Wisconsin Law Allows Toddlers to Hunt with Guns

[LittleRaven]

They're really a very welcoming crowd. Though depending on your aspirations, the cover charge can be a bit high.

I grew up in a pretty small town, and had lots of relatives that lived a decidedly rural lifestyle. Guns were just a part of the landscape. Granted, only my crazy uncle had assault rifles, but EVERYONE had a shotgun or deer rifle. Handguns were also common. When the nearest authority figure can be 45 minutes away at maximum burn, well, you have to be prepared. They weren't scary death machines, any more than a wood chipper was. They were just tools. Powerful tools...tools that required care and respect, but rural living is full of powerful tools that will do terrible things if you're stupid. Which is why teaching children about them is so very important.

I now live in Austin, and my guns (all inherited) mostly collect dust in my safe. I don't even have ammo for most of them. When I go to the range these days, which isn't particularly common, I mostly fire rented guns, mostly because I don't own the kind of guns I really like to shoot and can't be bothered to buy them. I don't have a CCL...frankly, I've never been in a situation where I felt having a gun would be helpful. But that's largely because I live in a very urban environment now, and in an urban environment, the mathematics of gun use change drastically. Sure, it's still a tool, but the odds of it being employed in a socially constructive manner drop considerably.

So I'm sympathetic to both sides of the argument. It's easy to see why someone who has only ever lived in NYC can come to the conclusion that every firearm should be controlled by the state. But that argument is frankly ludicrous to anyone who's lived in the vast barely populated stretches of land that make up most of our country, where hunting still makes up a considerable portion of some peoples food supply. And so gun control falls into the realm of the culture war, where emotion trumps facts and bad arguments abound on both sides.

And as an aside, neither of my children were using training wheels past 6. I mean...riding a bike is not THAT difficult, and keeping up with your cousins when you have training wheels is just impossible. Kids generally want those things gone pronto. And I would NEVER wait until a child was 16 before teaching them about guns. I would feel downright irresponsible if I did that, especially given modern American media and the constant glorification of firearms within it. I can control my guns, but I'm not with my children 24/7, and there's a LOT of guns out there. I want them to feel that gun kick in their hands, to hear that impossibly loud bang and see first hand what happens to whatever you point the gun at. It's the best method I've ever found to impress on a small child that guns are NOT toys, and should never be played with. At least, not outside of a video game.

[Morgaine]

Reminder: For centuries American children have wielded firearms. You just think of it as weird due to the urbanization of our society.

Yes generally more advanced cultures abandon primitive habits and rituals.
That's why your average city folk doesn't sacrifice a goat.

[Robovski]

Reminder: For centuries American children have wielded firearms. You just think of it as weird due to the urbanization of our society.

Yes generally more advanced cultures abandon primitive habits and rituals.
That's why your average city folk doesn't sacrifice a goat.

City folk aren't more advanced than those who live in rural areas, don't be an ignorant city slicker.

[Karha of Honor]

Reminder: For centuries American children have wielded firearms. You just think of it as weird due to the urbanization of our society.

Yes generally more advanced cultures abandon primitive habits and rituals.
That's why your average city folk doesn't sacrifice a goat.

Civilization is not just roses and celebrations...

[Admiral X]

I have never been introduced to firearms.

Well there's your problem right there.

[Wild_Kraken]

I have never been introduced to firearms.

Well there's your problem right there.

This is a good point. It's important to teach children from a very early age about proper firearm use and safety so they grow up to be responsible gun users. A sterling example of good parenting in this regard would be Nancy Lanza, who introduced her son Adam to firearms at an early age, and often took him to the shooting range. And we all know what a responsible, well adjusted gun user he turned out to be.

[Madner Kami]

I have never been introduced to firearms.

Well there's your problem right there.

This is a good point. It's important to teach children from a very early age about proper firearm use and safety so they grow up to be responsible gun users. A sterling example of good parenting in this regard would be Nancy Lanza, who introduced her son Adam to firearms at an early age, and often took him to the shooting range. And we all know what a responsible, well adjusted gun user he turned out to be.

The error in assuming that children can be universally tought how to be responsible with handling firearms by their parents is, that a notable majority of parents are not as responsible as you'd like them to be. Case in point: There are myriads of laws protecting people from their own stupidity, which wouldn't be necessary if people just wouldn't be that fucking stupid to begin with. But they clearly are.

