BB guns

[Doug Beman]

I agree with what seems to be a general concensus here; if he wants the weapon he should first take and pass the training. My grandfather and uncles used to take me to the rifle/pistol range when I was young (10-12 ish) and would show me how the gun worked, etc etc. At 12 I passed the hunter's safety course for PA. I only went hunting once, but in the years after that I took my grandfather's .45 to the range or had a couple of friends out shooting clay pigeons fairly often, and I remembered the lessons taught by the course. And not just about the gun; things like "leave the area better than you found it" and "show courtesy and respect to the others" stuck with me. About 5 years ago a friend took me to a serious gun club for a day of sporting clays (I hit maybe 11 out of 50) and I'd like to think that remembering the safety course and acting on it helped me be more comfortable and make friends with the serious shooters.

DjB

[Lee]

I agree with John, why get toys that look like guns? Move that kid

right onto an M-60. 8P hehe

Seriously though, a BB gun is fine for a kid that age. Just give him proper

safety instruction or have him take a course or instruction from a

knowledgeable shooter if you don't know the stuff yourself. Teach him

the right way to handle a gun from the beginning and he'll always

remember it. Then when he gets a real gun, he'll already know the

basics of safety and the discipline that goes with shooting.

It's great that even kids can go target shooting or hunting with

their dad and get to use real guns in this country. And BB guns are

a great place to start. Ah, freedom, I love it.

[Snake Eyes]

Being an 'ol farm boy in my youth I was given a Daisy BB gun when I was 8-9 years old. My father taught me how to respect firearms and then set me loose to terrorize the local bird population. At age 10-11 I started using a .410 and graduated to a 20-gauge around age 12. I never fooled around with a loaded or unloaded gun and treated them with the utmost respect.

However, one day I put a .22 slug through a window from an 'unloaded' gun. I had checked it several times and I was sure it was not loaded.

Also, the older brother of a school friend had gotten a BB pistol and didn't have any sense of gun safety. The dufuss fired at me and hit me in the face, just missing my eye.

These experiences led me to belive that:

1) accidents happen

2) some (maybe all) kids suffer from some form of temporary brain damage

3) kids with guns are dangerous

My sons learned how to shoot during Boy Scout summer camp in a well supervised program. They also learned to respect firearms of all types. However, I felt it too dangerous to keep guns in the house.

The decision to give your child a gun, any type of gun, is a very serious one. Training and supervision are very important. Keep in mind that the respect with which they treat a BB gun will be the same respect they will use for any gun. As a parent it will be your duty to see that they understand their responsibilities in regard to gun safety AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL PLACES.

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It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. -Aesop

[This message has been edited by Snake Eyes (edited 12-18-2000).]

[Old Crow]

The danger in the BB gun is relative just like anything else. All you can do is teach him to respect the dangers associated with it and hope that he remembers when your back is turned. I got a Daisy when I was 8 and another with scope when I was 12. If my parents were gone for the day there wouldn't be anything alive within 50 yards of my house.

Anyone ever own a Wristrocket? One of those and a .38 lead ball can do a lot more damage than a BB gun but nobody thinks about that, it's an image thing. Or ever make a sling from a shoe tongue and shoe strings? David sure had something goin' on there.

Hell, your kid will be driving in a couple years.........cars kill more people annually than BB guns.

IMHO it's better to let kids make mistakes when they're kids 'cause you're there and can teach them to appreciate the consequences of their actions. The consequences of inexperience with such things as an adult is often more costly.

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Old Crow:

If my parents were gone for the day there wouldn't be anything alive within 50 yards of my house.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ROTFLMOA!!!!

I could not have said it better myself!

I never got in REAL trouble for shooting birds, but squirrels and chipmunks were clearly off limits.

Now when I got a little older, using the .22 to bag Ground Hogs (Goffers) and pesky racoons and even peskier Foxes was like REAL hunting on my farm.

