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Guns and Kids
May. 3rd, 2013 09:57 amComes news that a 5-year-old kid in Kentucky shot and killed his 2-year-old sister, apparently with a gun like this. For those not clicking through, the gun is a weapon specifically designed and sized for a small child.
Again, I own guns, and have been around them my whole life. I don't recall exactly how old I was when I first shot a real gun, but it wasn't age 5, and my dad was very much in control of me and the gun. (I'm actually not sure but that the true purpose of that outing was to scare Young Chris into not messing with guns for a while.) At any rate, I was in high school before I had my own gun - by which time I was well aware of gun safety.
I am very saddened by this incident in Kentucky. The kid and his family will have to deal with this tragedy for the rest of their lives. Having said that, I find media coverage of the event, especially by right-wing sites, to be horribly hypocritical. As this fellow says:
It is not in any way "normal" to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too.
Again, I own guns, and have been around them my whole life. I don't recall exactly how old I was when I first shot a real gun, but it wasn't age 5, and my dad was very much in control of me and the gun. (I'm actually not sure but that the true purpose of that outing was to scare Young Chris into not messing with guns for a while.) At any rate, I was in high school before I had my own gun - by which time I was well aware of gun safety.
I am very saddened by this incident in Kentucky. The kid and his family will have to deal with this tragedy for the rest of their lives. Having said that, I find media coverage of the event, especially by right-wing sites, to be horribly hypocritical. As this fellow says:
It is not in any way "normal" to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too.
