Another shout at the television documentary on Channel 4 last night (31/07/14); I knew “Kids and Guns” was going to wind me up before I watched it. I also guessed that a blog post was guaranteed once I’d calmed down; so watching was a kind of investment – no pain, no gain.
A quick synopsis – some Americans think their constitutional right to bear arms means that kids should be taught to handle firearms as soon as they are strong enough to carry/fire them. The documentary followed four families around as children as young as four were being taught to shoot rifles and pistols.
The “guns are fun” families were compared to a “guns cause misery” family where a nine year old boy had accidentally shot himself in the head with his own rifle and died in a ditch alone.
Let’s be frank, Americans gun laws have got a lot to answer for, the tragedies frequent and well publicised. Watching parents arming their kids and getting them to shoot targets and hunt animals or hearing a young teenager talking about protecting his family from burglars was alarming. Mrs Baldwin was so cross she refused to watch past halfway.
One parent spent thousands of dollars on weapons for himself and his daughter and lived in a trailer park – nothing like getting one’s priorities straight.
In America, pistols and assault rifles can be purchased in pink to suit women/girls who don't want their killing tools to look too masculine/deadly! That's just bonkers, by all means colour coordinate your jewellery or shoes to match an outfit but colour coordinating your gun!!!!!!
One father bought his four year old daughter a rifle for her birthday - what parent in their right mind would buy such a thing for a girl so young. At four she should still be getting cuddly toys as presents.
As a parent, it is crystal clear to me that children (even up to teenagers) are a liability to themselves until they learn about cause and effect and gain some common sense. Kids think they are invincible, they know best, nothing will ever go wrong; combine all that with a strong tendency towards selfishness, or worse sociopathy, and you have a recipe for chaos.
In the Baldwin household there was a great deal of debate about whether toy guns should be allowed in the home but a consensus of opinion was reached that agreed playing is essentially harmless. Having stated that, the number of issues we have had with our children and their friends playing irresponsibly with Nerf guns makes the prospect of giving them real ones truly terrifying.
Kids are stupid but it’s okay because all of us adults were kids once and stupid too; growing up through lessons learned, mostly at one’s own expense, makes us less stupid adults. Although we’d do well not to think that our children are capable of thinking like the mature adults we may be.
My absolute belief is that if you give a child a gun, you have an IQ that is about in line with your child’s age. If that child subsequently kills himself/herself or someone else, it is completely your fault and you deserve all the pain you experience.
Blog Home
Blog Library
Home
A quick synopsis – some Americans think their constitutional right to bear arms means that kids should be taught to handle firearms as soon as they are strong enough to carry/fire them. The documentary followed four families around as children as young as four were being taught to shoot rifles and pistols.
The “guns are fun” families were compared to a “guns cause misery” family where a nine year old boy had accidentally shot himself in the head with his own rifle and died in a ditch alone.
Let’s be frank, Americans gun laws have got a lot to answer for, the tragedies frequent and well publicised. Watching parents arming their kids and getting them to shoot targets and hunt animals or hearing a young teenager talking about protecting his family from burglars was alarming. Mrs Baldwin was so cross she refused to watch past halfway.
One parent spent thousands of dollars on weapons for himself and his daughter and lived in a trailer park – nothing like getting one’s priorities straight.
In America, pistols and assault rifles can be purchased in pink to suit women/girls who don't want their killing tools to look too masculine/deadly! That's just bonkers, by all means colour coordinate your jewellery or shoes to match an outfit but colour coordinating your gun!!!!!!
One father bought his four year old daughter a rifle for her birthday - what parent in their right mind would buy such a thing for a girl so young. At four she should still be getting cuddly toys as presents.
As a parent, it is crystal clear to me that children (even up to teenagers) are a liability to themselves until they learn about cause and effect and gain some common sense. Kids think they are invincible, they know best, nothing will ever go wrong; combine all that with a strong tendency towards selfishness, or worse sociopathy, and you have a recipe for chaos.
In the Baldwin household there was a great deal of debate about whether toy guns should be allowed in the home but a consensus of opinion was reached that agreed playing is essentially harmless. Having stated that, the number of issues we have had with our children and their friends playing irresponsibly with Nerf guns makes the prospect of giving them real ones truly terrifying.
Kids are stupid but it’s okay because all of us adults were kids once and stupid too; growing up through lessons learned, mostly at one’s own expense, makes us less stupid adults. Although we’d do well not to think that our children are capable of thinking like the mature adults we may be.
My absolute belief is that if you give a child a gun, you have an IQ that is about in line with your child’s age. If that child subsequently kills himself/herself or someone else, it is completely your fault and you deserve all the pain you experience.
Blog Home
Blog Library
Home
RSS Feed
