Parents who buy their children guns at all need to all be evaluated. There is seriously something wrong with giving children something whos intended purpose is delivering lethal force.
I don’t find it weird for hunting, but giving a child unrestricted access to firearms is insane to me given children are not able to assess risk the same way adults do.
A lot of “adults” don’t seem to assess the risks either.
Before he passed away, my kids’ grandfather bought all his grandkids their first 22 rifle. Some of the cousins were still infants but he wanted to buy them something. He was a prolific hunter and marksman. My kids guns all lived in the safe until they were old enough to shoot them, and now they live in the safe when not in use. You can give guns to kids all day long, that’s not the problem and the gun is not the problem.
You can give guns to kids all day long, that’s not the problem and the gun is not the problem.
The problem is not appropriately assessing whether the child in question she be allowed the gun. Are they responsible, are they going to use it for valid purposes. This holds true for, well, everyone always. A lack of reasonable regulation is the actual problem. I am glad you have responsibly managed the distribution and use of firearms for your children. We should do that for everyone.
A lack of reasonable regulation There are hundreds of firearms laws on the books. What new law is both reasonable and would accomplish anything?
Mandatory psych eval and home inspection every 5 years.
Fuck that, no way in hell people would allow authorities to inspect their private property inside their homes as a prerequisite to exercising a constitutional right.
The “Constitutional” right to have weapons on you 24/7 and use them the second you are afeared is brand new. The actual text has a whole other half making clear that it’s for a well regulated militia. I had my room and weapon inspected in the military. So can you if you want that gun. If you have a problem with order and discipline then you don’t get a gun.
Oh, I don’t mean temporary custody under controlled and hopefully educated circumstances, but those who hand it over completely. A kid simply does not need that power nor have the responsibility for full time custody.
Hell, the government wants people 18+ before they’ll hand someone a gun and let them go die for something…
Hell, the government wants people 18+
No, I’m pretty sure that was some ancient Christian pro-lifers who came up with that rule. Government would take people younger if they could.
“… if they could.”
Yea that’s kinda’ EXACTLY the point… they CAN make it that way, but haven’t. The entire point is that modern Republicans are far more despicable than most any kind of politician from history. Yes, that includes slavers.
It takes an entire additional level of evil to step BACK IN TO social problems, and that’s 100% of the modern GOP platform: bring back problems that were already solved.
Smoking and drinking age is 21. Maybe gun ownership age should be bumped up too.
then so should the voting age.
Why is that?
if you can’t make the decision to drink, buy a gun, or whatever else because you’re supposedly not “mature” enough to do, why the fuck should you be trusted with choosing who makes those laws? while you’re at it, raise the age to enroll in the military. if you can go die for your country at 18 you should be able to buy a beer, vote, and buy the gun they’ll hand you at boot.
conversely if you want to lower the voting age, as some democrats suggest, then so should the drinking age, gun purchasing age etc.
there’s simply no logic in being ‘mature’ enough for one and not the other.
It’s not about principle of freedom or maturity. The legal age of drinking is where it is because of young adults drinking and driving. You can have layers of maturity that isn’t give/take all responsibilities. An 18 year old should be allowed to vote because they’re just as responsible as any adult to provide themselves their own food and shelter. Unless you think it should be illegal to kick someone out until they’re 21.
Agree. It should be 98.
They’ll take you at 17 with parent’s permission.
“A lot of “adults” don’t seem to assess the risks either.”
Your frontal lobe on average fully develops at 25 and for some when they’re older.
That is when your brain stops really growing and developing, it’s not some threshold of social or intellectual maturity.
If anything, people become less adaptable, less open-minded, and less cooperative after that. It’s not something we get to lord over young people, it’s a mark against us olds for being less capable of growth.
Decision Making and Reward in Frontal Cortex
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3129331/
Your frontal lobe contains brain areas that manage who you are — especially your personality — and how you behave. Your ability to think, solve problems and build social relationships, sense of ethics and right vs. wrong all rely on parts of your frontal lobe.
