[spald]

Heartland sanity and gun safety.

[Joe Brower]

[nothingnew]

Improved pediatric trauma care in the past 15 years has played a significant part in the decrease in number of child deaths by guns - not educational programs like Eddie Eagle, Sugarmann said.

EGADS!

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. May God have mercy on your soul.

FMCDH

[Joe Boucher]

Hit your target. Know what kind of weapon to use in the situation. Know what to shoot and what not to. How to care for your weapon. It is a serious tool, not a toy.If you use it, you are responsible for its action. A lot of people want to take your rights to own a gun away.

[coloradan]

Yes indeed. "If you see a gun, Stop, don't touch it, leave the area, tell an adult" is, in fact, a marketing strategy for underage gun consumers.

Sheesh!

[bandleader]

ABSOLUTELY!"Tell An Adult"(unless it's BeelzeBubba who masquerades as an ADULT)!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GladesGuru]

"Just like the alcohol and tobacco industries have worked to find ways to reach out to underage consumers, Eddie Eagle is one component of the NRA's efforts to reach out to underage gun consumers," Sugarmann said.

The above pronunceamento ex cathedra inspired the following koan;
"What is the sound of Sugarmann speaking"? The sound of an ass braying.

Neither the NRA nor the gun manufacturors need to "sell" guns to boys. In every culture, boys choose gun toys. It is a behavioral predisposition tracing back to Olduvai Gorge when an antelope leg bone was used as a club.

And the jaw bone of a smaller antelope was used for a knife by the same human ancestor that carried the club. Not surprisingly, boys also choose knives (swords, etc) as toys - the same behavioral predispositions.

What is really needed is what post #4 clearly defined. Old fashioned gun training works. If every school had an indoor range, there could be once again a nation of riflemen.

So, be not dismayed Liberals and soccer moms - you have not failed. When kids reach for a weapon, it is evolution at work. Accept reality. Move on.

[ExSoldier]

Once a year, my unit used to hold "FAMILY DAY" at an open range on post. We'd have a huge barbeque, with beer (but if you had a beer you couldn't shoot...that was the rule) and FAV rides for the kids and all kinds of neat stuff. The main purpose was to teach gun safety to the little kids. All the toddlers and up were given magic markers and told to draw a detailed face on a Honeydew Melon. Ears, eyes, hair, mouth the works. Then they were told to imagine real hard the melon was the face of their very best friend on earth. Then the melon was place about ten yds downrange and the dad's were called up one at a time with their children and wives. The range would "Go Hot" and as DAD BLASTED A MELON APART with the family gun OR a 45 from the arms room, the kid would lightly hold daddy's arm to "feel" the reality of the power that was being used.

You should have seen the eyes on those kids. They were given a solemn lecture from some NCO or Officer "Daddy" what can happen when you touch either daddy's gun or the gun of somebody elses daddy.....LOTS of vigorious nods form those kids and not a single accident in the time that those "Family days" were in effect. One test we used to do was to take a gun and plunk it on the coffee table in front of any kid and see them furiously backpedal and say: "UH-UH! NO! BANG BANG!"

Then when they got bigger...say around age 10 we'd do it all again, but this time, it'd be a basic marksmanship course to show them the JOY of SAFE SHOOTING. Along with those second round of lessons was built a father son bond and a sense of responsibility was imbued to the older kids sort of a man to man kind of thing that gun safety is to be safe and protect younger sibling kind of thing. Sorta like finding out the truth about Santa.....(Sorry Travis McGee...but it's time you know the truth.)

[Nick The Freeper]

Now if only they could get concealed carry in Ohio.....