OUTRAGED AT PISTOL PHOTO'S

deeksofdoom

Sparks wrote: »

That's not what the mods said. What I said is that just locking it away and saying it's forbidden is one of the fastest ways to make a child pick it as the focus of their entire existance.Over what I've posted? Yes. Over what some random idiot makes up in his own head and claims I've posted? Probably not.

Well I just think that its a far better policy to train the child to stay away from guns rather than to be picking them up and handling them, whether supervised or not.

Young children and guns is a recipe for disaster.

BELOWaverageIQ

Posting photographs of your child with your firearm will really stand to you when it comes to renewal time !!!
<snip>

Tackleberrywho

When I was a kid, I drove tractors, held my days guns etc.

However, I have no kids myself so i can't comment accurately. I do have a nephews and nieces.

I would not let them clean my firearms as they are too expensive.
The girls give out to me for shooting Rabbits

@7 my brother was driving the tractor, he is to this day one of the best machinery men in a wide area around us.

I started later than him as I was older and not as in to farming as he was.

point is we all have to start somewhere.
I have seen adults being more dangerous than children, as Adults tend not to listen and obey.

I would not post pics of them on facebook with my guns though as I think it would only attract unwanted attention.

And I would not post pics of them driving tractors either.
Every child is different, every adult is different.
One of my nieces is around that age but has the iq of a child twice her age.
So it is really down to the child s ability.

My nephew loves coming out on the farm, and i know Farming is the Most dangerous industry in Ireland

jwshooter

was there posts deleted

sikastag

OP, I have been exposed to firearms all my life and was introduced to them when I was about your sons age. Shot my first Greyback with a .17 air rifle, and my first rabbit with a .22lr and so on............. I enjoy shooting in a safe and ethical manner in my adult life now and I beleive I certainly get more out of it personally due to my upbringing. To say introducing a child to firearms is wrong is quite frankly b*llocks. (provided it is done with safety, supervision etc in mind and it is the childs wish). Personally I think seven is a good age. If you said two Id be alarmed.

I have seen grown men starting out shooting make fundamental safety mistakes. You dont need to be a child to f*ck up. The one thing that was drilled into me at an early age was the safety aspect. Some people may consider me to be too cautious. But once that piece of lead leaves the barrel you cant take it back, so better safe than sorry.

I think I am the better for it that I was exposed to firearms in this manner as opposed to million rounds a millisec movie tripe and explosions etc. Firearms arent all that different to a golf club or tennis racket to me. (Not to joe public obviously). I do not view them as a WEAPON.

My Father and I spend a great deal of time stalking together and the man is more like a best friend to me now. DONT let anyone tell you what youre doing is wrong. I hope you and your son have many years of SAFE shooting enjoyment together be it hunting, sporting pistol or any other discipline.

As for the Facebook malarkey. Well, Facebook and firearms shouldnt be in the same sentence. Enough said.

Thats me 2c.

BELOWaverageIQ

Good post,
but I do disagree And think that 7 is too young.

sikastag wrote: »

OP, I have been exposed to firearms all my life and was introduced to them when I was about your sons age. Shot my first Greyback with a .17 air rifle, and my first rabbit with a .22lr and so on............. I enjoy shooting in a safe and ethical manner in my adult life now and I beleive I certainly get more out of it personally due to my upbringing. To say introducing a child to firearms is wrong is quite frankly b*llocks. (provided it is done with safety, supervision etc in mind and it is the childs wish). Personally I think seven is a good age. If you said two Id be alarmed.

I have seen grown men starting out shooting make fundamental safety mistakes. You dont need to be a child to f*ck up. The one thing that was drilled into me at an early age was the safety aspect. Some people may consider me to be too cautious. But once that piece of lead leaves the barrel you cant take it back, so better safe than sorry.

I think I am the better for it that I was exposed to firearms in this manner as opposed to million rounds a millisec movie tripe and explosions etc. Firearms arent all that different to a golf club or tennis racket to me. (Not to joe public obviously). I do not view them as something to be used to take human life.

My Father and I spend a great deal of time stalking together and the man is more like a best friend to me now. DONT let anyone tell you what youre doing is wrong. I hope you and your son have many years of shooting enjoyment together be it hunting, sporting pistol or any other discipline.

As for the Facebook malarkey. Well, Facebook and firearms shouldnt be in the same sentence. Enough said.

Thats me 2c.

Sparks

deeksofdoom wrote: »

Young children and guns is a recipe for disaster.

