Posted on 06/05/2008 11:07:44 AM PDT by endthematrix
Yesterday my wife told me this story:
My wife was watching my son who is 6 was shooting his BB gun for a while at cans. After a little while he sat down on the lawn and was just looking around. After about 5 minutes or so, my wife asked him what he was doing. He asked her, “Have you seen any birds, mommy?” She said no, and he replied, “Darn, I want to shoot some!”
Just warms my heart, I tell you.
Cripes, if you’d said you were 15 or 16 in 62, I’d have asked if you were my dad. Exact same scenario.
We use to make spoke guns with the white part of matchsticks. Sounded like a cannon going off. lol
[sigh]....we are the worse for the changes.
Those were the days, eh?
Yes they were. My wife made a comment the other day that when we were kids people use to sit outside on summer evenings, talking and watching the kids play. Now I hardly ever see my neighbors and the kids are all inside playing video games or watching cable tv. Things have changed.
I started my 6yr old with a Crossman air/BB/pellet gun when he was 4. Now he can bullseye NRA smallbore targets at 50 yds with my 45 yr old Marlin .22 bolt rifle, and is almost as good with my 10/22. His hands are almost big eneough to get around the grips on my Walther P22, and he is deadly at 15 yds with my .22 Bearcat.
My ex bought our kid a BB gun last Christmas. Ex gave him some instruction in proper handling and care, and had no sooner turned his back than the boy shot out a $600 French door. It was really fascinating to watch the glass slowly, slowly crackle and fall out.
Generally I’m all in favor of kids having guns, but our kid is ADD, and an idiot could have predicted this. X was not prepared to pay for the damage either. I think it’s going to be awhile before I let him have my 9 or the 12-gauge.
Spoke guns?
Parents should be the decision makers on when their child is responsible enough for a BB gun.
OTOH, if an 18 year old is mature enough to vote or join the Army, he should be able to buy a BB gun. (It is legal in my state.)
Slings and slingshots are different items...’course that makes me think of U.S. v Miller and the ruling that sawed-off shotguns can be regulated because they aren’t military enough.
I remember the shootin’ shell Mattel cap guns. My prized posessions in the early 1960’s was a set that I got for Christmas consisting of a chromed Colt Peacemaker - styled pistol, holster, and a rifle with a six-shot cylinder.
My mother passed them on to my younger cousins after I had outgrown them. Wish I had hung onto them.
Incidentally, when my son was young, in the mid 1980’s, I came across an old box of my childhood stuff when cleaning out the closet. Contained within were two sheets of Greenie Stickum Caps, as used with the Mattel guns. My son marveled at how much louder they were than the caps available to him.
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