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Minors (not miners) and Guns: Your Opinion?

BullzeyeBullzeye Member Posts: 3,560
edited December 2001 in General Discussion
I myself had my first gun at age 13. I learned the basic safety rules early, and as a result I have never forgotten to excercise them.My first rifle I bought with my own cash, and recieved my own background check on, was my Norinco SKS Sporter.I have been longing for a plinker pistol for some time, but 21 is the universal age, it seems, to own a pistol for ANY purpose.It apparently means nothing to the government that I am not a gang member with murder in mind nor a demented social outcast with revenge fantasies. From society's standpoint, if you are under the age of 30 and want a pistol, you must be some sort of a lunatic.Being as I grew up in an overwhelmingly Liberal area, I took a lot of flak from both classmates and parents for my interest in shooting. You learn the true agenda of those who call themselves "Liberals" real quick when your parents get an irate and obscene phone call from a PTA Member who says she wont let her kids play with "that little time bomb you Jesus freak hicks have raised".What did I do to elicit this outpouring of anger? I told my friend Billy I might be getting my own .22 for my 13th birthday.Now I turn the topic over to you. I'd love to hear what you all have to say on the topic. If you have children (or plan on having them), when did you introduce them to firearms? What are your thoughts on the system as it stands now?I value the opinions of those on this board as I would value the word of Solomon (quite literally, actually). So be frank, and let's hear it.
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Comments

  • PupPup Member Posts: 217 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I started teaching my kids when they were 7&4 yrs old. Told them several times about never touching a gun, get an adult if they find one, etc. Took them both through the hunter safety course sponsered by our club. They're 18 and 15 today, and have never once had any kind of incident which would give cause for worry. I feel it's like most things in a childs' life. With proper instruction, education, and discipline firearm training shouldn't be any more difficult than teaching them to look both ways before crossing a street. Notice I included "education", which pretty much puts me at odds with the current system in our society. Some feel it's ok to teach children in school how to use a condom, but these same people refuse to allow basic firearm safety knowledge to be given to kids, which I believe would eliminate many of the problems some children end up having when a gun is part of the equation.
    Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often and for the same reason.[This message has been edited by Pup (edited 12-31-2001).]
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  • woodsrunnerwoodsrunner Member Posts: 5,378 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I believe in NY you can get your pistol permit at 18 if your parent has a permit. It used to be 16, I had a friend in high school who had his at 16. Your parent has to purchase the handgun a dealer can't sell it to you until you are 21. It has to be on both permits I believe. I see you are Upstate, If you went to the Rochester gun show this weekend, the county clerk will have a permit office set up. You could get more specific information there. You could also call your couny clerks office and inquire there. Maybe the law has changed again and I could be wrong. they change so often it's hard to keep track.As for youngsters shooting. I can remember being 6 and sitting on my dads lap shooting his Ruger single six & Walther PPK/s. Was hunting with a Ithaca single shot 12 ga at 14. Bought my Remington 722 .308 at 16. Had a closet full of long guns by 18. Went to high school at Brockport, NY used to lock up our .222's in my friends car trunk, then go hunting chucks after school. Things were a little more laid back about guns 20 years ago. Alot of it has to do with urban sprawl. was alot more country here back then. WOODS[This message has been edited by woodsrunner (edited 12-31-2001).]
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  • jonkjonk Member Posts: 10,121
    edited November -1
    On a similar note, one can, at age 181. Carry on one's one's own legal business, ie you are legally an adult and can sign for yourself, etc.2. Join the military and die for your country.
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  • jonkjonk Member Posts: 10,121
    edited November -1
    On a similar note, one can, at age 181. Carry on one's one's own legal business, ie you are legally an adult and can sign for yourself, etc.2. Join the military and die for your country.3. Get married without parental consent.4. Drive- generally from age 16.5. Buy a rifle, or shotgun, far more lethal than any handgun.But you can't legally buy a handgun, have a glass of wine at your wedding, or get drunk the night before going into combat. Make any sense?I know 8 year olds who I would trust with guns, but 30 year olds who I wouldn't. The law is stupid and should be changed to age 18 for everything.
    "...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899.
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  • badboybobbadboybob Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Bullzeye have you ever heard of the camel getting hie nose under the edge of the tent?That's what all the bs is about about our gun laws.The socialist agenda is to destroy our Constitutional rights piece by piece. The American people would not stand for an outright assault on our rights. Instead the socialists (read democraps) whittle away our freedom bit by bit.Their ultimate goal is the imposition of a socialist dictatorship on the American people. They can't do that on an armed people, thus today's stupid gun laws.
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  • woodsrunnerwoodsrunner Member Posts: 5,378 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    badboybob, I hate to give you the bad news. Republican Gov. George Pataki has passed some pretty bad gun laws. It seems to me, a big part of our problem, is as soon as a Republican or Conservative gets power we all stop paying attention to them. As soon as we do, they sell us out. Don't blame it on the Dems, at least they are honest about it. We know where they stand. Blame us for not keeping better watch.WOODS
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  • badboybobbadboybob Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Good point woods. We have the same potential problem here in NC. Elizabeth Dole is running for the Senate. She's a socialist in Republican clothing. If she gets elected she'll be another McPain.Unfortunately her probable democrap opponent is a died in the wool klinton klone.When are we going to be given the ballot choice of "NONE OF THE ABOVE"? [This message has been edited by badboybob (edited 12-31-2001).]
