re: #108 Stanley Sea

I am not against correct usage in any way, but back to that photo…it just screams to me that the parent is flexing the power of their rights onto their kids.

The closest I have ever come to shooting a gun is a BB gun. I think I was 10. At some point, I would like to shoot so that I have some feel for what it is.

At the same time, I have watched my grandfather and uncle chew out one of my cousins for accidentally pointing a rifle at someone, when they were taking shots at a raccoon that had been harassing the house. He’s been shooting since he was much younger than I was when laying hands on a BB gun for the first time (and indeed, was older than that at the time of the incident) and goes hunting each year with his dad.

Of course, all I have to offer on this topic is anecdotal evidence. But both incidents have occurred in a family where treating guns with respect goes almost without saying - and is said anyway. I have no idea where my grandfather’s hunting rifle is, but my money is on a gun safe. The gun in that house is for deer hunting, and that’s because my grandparents eat venison.

Kids are kids. You can offer all the instruction you want, but there’s a reason we don’t try children for murder as adults and it has to do with the brain not being fully developed. If a parent wants to offer some shooting experience in an extremely closely supervised session with all appropriate protection (and that does include hearing protection in my book, as someone with tinnitus due to an incident with a set of speakers when I was 3), then fine. But by no means should a child be playing with the gun as a toy ever.