(fact: Foxes do, in REAL Life ™, actually eat hens that lay eggs, so foxes were MORE than fair game they were our sworn mortal enemy AND they RUN FAST!, my Dad nailed one once (knocked him flat over sideways, he rolled and did not get up) when it was running full speed about 50 meters out, across his field of fire in an open hay feild with the .22 without a scope,(he told me the British Army taught him how to shoot VERY well, because one day his life might depend on it, fortunately his life never did depend on his shooting skills, he entered WWII too late to have to ever see combat)

Those were the Days!

-tom w

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 12-18-2000).]

[Subvet]

Hey, I know about foxes! We had a bunch of chickens when I was growing up. There was a fox that would sometimes come and kill one or two of them every so often. One day we were sitting down eating dinner. There was a large sliding glass door in our dining room and you could look out and see the barn about 200 feet away. In the middle of dinner my dad leaps from his chair, runs over to the cupboard and grabs one of his pistols that he kept loaded in a hidden compartment. He runs to the sliding glass door and opens it up. I looked outside and saw a fox running from the barn with a chicken in it's mouth. My dad emptied the gun at it, but missed (he was an excellent shot, but it's tough to hit a running fox with a pistol from 200-250 feet heh heh). My dad had at least 20 guns in the house, but the pistol was the only one near by that was loaded. After that day he kept a loaded .223 rifle in the cedar chest next to the dining room table. This was in Michigan by the way.

[Olle Petersson]

Hmm

I got my own air rifle when I was 14, a Diana model 25. By then I had about six years of experience with air rifles on the local shooting range, with a victory in the first competition I entered (at the age of 8).

I loved shooting at various targets, but never at living creatures...

Safety was (and still is) always a great concern of mine, and I've never had any problem with it.

Cheers

Olle

[MadmaN]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

A Christmas Tale was it Jeff?

Regards

Jim R.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was A Christmas Story i think.

hehe that used to be one of my favorite movies. Kid with all those coats on would always fall over and couldnt get back up.

HAHahAHhah!

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-MadmaN

[Supertanker]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

We also took our guns out in the back woods and hunted small birds, like sparrows and starlings and robins, and we did hit them and kill them. The BEST shot you could get was the now imfamous, "Ha JFK'd him!" shot that takes the top half of the skull cap of the bird clean off, the ONE shot kill was what we all aspired to.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Young boys are apparently all sick and twisted, as my friends and I also referred to brain shots as "a JFK." I can remember one shot on a jumping toad where I saw the spray of brains reflected in the light, just like the Zapruder film. We used to try and get headshots on crows, too, as the BB guns didn't have enough power to take down a crow with a body shot. I never used a scope much as I couldn't afford a pellet gun that was accurate enough to make it worthwhile. I'd be lucky to print 6" groups at 25 yards with mine.

Regarding the appropriate age for BB guns, I think where you live plays a role as well. I was in rural Arizona, and most everyone over the age of 8 (girls included) had at least a BB gun or pellet rifle. If your father hunted, you could expect a 12 gauge shotgun or a medium rifle (30-06, 30-30, .270, etc.) on your 12th birthday. By the time we hit high school, we had access to pretty complete arsenals. However, we also had plenty of safe places to shoot them, and there was a gun safety aspect to the culture. We consciously tried to live up to the trust the adults showed us. One time I was walking down a canal road with a friend, plinking at birds with our BB guns. (Being on the canal roads was technically trespassing on the water company's property, but I don't think anyone was ever prosecuted.) We saw a police car coming toward us, so we leaned our guns against a fence and took a few steps away from them. The officer got out, asked us a few questions about what we were doing (like what directions we were shooting), made sure we weren't using .22s, and then told us that a nearby house had a window shot out with a BB gun recently. He said he could tell it wasn't us that did it, and that he used to plink on these roads when he was a kid. He admonished us to continue to be careful, then let us go on. Had we not behaved respectfully and demonstrated knowledge of gun safety, I'm sure that story would have ended differently. I doubt you would get the same treatment in an urban area, either.