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Gez

Kentuckids need more dakka

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Guns are safe in kids' hands, because kids don't have murderous intent. Or so some people on this forum would have me believe...

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Maes said:

With all those loose stones and rock in playgrounds, somebody's head is also bound to open up sooner of later -never played "stone wars" as a kid? Or just "war"? Those could turn up pretty ugly too, when sticks & stones were involved, or worse, when someone considers bringing a knife from home "for fun", or realizes that he can form a "gang" to easily beat up whoever he wishes.


Are you willing to bet that a headline entitled 'kid stoned other kid' will pop up in media within a shorter while than upcoming 'kid shot other kid'? Hm?

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Actually, it's - guns don't kill people, knives kill people. Ask Harmata.

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j4rio said:

Actually, it's - guns don't kill people, knives kill people. Ask Harmata.


Or [PROTOTYPE].

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j4rio said:

Are you willing to bet that a headline entitled 'kid stoned other kid' will pop up in media within a shorter while than upcoming 'kid shot other kid'? Hm?


There are far more non-lethal woundings by stoning, rough play, mauling by dogs and even knifing (particularly in the UK), let alone gruesome car accidents. The fact is, most of those happenings do not make worldwide or even national news, most of the time. But if you bother opening up local papers, you will find literally dozens of them as two-liners, even in the most "dead" of rural backwaters.

I guess it also depends on local (de)sensitization habits: e.g. a mauling by a bear might make big news if it happened in the UK, but less so if it happened in e.g. Alaska. A venomous snake bite might be sensational if it happens in downtown NYC, but ordinary if it happens in rural India or Africa. Similarly, the Boston bombings made big news in the USA, but many bombings of similar scale happen almost everyday in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

DoomUK said:

http://www.crickett.com/crickett_kidscorner.php

Notice what appear to be infants with guns.


There's nothing inherently wrong with that depiction, if you look closely: the company -quite responsibly, may I say- correctly depicts the intended usage mode for their products in those pictures: as sports implements to be used at a shooting range (in fact, most of these guns have a single-shot sporting/olympic design, not even for casual plinking) or on a camping trip and under adult supervision all of the time. It's not as if they depict kids as gangstahs or mercs. Unfortunately, the company can only sell a parent the guns. It's the parent's job to add the "responsability" factor in the equation.

From that point of view, it's not any different than sending your kids to e.g. martial arts school, but knowing that the sensei (in this case, the kids' parents) is irresponsible and teaches nothing about respect, self-control, and being aware of how lethal a martial art can be: so when your kid applies his newfound skills to bust a "weakling"'s skull open or dislocate his sister's shoulder, whose fault will it be?

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You have a higher chance to die in a bed than to die in a nuclear explosion. Clearly, this means trying to prevent nuclear proliferation is pointless, as beds are much more dangerous.

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What if you die by a nuclear explosion while on a bed?

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Beats getting shot at by a gun-wielding rock, that's for sure.

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Phml said:

Beats getting shot at by a gun-wielding rock, that's for sure.


Actually, that would be kinda cool:

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Maes said:

if you look closely: the company -quite responsibly, may I say- correctly depicts the intended usage mode for their products in those pictures: as sports implements to be used at a shooting range

The thumbnails are easy to miss:-





...Maybe they're just being funny, or it's supposed to be cute or something. But for a company that claims to encourage the responsible use of guns by (very small) children, it gives the impression that they're seriously suggesting a BABY with a gun (be it an air rifle or a .22 or a .50 cal) is a good idea.

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Well, two thumbnails on a page where they pass a clear message -or hint- about intended usage don't make much of a difference. You could consider them more tongue-in-cheek and appealing to the "hunter", the "national guard" and the "cowboy" father accordingly -it is, after all, an USA company. A baby wouldn't even be able to lift one of these guns, and often not even pull the trigger.

It's quite common for a hunting father to make a photo of their son(s) posing with a rifle and any caught game, or for a Texan to dress up his son like a cowboy, with all related implements for a (photo) shoot or a fair. Of course, after what happened, it's not so easy to interpret such photos as innocent family moments.

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DoomUK said:

I just envisage some hillbilly seeing those photos and thinking "Wow, I gotta get mah [1 year old] boy wanna dem rafles, mang".


The hillbilly would just give his 1-year old son his grandfather's shotgun, not shop for some dumbed-down, single-shot "olympic rifle".

