(My emphasis) Not to mention wildlife. Our zoo is home to a non-releasable great horned owl who was shot in the wing by some kids with a BB gun. Sure they’re not powerful weapons, but birds have hollow bones - it doesn’t take much force to break them.
I think they’re stupid and dangerous.
Absolutely. I added “to humans” because I suspect (although do not know for sure) that some definitions of “deadly weapon” include the idea that the weapon must be deadly to a person. But you’re absolutely right about animals. He was taught never to point one at an animal, either - not because he might kill it, but because there’s a better chance he’d injure it *without *killing it, and that’s just f’ing cruel.
If you want to hunt, get a real gun. If you don’t want to kill something, don’t point a gun at it. BB guns are good for collecting and shooting at cans and targets; they should never be pointed at a living thing.
Good for them, time somebody gave those pesky reporters what they deserve 
, spreading lies and fear among the good citizens of this great nation (USA). Instead of punishment, they should both get a medal of honor IMO. 
I seriously doubt a BB gun is a deadly weapon, unless you were using it as a club. Shooting someone point blank in the eye could penetrate deep enough and rattle around in the skull, but from that distance it would just put your eye out if anything. If these were more like teenagers over 15, I think they probably should get aquainted at least with the judicial system to let them know what’s in store had it been a real gun, but 10 or under, I stick with my medal of honor recommendation 
.
She was a weather reporter too. Witches all of them.
Unfortunately for my campaign against weather reporters my childhood experience suggests that they are indeed dangerous. I have a scar on my right temple where the kid next door shot me with his “empty” bb gun. We had been shooting each other all day, taking some care to avoid head shots and were all out of ammo. I was lying on the ground and he was firing at the dirt watching the air make little dust puffs when I made a smart assed comment. He swung the gun in my direction and fired. Apparently the swinging motion dislodged one last bb. We were both in serious shit for days. Really brought home the “all guns are loaded even if proven otherwise” lesson.
That was a close call Moonlitherial.
BB guns are dangerous. Like you, we always avoided head shots. We wore shop goggles too for eye protection, But accidents did happen and kids occasionally got hurt. I’m glad todays kids have paint ball guns. They are safer than the bb guns we used, err… misused
Getting hurt was part of being a kid. I’ve taken some hard hits playing football. Hit with softballs. Fallen out of trees. That’s a normal childhood for any boy. 99% of us survived into adulthood.
I hope the prosecutor reduces the charges for the kids that shot the weather lady. They do need punishing. Especially since they are 16. They should know better. But, don’t ruin their lives with a deadly weapon charge.
Oh! You got me. :eek: There wasn’t a particular DA mentioned. Shame on me! Whoopdey shit. Just consider my response to be as uninformed but vehemently expressed as you can expect most people to have upon reading that headline or hearing over the water cooler the latest news story. Be it for or against the kids, you can bet an opinion is formed based on very little actual fact. That’s what drives this country’s media. Just look at Fox New’s ratings.
That’s some sensationalist BS going on there. Assault with a dangerous weapon, definitely. Deadly, hell to the no. As was mentioned upthread, you’d have to bludgeon someone with the butt of the BB gun to make it deadly. BB’s are painful, yes. Possibly can even cause lasting injury, yes. But not deadly. Somebody, somewhere, is seeking to do *something * in retribution for this act which would harm the kids’ reputation for a long time. Be it a legal suit, or just a news report. Doesn’t matter…somebody is trying to make big waves over what is legitimately a parenting issue. Legal action will stick with the kid a long time.
What kind of lesson is really being taught there? I don’t see it. When a kid who doesn’t know any better throws a stick at his friend and it pokes his eye out you don’t send him to jail. What about the kids who accidentally shoot their friends with real guns they found in daddy’s closet? Do they go to jail because of their terrible judgement? So why would we take a dumbass punk who clearly doesn’t know right from wrong but is young enough to be taught the difference, charge him* or even accuse him* of assault with a deadly weapon, and set the scene to throw him into a jail full of MUCH MUCH worse offenders? Or if not throw him in jail, why attach the stigma of deadly assault to him? For years it’ll be all the people who know him or heard of the news story think of when they see him. “That’s the guy who, when he was a kid, tried to kill someone with a BB gun! What a monster!”
Don’t take me wrong, I’m totally in agreement that the kids need to be punished and taught right from wrong, but as I said any legal action needs to be brought against the parents. Teaching doesn’t happen in a jail. And I really REALLY think that any news reports should focus on the slack jawed idiot parents who obviously don’t give two shits about what little Johnny and Jimmy are doing with the guns they likely bought for them.
Imagine the impact that type of reporting would have. Parents just might start taking notice of the things their kids do if they were to be called out in the news media over their behavior.
Throw your outrage at the idiot parents.
Oh, and for the record, when I was a kid I:
Accidentally hit my friend in the face with a bat. We were not playing baseball.
Accidentally stabbed my friend in the face with an exacto knife. We were not doing arts and crafts at the time.
Shot my neighbor’s windows out (of an unoccupied barn) with a BB gun. There was no target on them. Just wanted to see if I could hit them.
Made it look like I jumped in front of a moving car and then acted all injured to scare the driver. Did it to an unmarked cop car once (unknowingly) and got hauled back to dad for a beating.
Painted some guy’s junker car with house paint. We thought it was destined for the junkyard, however afterwards the owner got a free real paintjob out of it.
