In my own childhood (I was born in 1955), firearms were much more easily
available to anyone -- including children - than they are now.  My Dad
always kept a .22 rifle in the house, and took me shooting with him many
times.  Even as late as the early '70s, I can remember teenagers (and even
pre-teens) walking down the street in our suburban neighborhood, carrying
rifles, on their way to shoot at tin cans or birds in the empty fields
outside town.  No one thought anything dangerous or frightening about it.
There were no school shootings happening, and except for a few large urban
areas, gang violence was highly unusual.  Now, many years later, firearms
are much more restricted, yet violent incidents such as you describe are an
everyday occurrence.  Something has changed, and the availability of guns
has nothing to do with it.  I won't get into all the things wrong with our
society, but the point is, the kids (some of them, anyway) are much
different than those I knew while growing up.  They don't think, feel, or
behave in the same way, and whether its the fault of the parents, the
schools, television, or whatever, restricting access to firearms is going
to have no effect (except perhaps to make it more difficult for the rest of
us to defend ourselves).

My two boys (11 and 17), who have been raised with the kind of moral and
spiritual values that were prevalent in my own youth, are happy,
well-adjusted children who seem to have avoided picking up the violent
tendencies of so many of their peers.  (Perhaps "peers" is the wrong word,
because their friends are also good kids.)  Both of them have been taught
about safe firearms handling and usage since they were very young.  Both
enjoy going to the firing range with me, and the oldest brings along the
.22 pistol I gave him several years ago.  (He is a very safe and
conscientious shooter, and I trust him more than some fumble-fingered
adults I know.)  Neither thinks of guns as toys or status symbols, but as
tools to be used for protection and enjoyed as a hobby.

This is WAY off topic, but I'm just so tired of seeing firearms treated as
if they were possessed by evil spirits that turn normal people into
wild-eyed killers...

Wayne Brown
Database Analyst
Altec Industries, Inc.





Mike Williams <[log in to unmask]> on 09/10/99 09:50:53 AM

Please respond to Mike Williams <[log in to unmask]>

To:   [log in to unmask]
cc:    (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  Re: Fw: Fw: Off toppic. Friday humor




"Number one - the problem in our country in *not* guns, it's the
sometimes deranged people that get their hands on them."

1. Surely the problem is that not that 'deranged people' get their hands on
the guns, but they have access to those guns in the first place.
2. As the world has witnessed, sometimes those 'deranged people' in the USA
also happen to be high-school students who have, quite possibly, been
taught their gun skills by people such as the General mentioned in the
original posting.

Sorry - used up bandwidth entirely unnecessarily, but when Americans start
bleating about how guns are not a problem and teaching children how to use
them is a really great idea, then I have to comment!

Michael.


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