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I'm not even against letting a child use a firearm (a hunting rifle, specifically), as long as it's only available to him or her under strict parental supervision. This is just a sad story (re: OP).

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I'm all for citizen ownership of firearms, but... are you fucking serious? What person with an IQ above 50 would give a child a gun and think, "Oh, this is a good idea." I mean, this wasn't even a family gun, this was the child's personal firearm, just... WHAT?! I don't think there are words in the English vernacular to explain how stupid that is! This is just another reason to be a misanthrope.

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DoomUK said:

I just envisage some hillbilly seeing those photos and thinking "Wow, I gotta get mah [1 year old] boy wanna dem rafles, mang".

Is it totally inconceivable, when you think about the sort of customers companies like this attract?


Oddly enough, I was shooting a .22 like that when I was 5 and I am neither a hillbilly nor did I kill anyone.

It's horrible that this boy will grow up with that strain on his heart forever.

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DoomUK said:
If someone is dumb enough to give a 5-year-old a firearm, what's stopping them thinking it's a good idea to give a baby one?

Firearms are a bit unwieldy and complicated for babies, but grenades are simpler and have cute round shapes that will pique their playfulness and curiosity when placed in their cribs amid all their other toys and plush lions, bears or tyrannosaurs.

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Ban Toddlers. All Toddlers will be executed with a banned grenade upon banned detection with banned detection tools by banned authorities who are riving banned Cadillacs.

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Gez said:

I'm just amazed that lawn darts are banned but real firearms are sold as children's toys.


Wanted to go on a tangent for a second and shake my head. I read through that wiki link and saw this excerpt -

...in April 1987, seven-year-old Michelle Snow was killed by a lawn dart thrown by one of her brothers' playmates in the backyard of their home in Riverside, California. The darts had been hidden in the storage room. Michelle's father, David, began a crusade to get lawn darts banned, claiming that there was no way to keep children from getting their hands on lawn darts short of a full ban.

Not even going to comment on the wonders of having a closet with a lock on it. Not even going to try.

How is it that something such as a gun, a tool intended for injuring or killing, can be advertised towards children and sold for such purposes, but lawn darts are fucking banned? I worried briefly that many other deaths had occurred under the dangerous "lawn dart" category, but ended up finding that a total of 6.7k injuries and 3 deaths were caused by said toy before becoming banned in 1988.

And then I double checked against statistics from a USA Today article which stated 15k gun injuries to children in 2010, and over 58 gun-related child deaths since December last year.

Fuck me man, does money (lobbying) honestly trump human morality in the end? Or are we all just suckers for a bigger paycheck that won't matter once we get shot in the head?

*wanders off rambling mindlessly to himself*

*AHEM* Back to the main discussion - I agree, this was utter stupidity and a complete lack of responsibility on the parents' part. I don't care how used you are to guns or how you want to introduce them to your kids - BE FUCKING RESPONSIBLE. It's an active firearm with LIVE ammo. If you don't check it everytime you child want to play with it then you are setting yourself up for tragedy and you deserve no symptathy. Ignorance is no excuse for a case like this.

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Sounds like the parents failed to teach the most important of rule of handling a gun to their kid which is "DO NOT EVER POINT A GUN AT ANYBODY EVEN IF IT IS UNLOADED!"

Oh, and they probably should have bought the kid a BB gun first instead of a lethal firearm so that he could have learned proper handling of firearms with a non lethal firearm.

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My nephew shot his first buck at 6 or 7 years old. He knows how to safely handle a firearm.

How many kids are killed by guns in a year and how many are killed by getting backed over in their driveways, or in motor vehicle accidents, or by abuse?

I'm sick of these strawman arguments, and tired of seeing threads on them every few days. Go move to England if you want a "safe" gun-free society. Have fun getting stabbed in the back on the tram by some chavs too. It's complete bullshit.

"Think of the children" is the cry of far-left fascism if there ever was one. Attacks on THEIR freedoms are attacks on ALL of us.

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To each their own, I say. Some cultures have old gun traditions, some lack.

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Quasar said:

My nephew shot his first buck at 6 or 7 years old. He knows how to safely handle a firearm.

How many kids are killed by guns in a year and how many are killed by getting backed over in their driveways, or in motor vehicle accidents, or by abuse?

I'm sick of these strawman arguments, and tired of seeing threads on them every few days. Go move to England if you want a "safe" gun-free society. Have fun getting stabbed in the back on the tram by some chavs too. It's complete bullshit.