Yes, but how young is too young? That's a question that is so utterly subjective that even guidelines are hard to draft. I mean, we send six and seven year old kids to karate class and hurling and a dozen other sports which have the potential to cause serious injury, without blinking, but everyone panics at the idea of the safe use of firearms being taught to children.
Besides, the pony club has been training minors safely for years in tetrathlethon shooting. And some are quite young. It just depends on how the training is done, and on the child themselves. Some you could take to the range quite young; others might never really be people you could take to the range, even as adults!

cursai

jwshooter wrote: »

was there posts deleted

Yes i think the mod is a member of a pro gun lobby, dont say anything against guns. omly prop gun opinions allowed:D

knockon

Sparks wrote: »

Yes, but how young is too young? That's a question that is so utterly subjective that even guidelines are hard to draft. I mean, we send six and seven year old kids to karate class and hurling and a dozen other sports which have the potential to cause serious injury, without blinking, but everyone panics at the idea of the safe use of firearms being taught to children.
Besides, the pony club has been training minors safely for years in tetrathlethon shooting. And some are quite young. It just depends on how the training is done, and on the child themselves. Some you could take to the range quite young; others might never really be people you could take to the range, even as adults!

I take your point Sparks but our Sport and especially Pistol owners is under severe scrutiny from all and sundry. We need good PR. Fine bring your boy when your hunting or target shooting where you can show him how to act responsible with a firearm but lets not let the world know about it.

Sparks

cursai wrote: »

Yes i think the mod is a member of a pro gun lobby, dont say anything against guns. omly prop gun opinions allowed:D

All opinions are allowed. It's uncivil behaviour that's not, and there have been post deletions and edits in this thread so far as a result of that.

Folks, if you disagree with the OP, that's fine - but it's perfectly possible to say you disagree without acting the maggot. So don't.

Sparks

knockon wrote: »

I take your point Sparks but our Sport and especially Pistol owners is under severe scrutiny from all and sundry. We need good PR. Fine bring your boy when your hunting or target shooting where you can show him how to act responsible with a firearm but lets not let the world know about it.

I've always found, in pretty much any avenue of life that has people involved in it, that if you hide something away, it only causes more damage when it inevitably comes out.

elius

I was introduced to guns buy my late grandad at the age of 6-7 and he let me shoot the 4/10 always under his carefull watch. My mother and father both saw nothing wrong with this as back home we had no gun. Would i take picture of my 7yr old child holding my guns not a hope would i let him have a hold of the gun under super vision without a doubt. Id like to think in years to come he would take up shooting and if i can get firearm safety across from a young age all the better. I use to love nothing more than going to grandads or my uncle's to look at guns in fact i shot my first rabbit at 10yrs of age whilst working on my uncle's farm though i again was under close super vision. If i can pass on what they taught me all the better both for me and the the greater public.

cursai

Sparks wrote: »

I've always found, in pretty much any avenue of life that has people involved in it, that if you hide something away, it only causes more damage when it inevitably comes out.

The question remains "Was it a responsible decision to post a photo of a child on facebook holding a firearm". IN MY OPINION it wasn't as
1. The child is too young to understand the responsibilities of securing, maintaining, holding and discharging of a firearm.
2. the op will bring bad attention onto yourself and other small firearms for displaying 'Provocative' images on a public forum.

jap gt

the way i see it is, its great the child has an interest in guns, he could be doing far worse things, i might even take photos for him to look back on in years, but not a hope in hell would i put them on the internet for god knows who to look at, wasnt a great move, but hopefully nothing more will come of it

2 stroke

My opinion.
Teaching a child gun safety is your duty, especially if you keep guns in their enviroment.

However, putting pics of a child holding a gun, on a public forum, could cause another unsupervised child to pick up a gun. Eventhough you have deleted these photos from your profile, they still exist in cyberspace.

Kryten

I fired my Dad's .22 rifle when I was 7, and various times when I was young. I used to get involved in the the whole cleaning thing and I was absolutely thrilled to do it as a kid. So in my opinion, nothing wrong there.

For the idiots who dont understand this, Tough!!!!! For the so called friends on Facebook, Tough!!!!

Not good to put this on facebook. Would be far more productive to put such pics on your club website, if appropriate, with a little story maybe.

The great unwashed dont understand us at the moment. We are trying to change the public mentality, but not easy when you have the "American Gun culture" perception and the murders in Cumbria and such giving the media a feeding frenzy. Why cant our sport be seen as a safer option to even GAA, Where poor kids have died playing it..

cursai

Kryten wrote: »

I fired my Dad's .22 rifle when I was 7, and various times when I was young. I used to get involved in the the whole cleaning thing and I was absolutely thrilled to do it as a kid. So in my opinion, nothing wrong there.

