Quote:
Originally Posted by Schneed10
And conversely, I'm a kid who lives in house A with no firearms of any sort. In house B, there's another kid who's father is armed and trained. Which kid has the greater risk of getting hurt?
|
If the kid is properly trained, neither.
The whole kids and firearms argument, to me, is about as weak as it gets. It sure hits the old heart strings when you bring up the kids, but it's not really grounded in much.
When I was about 5 years old, my father took me aside, pulled out his old .22 Colt Woodsman, unloaded it and let me hold it. He told me where he kept it, why he kept it and explained how it worked. He then told me that if I ever wanted to hold it or see it to just ask him, any time of the night or day, and he'd do it with me. At the age of about 8 he took me to the range and taught me to shoot, and also fire three rounds while neither of us had ear protection on, so that I would know what a live fired weapon sounds like. I never snuck into his room to handle a gun, because all I had to do was ask.
Basically the firearm wasn't shrouded in secrecy, locked up, put away and never talked about. That amount of shady secrecy is going to guarantee that a kid will go looking for it.
Yes, untrained, unparented kids find guns and do stupid stuff. They can also grab the car keys and go drive down the road, or drink a bottle of Draino, or stab themselves in the eye with a knife, but I don't hear anyone arguing that nobody should have cars, knives or Draino.
There are some decent arguments against everyone having guns, but "the children" is not one of them.