Tuesday, October 17, 2006 11:26 PM CDT
Column: Children and guns go together when proper lessons are involved
By PENNY WEAVER, Night News Editor
pweaver@jg-tc.com
The mental image of my 2-year-old niece hefting a gun in her cute little hands almost brings a smile to my face.
No, not because she’s a crack shot and I taught her everything she knows. She’s not, and I didn’t -- yet.
That scenario makes me happy in a way because of the rest of the picture: Her parents with her, carefully showing her proper use of and respect for a gun.
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how accurate that image might be -- maybe she never even touched the guns -- but I’m glad my sisters and brothers-in-law recently took their kids out to learn gun safety and do some harmless target shooting under close supervision.
I’m sure the kids didn’t shoot much, of course -- the oldest is 6, and the others who went along are 4 and 2. Most of the shooting they’ll do for a long time will continue to be the verbal “Bang! Bang!” while pointing a finger or an appropriately shaped stick.
Or, as one of my nieces used to say when pointing a toy gun at an imaginary bad guy, “Shoot! Shoot!”
I suppose it’s not very liberal of me to say things that are almost “pro-gun.” But I think most people are like me -- not 100 percent liberal, not 100 percent conservative, but usually somewhere in the middle.
All children should be taught how to properly treat guns and to respect the power and danger that comes with handling a gun. Sure, younger than age 8 or 10 is a bit early, but kids grow up so fast these days -- maybe it’s almost never too early.
I can imagine what my nieces and nephews learned, even if I wasn’t there. They should be taught that a gun is not a toy. They should be told that they must never, ever play with guns. Period.
My parents taught my sisters and me those things. My dad primarily handled those lessons, because my mom doesn’t like guns. I suspect most moms don’t like guns.
Always, always, always treat a gun as if it is loaded, my dad instructed. To this day, even if I know one of my guns is not loaded -- even if I just took a look at the empty chamber -- I handle a gun as if it is loaded.
Carry a gun with the barrel either pointing up toward the sky or down at the ground -- never level so that someone would get hit if it accidentally went off.
Never, ever play with a gun. A gun is not a toy. I don’t think my dad thought it was possible to repeat that too many times, and he was right.
Recent school shootings and the occasional but always heartbreaking accidental shooting -- kids or even adults playing around with guns -- usually are followed by renewed calls for more strict gun laws. There is always someone who wants to ban guns completely, or severely restrict gun ownership to “keep people safe.”
That’s the wrong approach. It’s not the guns -- it’s the people.
I have owned in the past, and currently own, both rifles and pistols of various kinds, and I’ve never seen one of them sit up and fire off a round.
Maybe I should test this out. I could take my bolt-action .22 and lay it on the ground, and watch it a while to see if it is dangerous. It looks benign enough, but maybe it could become an animated tool of destruction all on its own.
Nah. It takes a person to load it and pull that trigger to make a gun a killer.
I like guns. I enjoyed target shooting with my dad and sisters when I was a kid. I liked taking a BB gun around the yard and shooting sparrows when I was younger. I don’t like hunting, and these days, I wouldn’t even shoot a bird, but I have a bit of an affection for firearms.
There is something rewarding to me in honing my skills to hit that target. I even took a rifle/pistol class in college, but more because it gave me a chance to shoot than because I needed to learn about guns. I already knew what I needed to know.
Our government has pretty reasonable protections in place to try to keep nutcases from owning guns. At least in Illinois we have the FOID card and system -- in Texas, for example, there is no FOID card or gun registration of any kind. I remember being surprised by that when I first moved to Houston.
But it doesn’t bother me. Guns in and of themselves aren’t the problem, and getting rid of them won’t solve anything.
People who are crazy enough to go around shooting other people for no reason would find another way to vent their psychoses if they didn’t have guns. We can’t catch them all before they do something horrible -- we have to do the best we can while not eroding the honest, upstanding person’s rights.
The primary guns that should be restricted are machine gun types of firearms, and even then, restrictions are different than an outright ban. I can understand the interest of a collector, and that person’s rights have to be balanced reasonably with protection from criminals.
I know my nieces and nephews will have future gun safety lessons. Both the boys and the girls will be able to properly handle a gun, and they won’t ever play with firearms. They will know better.
I’m relieved that they will have proper respect for guns. That’s the best thing parents and other adults can do to protect kids from the dangers that can accompany guns: teach them. Not talking about something is often as bad as teaching the wrong thing.
The only thing I’d be upset about is if one of them can outshoot me by the time they’re 12. I guess I’d better practice up.
“Shoot! Shoot!”
Penny Weaver is the night news editor for the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier. Contact Weaver at pweaver @jg-tc.com or 238-6863.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