I truly wonder where I would be if the judicial system was involved. The bat face kid was fine. The knife face kid was fine. The car is a shiny 69 Camaro. The barn has since been torn down. And I’m a normally adjusted 28 year old. Got a wife. Hold a job. I even gasp show respect for other people possessions and personal space. Had I not learned those things from my father after receiving the discipline and training which followed my many idiotic teenage escapades, I don’t know where I’d be.
Probably a much bigger threat to society. I’m personally glad I don’t hold a grudge against the world for ruining my life with news reports about what I did. And I’m glad I didn’t learn how better to be a criminal from some tough guys in jail.
Our prison systems are overloaded with individuals who never did those things in the first place. So you might have a point. Thank goodness Dad had the opportunity to throw you a beating and you did things to deserve one.
16 is not a “child” in the formative parenting years sense. At that point, they’re pretty well formed. I’m not sure why you think a parent who has not, in 16 years of parenting, adequately communicated to their offspring that you don’t shoot reporters is going to do an adequate job of it now. A six year old? Sure, absolutely, leave him to his parents. A twelve year old? Yeah, probably, depending on how much trouble he’s been in in the past; his parents might need a parenting class if they haven’t figured out how to communicate “don’t shoot people” and have it stick. But if they haven’t learned how to parent by the time the kid is 16, then someone else needs to step in and get the learnin’ done.
For the record, I’m not convinced they should be hit with a “deadly weapons” rap, either. But that’s mostly because I don’t know them. Certainly there are some delinquents around here I would like to see with a serious charge, simply because their constant stream of misdemeanors aren’t giving the police enough to work with to get them the interventions they really need.
Do me a favor and make a notation when you modify my posts. Thanks.
I have to agree with you that these kids may be beyond any influence on the part of their parents.
However, that’s kinda why I was saying that the parents should be held accountable. And either way, jail** is not **going to teach these kids to not shoot reporters with BB guns. It’s kind of an idealist type thing, imagining a society where parents are called out in the public forum when their kids do terrible things. But it might do more lasting good than whatever isolationist nonsense we’re all inadvertently espousing now. Like back in the day when towns were smaller and everyone knew who your parents were. THere were bad apples sure, but I think it might have a bigger effect than just tossing the bad apples into jail when we finally catch them.
Didn’t read the initial story when I made my comment about bb guns.
For the record we in the news business have a real problem with assault when in the field. We can’t easily move a live setup, takes about 15 minutes at the fastest to setup and breakdown a remote. When there is trouble, cops can’t get to us fast enough.
And for some strange reason every time a news crew gets assaulted there are a lot of folks out there who think ‘they deserve it!’ Frustrating really.
I have to wonder how people would react if they were suddenly assaulted in their place of business while doing their job. Sadly it is a reality for us.
Have you ever heard the expression “drop your sh*t and run, here comes Mongo” ? (Blazing Saddles FYI, just changed it slightly) My point is, if you were actually in real danger you wouldn’t be thinking about the equipment, or even the a** chewing you’ll get later from your boss, trust me. :smack:
How do you know you don’t ‘deserve it’? Maybe you just do because you decided to actually do something so stupid as to show up in a place where people are ready to attack you :rolleyes: . Oh, and my reaction to being assaulted at my job: (a) it would be a nice change of pace actually, I’ve often wondered what it would be like having live targets for practice . (b) If I found it was too hard to get my job done with the distractions, I’d simply get another job, and tell my assailants they’ll have to wait after hours to get their heads bashed.
If I were on the receiving end (shot by a stranger’s BB gun) I would want to see the shooter punished to the full extent of the law. If the DA issued a slap on the wrist, I’d be doing all I could to make the DA look soft on crime.
Shoot your buddy, fine, go at it. Shoot a stranger and either the stranger or the law is gonna fuck you up.
I recall another case like the one Fear Itself refers to. They definitely called the item used a “BB gun”, and the kid accidentally ended up with a BB in his brain.
Besides that, someone I worked with had been hit in the eye with a BB when he was a kid. It was a ricochet. He didn’t lose the eye, but he has had double vision in it ever since.
You do not want to be firing BB guns at people. And, as these two case indicate, they can be dangerous even if you don’t shoot at people.
I’m clearly no lawyer, but isn’t “assault with a deadly weapon” the only kind of weapons-related assault charge there is? I mean, it’s not like they could be charged with “assault with a moderately dangerous weapon”. I know there are other types of assault charges but not sure how they pertain to incidents involving weapons.
well since literally anything is a potential weapon, I’m gonna have to say no it is not the only weapon related charge available to a prosecutor. I’d love to see a “assault with a deadly weapon: empty cardboard box” pop up in court. Get mad enough and your fists can be deadly weapons but not all barfights end in deadly weapon charges. Usually its just assault. There has to be a line somewhere, and I don’t think bb guns qualify as deadly. Maybe a lawyer can pop in to clear up the matter.
I’m a nurse. We don’t even have to go into their territory and stick our noses in where we’re not wanted. People will show up to my place of business, seeking my help, and then assault me. Fun times.
Not trying to say that assault on the job is ever okay, just that reporters are not the only people risking a beating to do their jobs. Nurses, doctors, police officers…heck, *cab drivers *have to worry about people attacking them while they’re just doing their jobs.
“[Homicide] is the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the United States.”
Good point, I apologize. I should have at least used the >snip< thing or something like that, didn’t mean to offend.
I can’t believe the poor parenting skills that woman demonstrated. WOW. Your son can’t walk or eat and you’ll wait to take him to the doctor’s office instead of getting him to a hospital stat? Jesus fuckchrist.