Horrors! CNN video of two-year-old handling rifle
CNN is hyperventilating over this clip, and it’s a little creepy. Not the idea of letting the kid handle an unloaded rifle–that’s a bad idea, and bad parenting, but hardly national news. The dad’s statements that “you’re gonna be a soldier, because daddy’s gonna buy you this chopper, and you can kill everyone out in front of you” is unnerving.
I remember very well the first time my dad let me handle one of his guns. It was a single action Colt revolver, and I still remember the sound of him turning the cylinder again and again, with a well-oiled tick at each engagement of the cam, verifying again and again it was unloaded before he handed it to me–with appropriate warnings not to point it at anyone and never to even touch it unless he handed it to me and said it was okay. The unusual degree of caution and seriousness from my usually laid-back dad made a powerful impression on me that lingers to this day.
I was about four.
He did not say, “this is a Peacemaker, and you can blow anybody’s head off with it”. The issue here is not the youth, it’s the attitude.
And since we’re speaking of the attitude: If CNN is so exercised about this, perhaps they would want to search for “Palestinian Child Abuse” on Little Green Footballs and start clicking a few of those links. If kids with guns is really such a big deal to them, this is gonna blow their mind.
Cross-posted at Junkyard Blog.
It is amazing sometimes how some issues are so important to handle with an international focus, and others are just aimed at the US.
tyree (837a75) — 4/6/2007 @ 6:19 pmGreat point about your father teaching you to respect the weapon, See Dubya. I was about six or so when I got the careful “first touch”. My father always stressed never aiming a gun at ANYone and making sure it was completely unloaded AND the action was open… probably even more than most because of his time in the Army, and in Vietnam. Gun safety will always be front and center with any responsible enthusiast.
The saddest thing about this story is the only part getting the headline is the two year-old handling it. Give the shop owner his due though, he was aware and intelligent enough to get the gun back and refuse to sell to the guy. Of course, that part won’t ever get any headlines, now will it? It’s not shocking enough, even if it was responsible and noteworthy.
I suppose this is the beginning of the anti-gun lobby’s counter to the DC ruling, and many other recent pro-2nd amendment decisions and rulings. All of us who obey the law and don’t act like that will be lumped in with this guy… because having a gun in your hand makes you a bad person, just like “Chopper Dad”… in their opinion anyway.
Johnny Ringo (028d5b) — 4/6/2007 @ 6:54 pmtwo year olds shouldn’t be permitted to handle firearms. i was about 6-7 when i first handled one. i was about 9 the first time i fired a shotgun. on a trip from los angeles to denver, dad pulled over to the side of the road and tossed an aluminum can in a high arc into a deserted gorge (which would be against the law to do now, even with no guns involved). when i pulled the trigger, the stock punched me in the shoulder. ow!
assistant devil's advocate (4e3ab2) — 4/6/2007 @ 8:11 pmdad on revolvers versus automatics: “automatics are for european criminals and people in james bond movies. we’re americans and we mostly use revolvers.” things have changed quite a bit, but i’m still a manual firearms enthusiast, don’t really like semiautos, have never handled a fully automatic weapon. about 10 miles south of eugene, oregon on the east side of i-5, there’s an establishment with a big sign “shoot a real tommy gun” and every time i drive past it with a woman on board, i tell her that’s a real fun date we’re gonna have to do some time, just not right now.
Early fall before going into first grade, my buddy Dougie and I were given lessons with “real guns” by our parents. We were given crayons and some melons and told to draw faces on them, which we did as we bounced in the back of the pickup out onto the plains of Montana. We were lectured on the dangers of real guns, and then allowed to shoot at the melon faces we’d made. They exploded, raining bits of melon on us. We didn’t even play with toy guns until spring, I think, or maybe it was summer.
