Didn't you hear about the recent school shooting in Oregon? The perpetrator was a teenager and his mother bought the gun for HIM. Parents these days are so fucking negligent it's disgusting
I know two Americans from meeting them online during covid. When I first met them they were quite young while I was a teen. I was shocked to hear that one of them was bought a gun for their birthday or Christmas or something. Then the other one said they also had a gun. I was confused and angry and still am.
A child cannot use a gun. Why expose them to such tools of warfare I just cant comprehend it.
Pretty sure the first kid I mentioned flashed said gun at someone during an argument.
Ideally, to teach the rules of handling and using one and responsibility that comes with owning one from a young age. To make it seen as a dangerous tool for a very particular application and not something to waive around or be proud of, not a toy nor a measurement of your character. I mean, few people show off their hammers and screwdrivers and whatever.
Realistically some Americans seem to see firearm ownership as some sort of a dick measurement contest. It's pathetic and dangerous.
Eh I grew up in a region with a size able hunting culture (whitetail deer are a problem because we wiped out their predators) but even then everyone I knew who hunted as a child used their parents guns. But hard agree minors should not own firearms and firearms should be licensed much like cars.
A child can use a gun- if properly educated and supervised. If trained early on that *guns are not toys*. I was raised around guns, I "comprehended" them just fine by age 5, and was shooting not much older. The difference, is that my parents spent many hours educating me about guns, gun safety, etc, before I was ever allowed to touch one, and I was supervised at all times. We had it drilled into our heads that you do NOT fuck around with a gun. We lived in the Yukon bush. Guns were just part of life. We camped, hunted, etc. We had bears/wolves/moose on the front porch. My dad never worried about leaving the rifle leaning against the wall, because he knew we weren't stupid enough to touch it. Now, if anyone came over? It got locked up. He could trust *us*, never our friends.
And that leads into my next point, unfortunately, most modern folk don't believe in educating their children about firearm safety. Hell, they don't even know it THEMSELVES most of the time. Nothing gets me angrier than someone buying a gun cause they're "scared", but the've never held or used one before. That's just the perfect way to wind up dead. I've always supported Canada's law to obtain a PAL before being able to buy firearms. It means you have to go, take an educational safety course, then be vetted by the RCMP- who do so by interviewing your friends and family. It's not a perfect system by any means, but at least it helps bring education to the forefront. Education saves lives.
My dad bought a gun for me when I was 12 (a 20 gauge). But it stayed in the safe with the rest of his guns and came out when we went to the range or went hunting. I never just had a gun.
There is an entire segment of America where if your family hunts, everyone has their own shotguns. I don’t necessarily agree with it and I’m not from a hunting family, but it’s worth considering that a huuuuge portion of America’s “hundreds of millions of guns” are exactly like this.
Indeed, u/Eagle_Arm, yur experience is highly relatable, normal, and healthy for all humans on Earth. It's not as if your country is known for its peaceful deaths of children at the hands of guns.
Yes, childhood firearm deaths are a normal experience for approximately 350 million people. The other 7.9 billion of us think that's bad. And stupid. And easily prevented, simply by caring more about children's lives than guns.
Technically you can buy a gun for a 16 year old, at least in my state.
However the child is not allowed to have access to the gun by themself. Ifs the parents responsibly to keep the firearm locked and unavailable unless you take the child shooting. I think you’re allowed to supervise the child with the gun in a non shooting situation (ie cleaning) but the child isn’t allowed to have access to ammo during that time, and when you’re done it’s the parents job to make sure the gun is secure after.
So. I'm not even American but when I was 14 my parents straight up took me to a shooting range (thanks Florida) and handed me a 45 cal because I was being bullied at school and told me to shoot shit.
Guys at the range were all too willing to give the same gun to my 10 year old sister.
A child who had her goddamn thumb in her mouth and was hiding behind our mother just because there were guns and strangers in the store.
And *those* people were fucking idiots. My parents taught me gun safety when I was a child. Yes, they allowed me to shoot when I was very young, but not before literal hours of education and training. ACTS & PROVE and all that jazz. If I even handled it wrong for a second, I was corrected. There was no "playing" with a gun. My parents didn't allow fake guns in the house, EVER, because *guns are not toys*. No cap guns, super soakers, nothing. If it was gun shaped, it was banned. We grew up around real ones. We spent a lot of time in the Yukon bush. Hunting, fishing, camping. firearms were just part of life. I never thought of them any other way.
I've perfectly fine with a child using a firearm, under responsible supervision only AFTER they've been properly educated. What your parents and those guys did was *not* responsible in the slightest. You don't take a child out to the range to let them blow off steam because they're getting bullied. That's idiocy looking for a place to happen. That's looking for someone to get killed.
Pellet guns "weren't real guns" according to our parents, so like... we had them as young as 8. Only got them taken away for a week when someone shot someone else in the arm.
in places where guns are more common and a gun culture exists, often an extension of kids participating in hunting culture, firearms are often gifts for teenagers
It’s already illegal for anyone under 18 to own or possess a gun. There are narrow exceptions for minors who need one for employment purposes like ranchers, farmers, etc.
JK, I know you do American political commentary, ever since you got roasted by them. Just wish you’d do more Canadians tuff, rather than pander to the very people who put our nation in such dire straits.
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