocent little bird - 
. I’m still racked with guilt over that). Just goes to show that people can change - these days I couldn’t imagine harming an animal that wasn’t bothering me in any way and I want nothing to do with firearms AT ALL (granted, a pellet rifle ISN’T a firearm but let’s just say that shooting that pellet rifle off when I was younger fulfilled whatever desires I had to shoot items at living things with any kind of velocity). Oh, and one involved a dog I owned (well, actually my PARENTS owned it - I just got to play with it) back in the late '70s, an incident that I still feel guilty about (no, I didn’t kill it or do anything particularly gruesome to it. But I did cause the poor thing pain and I’ve ALWAYS felt guilty about that, so please - no piling on).
If I didn’t know the cleaning up would be such a pain, I would kind of want to do this now.
Yet another childhood regret due to BB guns. I think that makes:
- Bull testicles
- Lizards
- Crows
- Tractors
Which is worst? What else can we add to the list?
Well you might as well tell us what happened to the dog now…
I shot a kid with an air rifle once.
I was at a friend’s house and he’d ‘borrowed’ his older brother’s air rifle. It was a pretty good one and had been upgraded, and had a pretty decent scope fitted. We were mucking about shooting stuff out of his bedroom window, when we saw a couple of kids playing tennis in the courts over the far end of his back garden. He bet me I couldn’t hit one of them at that distance, so of course I had to try.
It turns out I was a better shot than I thought - I aimed for his leg and as soon as I took the shot, the poor kid crumpled to the floor, clutching his leg. I could hear him crying. Fortunately he got up again and there was no blood, but he was hopping around for a few minutes afterwards and they eventually left the court (him with a definite limp). I felt really, really bad after that.
'twas an awesome shot though. 
We also had a bridge over a motorway a few minutes from my house, and me and my friend used to go up there and chuck stuff off at the cars passing underneath. Nothing substantial (we weren’t that stupid), just random weeds and twigs and stuff, but we could have easily caused a bad accident. Fortunately, nothing ever happened.
Screen doors: from post 19.
The little bird I shot with one, once. Just from a morbid curiosity to see what it would look like while in its death throes. Actually, I think it was more to see if I could “fool” a living creature by remaining still before shooting it for no good reason. I still feel bad about it. Poor, innocent little bird…
(I consider myself to pretty much be an agnostic but if there IS a Heaven then I earned some demerits with THAT particular act)
I’m not sure I want to. The incident still makes me cringe. I’ll go with that memory to my grave and I probably deserve to.
I did something similar with that darned pellet rifle of my dad’s. I was on the balcony out back and I saw some people walking by on the road nearby. They looked to be in their teens (I think I was around 14 at the time but I guessed they were older than I was) and at that distance they were probably around 100 yards away. So I pumped the air rifle up as much as I could and took aim. I can’t say for 100% certain but I think I hit one of them based on the reaction. Though that may have just been from the sound. Not sure. If the pellet DID hit one of them I have no idea how much damage it could’ve done from that distance (well, unless I got someone in the EYE, but I don’t think that happened. I hope) but, of course, I didn’t exactly run from my (folks’) house to greet them and find out, either. For some reason I don’t feel nearly as bad about that pellet gun incident as I do about the poor little bird I shot - maybe because I’m 99.999999999999999% sure my shooting the HUMAN with the pellet gun wasn’t fatal (if it hit anybody at all). Still, if there IS a Heaven I’m sure I earned some demerits for THAT act, as well.
I’m sure it was terrible, but this makes you a massive tease. If you ain’t gonna confess, don’t bring it up!
Back in 70s suburbia where no one watched their kids and nobody really had to I was a 5 year-old just hanging around outside my house. 3 year-old neighbor kid comes wandering over with his ball. Evil asshole child me decides to see what happens when I snatch his ball away. He crys. What if I throw it into the middle of those thorn bushes? He crys, and crys even more when he trys to reach into the thorns. Evil me is still not satisfied so I go up behind him and shove him head first into the thorn bushes. While he was bawling I decided it was time to go back inside.