Thanks, Dad!
htom (412a17) — 4/6/2007 @ 8:24 pmIts amazing how these liberal act like such iidots when it comes to certian issues i mean remmeber the fuss made by liberals when MEL GIBSON smovie THE PATRIOT showed him handing a rilfe to his sons while they said nothing about the movie GLADIATOR with its blood gore and decappitatioonsw or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS with it blood and gore as well, i mean its weird when liberals want to get kids to turn in their toy guns and get some silly wussietard thing like pink monkeys SCREW CNN SCREW WOLF BLITZER
krazy kagu (79fc72) — 4/7/2007 @ 6:34 amMy son is in a story-telling class in college. (Yeah, I know, but the credit fit.) For an assignment to tell a story to a kindergarten class he wants to tell Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a famous Rudyard Kipling story, and his personal favorite from childhood. When he got to the part where a snake is about to attack a little boy and the dad blows it in half with a shot gun, his whole class was upset. “You can’t tell THAT to children in school! It’s too violent!”
Where exactly do we get Marines these days?
Second Biggest Billygoat (33f3ca) — 4/7/2007 @ 9:21 amGive credit to the pawn shop owner; he recognized how inappropriate that was, and stepped in. He didn’t just pontificate about it on TV, he took the financial hit in refusing the sale, and wasn’t shy about confronting the angry father.
Pretty fair decision-making for a redneck Southern rube, eh Cnn?
I had a similar incident at a range I used to frequent. A group of obvious gang-bangers came in with duffel bags, and wanted to use the range. A cursory examination of their weapons revealed they’d been crudely modified… we advised them that they could leave, and began to contact the local SO. They started to talk a bunch of smack, but quickly realized they were facing about a dozen armed employees and regular customers… they thought the better of it and quickly bolted. We got their license plate as they left and a responding deputy checked the tag; yep… stolen, and from a different vehicle.
Range Rule #1: felons and sociopaths are not welcome.
TheNewGuy (114368) — 4/7/2007 @ 9:33 amYeah in that RUBYARD KIPLING stay of the little mongosse the father did blow that cobra in two and wussie 70 peace pansies think its too violent but rmemeber BAMBI is full of unpeatent parts
krazy kagu (6cb3c5) — 4/7/2007 @ 11:57 amHeh–Rikki tikki indeed. I didn’t just hear that stuff, but I lived it. The only time my dad let me actually fire that old Colt was when I was about fifteen, at a huge coiled up diamondback.
It did the trick. One shot, lights out.
See Dubya (182c60) — 4/7/2007 @ 1:13 pmWhat does CNN think of this?
tom scott (d29de4) — 4/7/2007 @ 2:20 pmI recall a documentary I once saw an experiment was run by placing a fire arm in a bag of toys ALL of the children who came from homes that had firearms and firearm safety had been taught immediately went to inform an adult that a gun was there.
All of the children from “gun control” families played with it.
Needless to say the parents of the latter group were horrified, One wonders if they learned anything?
Dan Kauffman (839d43) — 4/7/2007 @ 9:07 pmAw, hell. It’s best to teach kids how to handle guns when they’re very young–so long as it’s done properly. I had an experience similar to yours, See Dubya, and you don’t forget that shit. If you want to make a powerful impression on someone’s psyche, do it when they’re little. Two might be a little too young, but as soon as you’re sure they can understand what you’re saying, I say go for it.
Russell (b42f63) — 4/8/2007 @ 7:51 pmRIKKI TIKKI yeah and remmeber when the bird said BEHIND LOOK YOU
krazy kagu (24c038) — 4/8/2007 @ 8:08 pmAnd Ratty putting the brace of pistols in his belt before venturing into the Deep Woods …
htom (412a17) — 4/9/2007 @ 12:47 pmI fired a .22 rifle when I was about eight or nine, after an extensive lecture on gun safety. I’ve loved guns ever since (that’s really all my brother and I played with as kids, anyway – toy guns).
My parents maintain that we have a .38 somewhere around the house, but I’ve never seen it and never looked. Regardless, they gave me numerous talks on gun safety, as soon as I was old enough to understand them.
ada,
I have an uncle who lives in Terrebonne, OR: total gun enthusiast. He disposes of old appliances by taking them into the back country and blowing them to smithereens with… I think its a .30-06.
Leviticus (43095b) — 4/9/2007 @ 1:03 pmPet Care and Medications…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…
Pet Care and Medications (7fa4f4) — 10/30/2007 @ 6:08 am