Blogging after a long time...and commenting on something outrageous.
Read this on CNN today: 5-year old shoots 2-year old.
I was reading this with sadness and horror, until I read the details. My overwhelming emotion took a turn towards disgust.
Yes, it is unbelievable, but the 5-year old was given a single-shot rifle as a gift by his mother! When she stepped out of the house for a minute, the 5-year old got the gun and accidentally shot the other kid. My sincere condolences to the family, but I have to honest, I am having a real hard time feeling bad for the mother.
In which alternate dimension is it alright to give a gun as a gift to a 5-year old? This, in the same country where kids are sent home from school because they gestured a gun with their fingers while playing! Over the past few months since the Newton shooting I have read some pretty outlandish comments both for and against gun control, but this really stretches the limit!
How does giving a gun to a child assert one's "God-given" rights? And what does one gain by asserting such a right, besides bone-headed insistence? Background checks would have genuinely not stopped this one: there is no law-certified test for stupidity. A 5-year old, no matter how armed, cannot be expected to stop a home invasion or any other violent crime. So the gun in question was clearly not meant for self-protection.
I'm even more aghast that the gun in question has been made solely for this target population: kids. Okay, so one cannot realistically apprehend all stupid people. But if one can ban people under 21 from drinking and tobacco companies from advertising near schools, surely one can ban expressly marketing ammunition to kids! It is simultaneously feasible, practical and sensible to stop one or more manufacturers from doing this.
Do I really have to inquire the gun status of each household my children go to play? And what other (seemingly endless list of) senseless half-witted possibilities am I expected to know about as a parent?
Read this on CNN today: 5-year old shoots 2-year old.
I was reading this with sadness and horror, until I read the details. My overwhelming emotion took a turn towards disgust.
Yes, it is unbelievable, but the 5-year old was given a single-shot rifle as a gift by his mother! When she stepped out of the house for a minute, the 5-year old got the gun and accidentally shot the other kid. My sincere condolences to the family, but I have to honest, I am having a real hard time feeling bad for the mother.
In which alternate dimension is it alright to give a gun as a gift to a 5-year old? This, in the same country where kids are sent home from school because they gestured a gun with their fingers while playing! Over the past few months since the Newton shooting I have read some pretty outlandish comments both for and against gun control, but this really stretches the limit!
How does giving a gun to a child assert one's "God-given" rights? And what does one gain by asserting such a right, besides bone-headed insistence? Background checks would have genuinely not stopped this one: there is no law-certified test for stupidity. A 5-year old, no matter how armed, cannot be expected to stop a home invasion or any other violent crime. So the gun in question was clearly not meant for self-protection.
I'm even more aghast that the gun in question has been made solely for this target population: kids. Okay, so one cannot realistically apprehend all stupid people. But if one can ban people under 21 from drinking and tobacco companies from advertising near schools, surely one can ban expressly marketing ammunition to kids! It is simultaneously feasible, practical and sensible to stop one or more manufacturers from doing this.
Do I really have to inquire the gun status of each household my children go to play? And what other (seemingly endless list of) senseless half-witted possibilities am I expected to know about as a parent?
