Gun control

[kılıç_mehmet]

Well, it's not good to teach kids that violence is OK. Ever. But in any case, I didn't say they let the kids play with unloaded guns. I meant the kids play with guns. As in, they shoot things in their backyard. Fully loaded guns being fired by little kids is what I'm talking about here.

Violence? You're not telling them to point the gun at someone walking down the street, obviously. Besides, you don't have to teach your children "violence", violence is something the world teaches your children, even if you're a complete pacifist. But I'd call it good parenting if you'd teach your children when violence is an acceptable solution to a problem, and teach him/her when it isn't. Teaching kids about that all violence is bad will make them only unable to tackle any violence they might experience later in life, and be assured, they will.

However allowing your children to play with guns...It isn't really something that should be called bad parenting. Unless you give them a loaded gun of course, without supervision.

And well, shooting things...Why should it be considered bad to teach children marksmanship? It isn't considered bad parenting when you send your children to a karate-course or archery, is it? How is the use of modern day guns worse?
IF they fire their guns with the supervision of their parents, well, I see nothing bad done here my friend.
If I have children, I myself will take them to the shooting range and allow them to practice marksmanship.

I wouldn't allow that either.

Well, because you hate guns, and I reckon for no good reason at all.

If so, I'm sure the kids know exactly where they are. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I knew exactly where the things I wasn't supposed to play with (matches, lighters, knives, scissors, etc.) were hidden, and could have easily harmed myself or a sibling if my mother had been negligent and I had been an idiot child.

Okay. Though they don't really need to get to the cache and load up the gun, their parents load it and allow them to shoot it in their back-yard, so the kid won't feel the need to actually sneak about to load a gun and shoot, as he/she can shoot with the supervision of his parents. And I'm sure a kid that can handle the recoil of a gun knows how dangerous it is, so he/she won't actually be doing it. But as you said, there are lots of dangerous things in the house that can be used by children to hurt themselves or other people, like knives, rope, and of course very small things that they can choke themselves on.
Best not to let those in the house either.

... No. Believe it or not, I don't like the the thought of dead little kids whose deaths are the result of their stupid parents' love of extreme violence and unwillingness to protect their children from it.

And how did you come to the conclusion that people are unwilling to protect their kids from it? In my country, before the establishment of the republic, every family used to own a gun. And every male and female practiced marksmanship with them from an early age. Obviously it is a thing of the modern age to think that kids are as stupid as to put the guns in their mouth and pull the trigger, which they will do if they don't know what the gun actually is and what it does.

If you allow your child to actually get to know the gun, just like you let your child know what a knife is and what it does, I'm sure he/she won't use the gun to accidentally commit suicide. But well, if you hide your gun somewhat badly and your child who has never seen it stumbles across I'm sure you're bound for trouble. If you own a gun and have a child, allow him/her to get to know the gun. Heck, if he/she can handle the recoil, take him/her to the range and have him/her fire a couple of shots so he/she knows better than to point it towards him/herself.
Geez, I hate the fact that english has no gender neutral pronouns.