Experts know this because of a railroad foreman named Phineas Gage. In 1848, an accidental explosion at a railroad construction site propelled an iron rod through Gage’s head, destroying the left side of his frontal lobe. Before the accident, Gage was a calm, respected leader among his coworkers. Gage survived, but after the accident, his personality changed. He would lose his temper, act disrespectfully and constantly use profanity.
However, Gage’s personality changes weren’t permanent. Four years after his accident, Gage moved to Chile in South America and became a stagecoach driver. Somewhere in late 1858 or early 1859, a doctor who examined Gage said he was physically healthy and showed “no impairment whatever of his mental faculties.”
While Gage mostly recovered from the accident, he died from seizures in San Francisco in 1860. The seizures were very likely the result of damage from the accident. However, his case remains one of the most useful in modern medicine’s understanding of what the frontal lobe does, especially when it comes to your personality.
The Pre-Frontal Cortex
One of the biggest differences researchers have found between adults and adolescents is the pre-frontal cortex. This part of the brain is still developing in teens and doesn’t complete its growth until approximately early to mid 20’s. The prefrontal cortex performs reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control, necessities for being an adult. Without the fully development prefrontal cortex, a teen might make poor decisions and lack the inability to discern whether a situation is safe. Teens tend to experiment with risky behavior and don’t fully recognize the consequences of their choices.
I find it weird they don’t just lend a gun to their child for hunting. Why give them their own personal gun? What’s the point?
Hunting is a cultural thing for many, and you often start with a smaller caliber while you’re young and learning. I guess I would compare it to a parent buying their kid their first baseball/softball glove. Parents often pass down a love for sport, most just don’t involve killing stuff.
There’s literally nothing stopping them from passing down their cultural love for hunting while only lending their children guns.
You’re not wrong, but it’s still why they do it as far as I can tell from having friends that hunt and were taught by their fathers.
Well I grew up with a dad that hunted and took me hunting, I was even an Eagle Scout, but I didn’t actually own a gun until later in my 20s. There’s just no good reason for kids to have their own guns and it needs to stop.
Also, gotta be honest, now that I’m older I think hunting is kinda fucked up in itself. I’m not gonna try to fight that battle tho lol
“Hey son, here’s a firearm, let’s go kill something, systematically eviscerate and skin it, and then consume its flesh while taking joy and pride in each step of the process. Oh, don’t ever do this to humans or dogs.” I dunno, seems pretty weird to me.
You’re loosely describing most of human history.
“Let’s take these plant babies and grind them into a pulp, drown it, let it be eaten by a bunch of tiny monsters until they fart enough gas, and then burn it” also sounds kinda weird. Welcome to the universe; shit’s a little whack.
Anything sounds weird if you abstract it enough.
Yeah Nathan Pyle has made a whole living out of doing this with Strange Planet.
You’re loosely describing most of human history.
To play devils advocate, you’re arguing an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy.
Just because we’ve historically operated in a certain way, it does not mean it is morally permissible behavior.
The appeal to tradition has been used to argue in favor of slavery, racism, and a lot of other horrendous human behavior.
So? It’s patently obvious that millions of people go hunting every year without turning into mass murderers. Pointing out logical fallacies isn’t an argument.
It’s patently obvious that millions of people go hunting every year without turning into mass murderers.
I never said they do.
Pointing out logical fallacies isn’t an argument.
I wasn’t staking any claims in this argument. Just pointing out how yours is invalid.
I did so because it’s constructive criticism to promote better reasoning. But of course you’re too immature to receive constructive criticism, so you defensively deflect it instead.
Edit: oh wait you’re not even the user I was speaking to…
I think it was an appeal to natural order, not tradition.
One time after GPS became pretty well available a court somewhere was called upon to decide whether, now that we have this cheaply available magical system of maritime navigation, is it negligent to crash into the rocks and destroy the vessel because you were still using a sextant and navigating by the stars? I mean, that’s the way we’ve always done it. That’s an appeal to tradition.