[Karha of Honor]

I have never been introduced to firearms.

Well there's your problem right there.

This is a good point. It's important to teach children from a very early age about proper firearm use and safety so they grow up to be responsible gun users. A sterling example of good parenting in this regard would be Nancy Lanza, who introduced her son Adam to firearms at an early age, and often took him to the shooting range. And we all know what a responsible, well adjusted gun user he turned out to be.

The error in assuming that children can be universally tought how to be responsible with handling firearms by their parents is, that a notable majority of parents are not as responsible as you'd like them to be. Case in point: There are myriads of laws protecting people from their own stupidity, which wouldn't be necessary if people just wouldn't be that fucking stupid to begin with. But they clearly are.

Not like they are ever mass repealed via petitions.

A lot if it is just legislators wanting to feel important...

[LittleRaven]

A sterling example of good parenting in this regard would be Nancy Lanza, who introduced her son Adam to firearms at an early age, and often took him to the shooting range. And we all know what a responsible, well adjusted gun user he turned out to be.

The report from the Connecticut State Attorney's office concluded that Adam Lanza's "...severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems... combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence... (and) access to deadly weapons... proved a recipe for mass murder".

It is difficult to disagree with this assessment. But it remains unclear what exactly we are supposed to do about this. Do we lock up people with mental health issues? I mean, more than we already do? That's....quite an amazing number of Americans, depending on where exactly we draw that line. An estimated 1 in 6 Americans are on some king of psychiatric drug. Obviously, the percentage of those people that will turn violent is minuscule, but all of them display more signs than Adam Lanza did to the mental health system...he was on no drugs at all. Sure, he was clearly bonkers, but from what we can tell, his mother was actively trying to keep him OUT of the system after he had a negative reaction to Celexa. I suppose we could try and increase the role of the state when it comes to raising children, but that is a path with a very dark history and is sure to generate a lot of controversy.

Do we try to intervene with people that display an 'atypical preoccupation with violence?' Again, difficult, for most of the same reasons. Only a tiny fraction of people who become 'obsessed with violence' in one form or another actually become violent themselves. God knows I went through a phase as a teenager where I was obsessed with WW II war machines. I built models, collected books extensively, talked about them constantly....battleships and planes and submarines and tanks. I memorized cannon sizes and configurations, bomb loadouts, ammo capacities...typical war gear nerd stuff. Was I 'obsessed with violence?' I was certainly obsessed with various killing machines. People get obsessed with crazy stuff all the time, especially the dark stuff...there are whole industries devoted to documenting serial killers and unsolved mysteries. Teasing out who is likely to actually snap is hard. Sure, in hindsight, it's easy to say that Adam Lanza was clearly disturbed, but his mom was trying hard to make sure nobody knew that. How is the state supposed to step in?

Which leaves the final piece...access to deadly weapons. Given the ruling handed down in Heller, it seems very unlikely to me that any legislation which meaningfully restricts access to semi-automatic weapons is going to pass constitutional muster. The Supreme Court can always re-interpret the Second Amendment, but given their history it doesn't seem likely that they will do so particularly soon. And as far as I know, nobody can compel them to do so. We can, of course, alter the Constitution, but we can only do that if we reach broad consensus on the issue across the nation...which I see absolutely no sign of. So we probably can't simply get rid of ALL the guns. We already have various laws that can prevent certain individuals from owning guns, although it's not clear that Adam would have fallen into any of those categories, since, again, his mother was trying to keep him OUT of the system. But at any rate, the guns weren't his - they belonged to Nancy, who was not disqualified in any way from owning firearms. Personally, I believe that giving a person you suspect to have mental problems access to firearms is a terribly lapse of judgment, but I'm at a loss for how the state is supposed to preemptively enforce that.

Do you have any ideas on how to resolve any of these issues? Or would simply not teaching children about guns be enough in your opinion?

[Admiral X]

This is a good point. It's important to teach children from a very early age about proper firearm use and safety so they grow up to be responsible gun users. A sterling example of good parenting in this regard would be Nancy Lanza, who introduced her son Adam to firearms at an early age, and often took him to the shooting range. And we all know what a responsible, well adjusted gun user he turned out to be.

Yeah, it's not like his known mental health issues had anything to do with that - I'm sure it was that he was introduced to firearms at an early age. I mean, it's not like a lot of people all over the country are exposed to them at an early age and actually do grow up to be responsible gun owners or anything.