"Think of the children" is the cry of far-left fascism if there ever was one. Attacks on THEIR freedoms are attacks on ALL of us.

I don't know how the left can even believe that tightening gun laws can fix this problem.

Personally, I blame today's 24-hour new media for turning the population into scared kittens, crying for a nanny state.

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Technician said:

I don't know how the left can even believe that tightening gun laws can fix this problem.

Personally, I blame today's 24-hour new media for turning the population into scared kittens, crying for a nanny state.

It's particularly wretched when you realize some of the motivation. Consider some of the corporations you have lobbying for laws that make more things illegal and put more people in jail: the very companies that have privatized our prison systems. Companies that profit when freedom of expression is restricted to them alone. Companies that benefit when private property is seized without cause.

So, the restriction of our society is, ultimately, driven by the desire for profit. Perhaps for example if law enforcement were not such a messy business - with your employees potentially getting shot at - there would be temptation to privatize - and profitize - that, too. It's already begun in some places. After all, it wasn't long ago we learned that the NYC Police Department is, in fact, billionaire Bloomberg's private army, enabled to march out against court orders and beat the populace into submission through any means deemed necessary.

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Quasar said:
Attacks on THEIR freedoms are attacks on ALL of us.

Children aren't free citizens, as they're dependent on their parents to make decisions. But attacks on the freedoms of corporations to do whatever they want and practically run the world, like your arms industry does, are essential for our freedom, and more importantly, to our rights.

While you delude yourselves about your "freedom" to buy guns, the industry you finance with your purchases spreads around the world and sells the same guns abroad to help people in the countries your country destroys civil rights kill each other. Just look at Mexico. Where do you think the majority of the weapons used by gangs there come from?

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Technician said:

Personally, I blame today's 24-hour new media for turning the population into scared kittens, crying for a nanny state.


this^

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myk said:

Children aren't free citizens, as they're dependent on their parents to make decisions. But attacks on the freedoms of corporations to do whatever they want and practically run the world, like your arms industry does, are essential for our freedom, and more importantly, to our rights.

While you delude yourselves about your "freedom" to buy guns, the industry you finance with your purchases spreads around the world and sells the same guns abroad to help people in the countries your country destroys civil rights kill each other. Just look at Mexico. Where do you think the majority of the weapons used by gangs there come from?


They come from China or other South American countries, not the United States, that was a deception being pushed by the DoJ. "OMG 90% of guns in Mexico came from the US!" they cried. Reality is, 90% of guns the Mexicans asked us to trace came from the United States, and the number they asked us to trace is infestimally small compared to the number of guns total. The guns they also asked us to trace typically were 8 to 12 years old, so they weren't even recently smuggled. Also I'd like to note that the "Fast and Furious" scandal revealed that the ATF was willingly helping suspected gun smugglers get their guns across the border.

I dunno where you get your info, but think about this for a second. Why would a cartel spend 3x-6x the cost on a gun from the US, that is semi-automatic only, when they can get full-automatic versions from China, Venezuela or even divert them from Mexican military / police armories? They generally don't. Where are these cartels getting M60 squad machineguns, hand grenades, light-anti-tank rocket launchers? It sure as shit isn't Billy's Gun Shop in a Texas border town.

I also like the completely bullshit line about the gun industry in the US "doing whatever it wants." That's a good way to find yourself shut down by the ATF and sent to prison, there's over 10,000 regulations on the manufacture, sale, production and distrobution of firearms in the United States. ITAR regulations prevent export unless approved, end-user certificates document where a shipment was sent, requirements to log every single firearm they create and sell, the list goes on and on. Once again, if you want to talk about an arms industry with no scruples, take a look at China, or maybe even Austria (ask yourself how Steyr weapons make themselves availible in Afghanistan / Iraq).

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The problem is when the state increasingly interjects itself into the parent-child relationship and decides that it is enabled to act as proxy to the parent.

In this case, that would be deciding pre-emptively that the parent is unfit to make the determination of whether or not their child is mature enough to handle firearms, by passing an unconstitutional law stating that minors cannot carry or fire a weapon.

Which seems to be what you folks are agitating for, based on this accident.

Or maybe that it's even illegal to own a firearm if you have a child. Maybe that's what you're aiming for? Now try to tell me that is not an attack on everyone's rights. Bullshit.

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