What? How is that weirded than “let’s go to mcyd’s and get you some nuggets”
I’m guessing that user would probably find CAFO/factory farm supplied nuggets just as “weird”/bad. If not worse. Certainly more cruelty there vs hunting.
Both are awful. Go vegan!
Not my point. The comment I replied to was highlighting that killing and preparing your own food is perverse, as compared to normal food shopping practices. They made no claim of veganism, so I didn’t go there.
Veganism is great for a lot of folks, but before that, I think meat eaters should be fully aware, accepting and ready to see how meat is prepared. And they should be ready to do it themselves if they are willing to eat meat.
You’re just turning people away from your cause by inserting it where it isn’t relevant.
Turning people away lol, like there’s a gate. Go vegan or die trying.
For me hunting is about connecting with the people who lived on the land for millenia before I came along.
I’m pretty sure they didn’t use firearms millenia[sic] ago. They had dysentery, though, maybe try that instead. That’s more authentic if you really want to connect.
You’re right. Probably won’t try dysentery. There is something intimate and connective in how we choose to procure and prepare food, and in being alone and quiet in remote wilderness, relying on our senses and wit, strength, respect for nature and its fruits. I don’t want to do exactly as the indigenous people did, or even as the colonists did. Going hunting once or twice a year is enough for me. Part of a tradition.
“Intimate” snuff, skinning, eviscerating, and consumption is not making this any less weird.
deleted by creator
Outside of America, buying a gun at all is rather grounds for evaluation. Inside America, it’s still mental but #theConstitution.
For families who participate in hunting and shooting sports, I can see giving the child their own gun, make it their responsibility to clean and maintain it, choose what optics or other accessories they put on it, etc.
I don’t support letting them have unrestricted access to it as a minor though. It should be locked up whenever it’s not in use under adult supervision.
I have a casual interest in guns, don’t currently own any but may someday when my budget allows (it’s pretty low on my priority list.) I do have a lot of friends who own guns though, many of them have had their “own” gun since childhood. All of their parents though were very strict about gun safety, none of them had free access to any guns or ammo until they were adults, and sometimes not even really until they moved out and took their guns with them because even as adults living at home with their parents some of them didn’t have the key/combo to the gun safe, so in a sense they still kind of had to ask for their parents’ permission if they wanted to take their guns out to go hunting or shooting into their 20s.
I know you’re not referring to hunting rifles, but it is very common to give those as gifts to teenagers when they are old enough to get a hunting license. In some places that’s 12 years old.
My parents also made me take a course on gun safety tho…
And they wouldn’t let me use it unless it was with them…
So this lady definitely still deserves her sentence. Also, no kid needs and AR or a pistol.
Some of that stuff you mentioned needs to be mandatory IMO. I’m talking about gun safety lessons for all firearm owners.
It’s the pro-gun community that insists they shouldn’t be.
Ok?
It’s absolutely moronic that we need licenses to drive but not to own and operate firearms.
I just thought it was important to note why this kind of thing doesn’t already exist.
My dad is a gun collector, so I was around them my entire life, but gun safety was also part of my entire life. We understood what they were and what they could do. So if my friends ever said “can we see your dad’s guns?” It was always “no.”
That’s good, and I can relate to your experience growing up respecting firearms, but children should simply not be trusted to have access.
There have been many experiments in which children find a weapon and the parents who claimed their children knew better were horrified to see them handle the staged weapon.
Children simply don’t have the logical portion of the brain developed. Even in teenagers, their amygdala (emotionality, anger, fear response) is nearly fully developed, yet their prefrontal cortext (executive control, rational thinking, emotional regulation, thinking of future consequences) is still severely underdeveloped. [1]
In fact, the prefrontal cortext isn’t fully developed until our mid 20s, and possibly a few years longer for those of us with ADHD. [2] This is why teenagers display heightened risk-taking, are bad at controlling their emotions, restraining themselves, and thinking about the consequences of their actions.