For the idiots who dont understand this, Tough!!!!! For the so called friends on Facebook, Tough!!!!

Not good to put this on facebook. Would be far more productive to put such pics on your club website, if appropriate, with a little story maybe.

The great unwashed dont understand us at the moment. We are trying to change the public mentality, but not easy when you have the "American Gun culture" perception and the murders in Cumbria and such giving the media a feeding frenzy. Why cant our sport be seen as a safer option to even GAA, Where poor kids have died playing it..

Charlton Heston: "...the God fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant - or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern - or even worse, rural, apparently straight - or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning - or even worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff - or even worse, male working stiff - because, not only don’t you count, you are a down-right obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant, and frankly, mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new-America and until you do, would you mind shutting up?"...

Is this the kind of thing you mean.

When did poor kids ever die playing GAA. I think I missed the war of Croke Park 1987-88. Please nobody mention SADS or Bloody Sunday. Thats not the GAA's fault. Respectfully.

Sparks

cursai wrote: »

Is this the kind of thing you mean.

No, it's the notion that sporting firearms will automatically lead to a wave of homicides and accidental deaths that makes the bubonic plague look like a mild case of the sniffles.

When did poor kids ever die playing GAA. I think I missed the war of Croke Park 1987-88. Please nobody mention SADS or Bloody Sunday. Thats not the GAA's fault.

SADS is the fault of whatever sport you were playing when it happened - if you weren't playing it, you wouldn't have caught the slap to the chest at that worst possible moment and you'd still be alive.
Plus, you're not counting the innumerable injuries (from scrapes and cuts to actual laceration and broken teeth/noses/fingers/ribs/limbs/necks) that show up in hurling and football. It's a physical sport - people get hurt. That's just how it is.

edit: Oh, and we've not mentioned the worries the GAA themselves have at the rising level of physical injuries that kids are getting that they shouldn't be getting (groin strain, muscle tears and the like) which are being caused by too much gym work being done by kids who are too young. Or drug abuse by those kids (like borrowing other kids' asthma inhalers, which gives a short-term VO2 boost, but damages your lungs if you're not asthmatic).

Target shooting, on the other hand, is not a contact sport. So you don't get that level of injuries. We've had target shooting matches here since the 1840s and we've not had anyone get shot during a match yet. There have been hunting accidents, yes; and we've had accidents like people injuring themselves on the range by not being careful (belting your head on the ceiling in DURC, breaking an ankle in a rabbit hole in the old FSC range, that sort of thing), but the kind of thing we all fear doesn't seem to have ever happened.

Face it, your kid is in more danger during the car ride to the range than on the range itself.

It wasn't me!

cursai wrote: »

Charlton Heston: "...the God fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant - or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern - or even worse, rural, apparently straight - or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning - or even worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff - or even worse, male working stiff - because, not only don’t you count, you are a down-right obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant, and frankly, mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new-America and until you do, would you mind shutting up?"...

Is this the kind of thing you mean.

When did poor kids ever die playing GAA. I think I missed the war of Croke Park 1987-88. Please nobody mention SADS or Bloody Sunday. Thats not the GAA's fault. Respectfully.

There have been well publicised cases of GAA players dying as a result of incidents on the field. Now, with respect, what the hell is the first part of your post about? It's a Heston quote out of nowhere, with absolutely no relevance I can see to the thread.

Tackleberrywho

cursai wrote: »

Charlton Heston: "...the God fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant - or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern - or even worse, rural, apparently straight - or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning - or even worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff - or even worse, male working stiff - because, not only don’t you count, you are a down-right obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant, and frankly, mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new-America and until you do, would you mind shutting up?"...

Is this the kind of thing you mean.

When did poor kids ever die playing GAA. I think I missed the war of Croke Park 1987-88. Please nobody mention SADS or Bloody Sunday. Thats not the GAA's fault.

In recent years 2 have been killed with goal posts falling on them

Now back on topic

We were thought as kids, learn how to do something from someone who has more experience than you. ie parents Guardians

I showed my dad how to Zero his .22lr

Have we come full circle?
He is a pensioner :D:D

My Granny showed me how to skin a rabbit with her kitchen knife.
Not a fancy smancy Buck knife

My granddad explained firearm safety to me as a kid when he showed me his harington Richardson.