I’d probably be put in therapy these days for a stunt like that and rightfully so.
I shot a friend of mine in the side. But it was an accident.
Not a damn thing in this thread made me laugh as much as this original post. Poor bull. 
Air rifle: methodically shot the blooms off one of my mothers favourite rose bushes one day. No idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
The kid next door was a pyromaniac - I mean, I played with matches occasionally but this kid was a real *“watch it all burn!!!” *type. I was over there one hot summer day and he went down the back of their yard to a huge pampas bush with a box of matches and started throwing lit matches into it. :eek:
To much for me, I high-tailed it back home and made sure my parents knew I was there but didn’t say anything to them or the other kids parents about why I’d run home - sure enough about 10 minutes later it all went up in flames, lots of shouting and futile attempts to put it out with the garden hose, fire department called etc, he was a bit singed but otherwise OK.
I claimed ignorance and as I was clearly at home when it went up didn’t suffer any repercussions other than a ‘that’s why you don’t screw around with fire’ talk.
I was 3 or 4 years old, so that would mean my brother was 11 or 12. Family came to visit from PA, and all of us kids were in the backyard. My brother wanted to show off for the cousins, so he was going to take the hatchet and cut down the neighbor’s cherry tree. (In fairness, the trunk and the first foot and a half was the neighbor’s tree. The part that grew on the other side of the fence was ours!)
My sister, (9 or 10 years old,) warned my brother that he had better ask permission.
My brother knew our parents would not let him cut down the tree.
A plot was hatched.
We’ll send Why Child, they almost never tell her no!! (I was **so **excited. I’d never seen a tree cut down before!!)
They coached me and quizzed me on what I was to say:
“When Dad mows, he has to duck under the tree, and that means it’s in the way.”
“The leaves always fall in our yard, and then we have to rake them.”
(There was some lofty explanation about a violation of our personal airspace, but in truth, by the time I got in the house I got that part just a little bit garbled. I tried, but parents just don’t understand. :dubious:)
Mom said no. I went to the backyard and when they excitedly asked, “What did she say…” I threw my hands in the air and shouted, “She said YES!!!”
Why Child wins my vote.
Power line insulators.
I discovered that when I was about 12-13, that the big high-voltage electrical cables supplying Galveston with electriciy that also ran conveniently about 50-60 yards past my grandparents’ backyard on the mainland had ceramic insulators that made a really satisfying “PING!” when I shot them with my pellet gun.
I chipped the shit out of them, but never did actually break them completely.
Why do adults buy kids BB/pellet guns? Half the stories here are about them
Aww… thanks! :o
Remembered another.
I was in the first grade, walking home from school, and saw the most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen lining the sidewalk. Thinking what a nice present this would be for my mother, I walked up and down the row of flowers, (not trespassing, on the sidewalk,) and carefully selected a dozen of the prettiest.
I picked them and took them home to Mom. She oohed and aahed and put them in a vase. I’m sure there was a question about their origin lurking in her mind, but she probably decided she’d rather not know.
Soon enough, the neighbor knocked on our door, and yelled at my mother, telling her what a bad child she had. The neighbor was NOT a nice lady. The whole neighborhood didn’t like her, she was just generally mean to the kids, and looked for any opportunity to yell at the parents about their kids.
I got a talking to. This was softened by the fact that my mother was trying not to smile, and hugged me and told me that she loved me. And that Nasty Neighbor shouldn’t have left them directly in front of the sidewalk where all the schoolkids walked home. That it was just a plant to get us in trouble. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself!)
They were tulips, and Oh! they were beautiful.
Many, many people thought they were beautiful.
People who were qualified to know these things.
You know, the people who judge contests for championship, prize winning tulips! :eek:
Yep, nothing but the best for my mom!!
I also picked a neighbor’s flowers and brought them home to Mom. When asked, I freely told where I got them. She very seriously explained why that was not a Good Thing. I had to pick some of our own flowers and personally take them to the neighbor with an allocution and apology. To this day I remember how much I hated doing that.