Under supervision is one thing, but unsupervised access to a firearm is a patently bad idea. With that said, I did have access to a firearm (.22) and I acted responsibly as a minor (only used it for target practice). But I absolutely should not have had access to it.
In some places that’s 12 years old.
Whyyy? Hunting is a dangerous sport that is 100% not required that utilizes lethal weaponry. If a parent wants to take their kids hunting, they should be 100% responsible for them including having the license and owning the firearms. 16 seems like the bare minimum to allow children to engage with weaponry, but probably older to own.
There’s a huge difference between giving a child unrestricted access to a firearm, and taking them sport shooting in a controlled environment. I’ve helped with beginner shooting courses for kids in scouts. There is an adult with each kid, one round loaded at a time, etc. You can similarly control the environment hunting by using blinds, etc, where you oversee the use of the firearm, loading of round etc.
I’m not big into shooting, but from a safety perspective there are ways to hunt and sport shoot with kids in a very controlled way.
Keep in mind, a person earlier in this convo said some kids get one gifted when they get a hunting license, which can be as early as 12, so you’re basically attempting to change the entire claim being made… Clearly, in many situations, kids ARE ending up with a firearm under their sole ownership.
Having a .22 under the Christmas tree and having unsupervised access to it are two very different things. I know plenty of people who got rifles for their younger children but keep them in a safe with their own guns until the kids are older.
Yes, and are those parents on trial for manslaughter? You guys are completely forgetting the context in which this is being asked. If they’re retaining control until the kid is older… they’re likely being responsible and would be found totally fine under any serious proposal.
The parents are on trial for manslaughter because they gave their kid a gun like you might give your kid an action figure, with zero restrictions or teaching about respect for life whatsoever. There is a right way to handle kid’s access to guns and many wrong ways.
Being gifted a gun is not being given unrestricted access to that weapon. I was gifted a shotgun at 15 and I never saw it unless my dad was present. It stayed in his safe until we went shooting together. When I moved out and showed him my own safe was ready, I got it from him and that was that.
I gave my kid a BB gun, but it stays in a safe. I also gave my son a pocket knife for camping that stays in my night stand unless we are camping.
You can give something to a kid without letting them have unsupervised access. I gave my kids steam decks, but limit their screen time.
I agree the original comment lacked specificity. You could gift a gun in a responsible or irresponsible way, and I’ve seen both.
Edit: and the comment about gifting a rifle also mentioned that in their personal situation they had to have a parent to use it.
I watched the whole trial. The verdict was definitely just, but her lawyer didn’t do her any favors. At one point, in a moment of frustration, her lawyer exclaimed ‘I’m going to kill myself’, at a trial for a mother of a kid who killed a bunch of kids.
She ‘opened the door’ to a whole bunch of evidence that had previously been ruled inadmissible, including the defendants infidelity and the entire text communications between the defendant and her husband.
She said “I’m sorry” about a thousand times, which I am convinced was an intentional strategy to associate the defense with being sorry.
They weren’t supposed to use the shooters name but she used it three times in her opening statement.
Most of her objections were not valid legal objections, but just argument.
The whole thing was a train wreck, I actually feel bad for her (the attorney not the defendant).
You:
She ‘opened the door’ to a whole bunch of evidence that had previously been ruled inadmissible, including the defendants infidelity and the entire text communications between the defendant and her husband.
Article:
But, during the defense’s questioning, Smith suggested that police intimidated and threatened Meloche into providing his testimony, so prosecutors pushed back and sought to allow the judge to include evidence that the two had an affair. Prosecutors argued that Meloche was not pressured, but that he didn’t want information about their affair to become public.
Smith was the lawyer. Sounds like the lawyer fucked up.
Maybe read the first paragraph
You’re saying the same thing as the OP? “She” being the lawyer.
🤦♂️ might want to work that bud
Shame it didn’t go this way for Rittenhouse.