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  • woodsrunnerwoodsrunner Member Posts: 5,378 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    AMEN on "NONE OF THE ABOVE"WOODS
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  • LowriderLowrider Member Posts: 6,587
    edited November -1
    "...at least the Democrats are honest about it...?" Since when?
    Lord Lowrider the LoquaciousMember:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets She was only a fisherman's daughter,But when she saw my rod she reeled.
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  • idsman75idsman75 Member Posts: 13,398 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    In what county do you reside Bullzeye? I lived in Jefferson County and it took me 9 months to get a Carry permit. Actually, it would have taken the same amount of time to get a permit to purchase and I was 25 at the time. I was a military police investigator on Fort Drum with a permit to carry concealed on a military installation but it still took me 9 months to get one in Jefferson County, NY (Watertown area).
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  • .250Savage.250Savage Member Posts: 812 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    ..."that little time bomb you Jesus freak hicks have raised". LOL, that's funny. Aaaah, ya gotta love those ignorant, hateful, bigoted liberals. They make the Klan look like the boy scouts some times. On the subject of minors with guns, it used to be the rule, not the exception, and school shootings didn't happen. 30 years of liberal garbage later, now they are. You do the math. To my mind, it's the same as teaching the kid to swim, read, drive, cook, and any of a dozen other essential skills.
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  • Judge DreadJudge Dread Member Posts: 2,372 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I shoot a .38 at 6 years of age a 12g shotgun at 9 ,was making my own guns sinse 15 (still desing some in paper and I love it ... Thanks God my father was a gun loving MP .......(until he got senile) now he has a "Godfather" complex & I am the black sheep of the family ,but anyway i teach my children the Yellow dragon arts and the Art of war......Not only they will know to use any part of the body as a weapon but also anything within their grasp too.....
    Ignis Natura Renovatur Integram
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  • daddodaddo Member Posts: 3,408
    edited November -1
    I taught my kids when they both turned 9 yrs old. They are now 12 and 15. Gun saftey was the #1 goal, and how to handle rifles and pistols. We went shooting so much, they only go once in a while now. Like you, they are great responsible youngin's. My son can fly a Cessna 172 airplane but can't (legally) drive a car. The few bad apples have caused the honorable people to suffer laws that restrict their freedoms. But don't worry, you will be of age before you know it- beleive me, it goes fast. Good Luck!
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  • cpilericpileri Member Posts: 447 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    It is your "friends" and PTA parents apparently, who are intolerant, not you. Pray for them as you always have and carry on with an honest life.As for a more gun-specific answer: it seems you are still quite young, and possible with a career path not yet chosen. You would do a great service by entering the den of snakes known as american politics and restoring the rights that have been signed away- not just the 2nd ammendment, but including it of course.It is lucky for us "older" GB-posters to have this opportunity to speak with the next generation of gun owners.Good luck,Carl
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  • Gordian BladeGordian Blade Member Posts: 1,202 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I know from previous postings that Bullzeye and I live fairly close in upstate NY, so I perhaps have as much insight as anyone on the region of the country where Bullzeye has grown up.It was a totally different world when my father was a kid. When he turned 13, my grandfather thought that my father's first choice of birthday gift, a bicycle, was too dangerous for the city of Albany. So he got my father a .22 bolt-action rifle -- which he still has. My father used to take it to the city dump and shoot rats. Plinking with a social purpose, you might say. No one thought anything wrong with a 13 year old boy walking down the street with a .22 rifle.It was still a lot different when I was a kid. We had .22 target shooting in day camp (supervised by adults of course) and the parents thought nothing of it. Although my family didn't hunt, I knew a lot of kids who did. I didn't get a .22 rifle when I was a kid, but I did get a Crossman .25 air rifle. I used to plink around with that on my own and no one was particularly concerned.Fast forward to today. Very few of my sons' friends or their parents are hunters -- maybe none. (I'm not either.) We've become so suburbanized here that hunting in many circles is considered an ancient ritual right along with barn raisings and corn huskings. There has also been a successful effort in our liberal area to portray firearms as horribly dangerous (if not evil) objects that no private citizen should own, much less minors. When one of my youngest son's friend's mother found out that I have some firearms, she wondered out loud to my wife whether her son would be safe playing at our house. (Sorry for the awkward syntax there.) They are 13, by the way. Eventually, she decided that since I'm such a safe and sane guy, it would be OK. Still, that's the society we live in today.So in answer to your question, Bullzeye, I think a 13 year old minor is old enough to have his own .22 rifle and learn the basics of shooting, but I would tell him that (a) he shouldn't broadcast the fact to a friend unless the friend's parents are cool with shooting sports for 13 year olds (in which case the friend is welcome to come and learn the basics), and (b) he is not to shoot it without adult supervision. Unfortunately, the days of 13 year olds walking around on their own and plinking are over where we live.
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  • BullzeyeBullzeye Member Posts: 3,560
    edited November -1
    Alas, he speaks the truth But remember, anything that has been made, can also be unmade.If enough people were to cast off the stigma, I think we might start some sort of a....revolution?Who knows....
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