I never forgot that and that was over 20 years ago

My neices clean my motorbike, I don't let them clean the gun for fear of them damaging it. I would not let an adult clean my rifle either

Although if they show an interest I may show them

cursai

Sparks wrote: »

No, it's the notion that sporting firearms will automatically lead to a wave of homicides and accidental deaths that makes the bubonic plague look like a mild case of the sniffles.SADS is the fault of whatever sport you were playing when it happened - if you weren't playing it, you wouldn't have caught the slap to the chest at that worst possible moment and you'd still be alive.
Plus, you're not counting the innumerable injuries (from scrapes and cuts to actual laceration and broken teeth/noses/fingers/ribs/limbs/necks) that show up in hurling and football. It's a physical sport - people get hurt. That's just how it is.

edit: Oh, and we've not mentioned the worries the GAA themselves have at the rising level of physical injuries that kids are getting that they shouldn't be getting (groin strain, muscle tears and the like) which are being caused by too much gym work being done by kids who are too young. Or drug abuse by those kids (like borrowing other kids' asthma inhalers, which gives a short-term VO2 boost, but damages your lungs if you're not asthmatic).

Target shooting, on the other hand, is not a contact sport. So you don't get that level of injuries. We've had target shooting matches here since the 1840s and we've not had anyone get shot during a match yet. There have been hunting accidents, yes; and we've had accidents like people injuring themselves on the range by not being careful (belting your head on the ceiling in DURC, breaking an ankle in a rabbit hole in the old FSC range, that sort of thing), but the kind of thing we all fear doesn't seem to have ever happened.

Face it, your kid is in more danger during the car ride to the range than on the range itself.

Its still not the 'GAA's' fault. We could blame high activity sport but then where do we want to be in 'twenty years' time - Overweight gun club members afraid of sport or keeping fit whilst living on the edge of a possible genetic disorder resulting in death. This is way off topic.

cursai

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

In recent years 2 have been killed with goal posts falling on them

Now back on topic

We were thought as kids, learn how to do something from someone who has more experience than you. ie parents Guardians

I showed my dad how to Zero his .22lr

Have we come full circle?
He is a pensioner :D:D

My Granny showed me how to skin a rabbit with her kitchen knife.
Not a fancy smancy Buck knife

My granddad explained firearm safety to me as a kid when he showed me his harington Richardson.

I never forgot that and that was over 20 years ago

My neices clean my motorbike, I don't let them clean the gun for fear of them damaging it. I would not let an adult clean my rifle either

Although if they show an interest I may show them

i think this is responsible attitude. Educating said kids when or if they show an interest. But how young is too young and how does a parent at home decide whether the child is responsible enough to be shown. What is appropriate. I would argue that eighteen should be the age limit and a licence should be obtained before any instruction is given.

Tackleberrywho

I think the OP has seen both sides perspective, thread seems to have run its course;)

cursai

It has been milked.

It wasn't me!

cursai wrote: »

i think this is responsible attitude. Educating said kids when or if they show an interest. But how young is too young and how does a parent at home decide whether the child is responsible enough to be shown. What is appropriate. I would argue that eighteen should be the age limit and a licence should be obtained before any instruction is given.

Surely it would be immensely preferable for some instruction to be part of the prerequisite course for a licence application? And eighteen is ridiculously high. There's a reason we're not competitive against countries who train children on air rifles from about eight years old and smallbore from twelve or thirteen. We'll never be able to do so with attitudes like that prevalent.

Tackleberrywho

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Surely it would be immensely preferable for some instruction to be part of the prerequisite course for a licence application? And eighteen is ridiculously high. There's a reason we're not competitive against countries who train children on air rifles from about eight years old and smallbore from twelve or thirteen. We'll never be able to do so with attitudes like that prevalent.

Although we are catching up

We will have the second longest range in Europe soon

cursai

Okay good point. Maybe sixteen as it is now. But these should be exceptional licences for landowners for livestock safety reasons and for registered sports competitors. I just feel it should be keep tightly sewn as it is at the moment. These firearms have the potential to injure and maim as it is. Its a difficult balance.

Tackleberrywho

cursai wrote: »

Okay good point. Maybe sixteen as it is now. But these should be exceptional licences for landowners for livestock safety reasons and for registered sports competitors. I just feel it should be keep tightly sewn as it is at the moment. These firearms have the potential to injure and maim as it is. Its a difficult balance.

The average Bill/slash hook is just as lethal. I was using them since I was able to swing one cutting hedges, yet why do people who live in halting sites need them ???

cursai

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

The average Bill/slash hook is just as lethal. I was using them since I was able to swing one cutting hedges, yet why do people who live in halting sites need them ???

Ever try licensing a slash hook. Every butcher in town will be up in arms.

Sparks

cursai wrote: »

Ever try licensing a slash hook. Every butcher in town will be up in arms.

Well, chef's knives are now controlled, to an extent. And if you can licence samurai swords, you can licence slash hooks.