He’ll get what’s coming to him
edit: jeez guys I was just trying to lighten the mood but yeah you’re all spot on
I mean, has George Zimmerman gotten anything that’s “coming to him?”
Seems like he’s been in a total shit storm of events, but suffered consequences for nothing.
Rittenhouse will have his nose so far up the maga go fund me grift should anything ever happen, he’ll never know anything more than a minor inconvenience.
and what, pray tell, is “coming to him”?
A job at Fox News
As a 2A Advocate / Gun Guy all I can say is GOOD. Parents who do this deserve to held legally responsible.
Does that include all the children who kill themselves with their father’s gun?
Why did you gender that?
In answer to your question I’ll say “It would depend on the circumstances.” A weapon retrieved from a nightstand, or a mothers purse, and used by a small child to kill themselves is a very different situation than a teen who accesses a gun safe without permission.
If a minor gets a gun and does something illegal, including killing themselves, the parents should 100% be charged. There is no scenario where it would be ok for a minor to get access to a gun without supervision and approval by their parents.
Works for me. Now you’ll have to get the pro-gun crowd to accept mandatory safe storage laws.
Mandatory safe storage laws do nothing. you’re assuming that because it’s a law people will follow it. Safe storage laws are tack on penalties that are simply feel good laws for the anti gun crowd.
If a minor gets a gun and does something illegal, including killing themselves, the parents should 100% be charged.
Sounds good on paper but that’s going to a lead to a LOT of parents in prison when their minor child gets involved with gang activity. I understand your sentiment but the idea doesn’t have enough nuance to be practical.
That is a good point, but it should still be on the parents to secure the guns. If you own a gun, it’s on you to also buy whatever you need to keep that gun locked up and safe.
I don’t have kids. No kids ever visit my house. I don’t flaunt my gun ownership, nor do I leave them laying about. Why do I need a safe?
Because it’s a deadly weapon and it’s your responsibility that it is secured (not necessarily a safe). Part of responsible gun ownership.
(not necessarily a safe).
Um. wasn’t that kinda my question? I didn’t say they were not ‘secure’.
Not sure how I feel about that one. 1. I believe suicide/assisted suicide shouldnt be 100% illegal. 2. I would have to say that a kid who slits their wrists or overdoses would have to see the same charges there. Someone wanting to kill themselves always has the means. Run at a cop with a knife, happened earlier today. Step in front of a truck, off a bridge, down all the pills in the medicine cabinet. If I had done any of those when I was a teen, I don’t think my parents should be charged with it. I think due to it having an effect on another person’s life is where it comes in.
Not knowing exactly what your child is going through and how much it is effecting them I would say all parents are guilty of. It is near impossible. Negligence might be a charge in some way, but charging them with manslaughter is a lot
My point is that the guns should be secured in such a way that even if the kid wanted to kill themselves, the gun is not an option. It’s locked away.
Waiting for conservatives to tell us the 2A protects a child’s right to own a gun. Come on, they’ve earned it guise!
This is good news and it’ll be better news when I see a father getting nailed for giving his sons guns
James Crumbley’s trial is set for March
e; added a link
Oh! I stand corrected and grateful to hear it, thank you. No /s, I’m glad you updated me
Certainly!
Cute that they tried to flee before trial. Shit parents AND insufferable cowards to boot!
Justice done, but ultimately this doesn’t solve anything.
She can get fukt
Thumbnail looks like Mitch McConnell has reconsidered his stance on drag.
There’s things they chose to be that are far worse than “unattractive”.
This was the case where the parents decided to be tried separately right? I wonder if we’ll see both end up in the same sentence.
There’s a good chance the father takes a plea deal. The general consensus was the mother was the harder trial. There was some poor performance by her lawyers, but I doubt it counters the father being the one that purchased the gun.
Gun manufacturers should take note, they are one step away from fault now.
Gun manufacturers can afford lawyers and congressmen…some poor slob with a day job can’t do that.
Good. Piece of shit should have never had kids.
