How do you tell a 10-year-old little girl who got a Ruger 10/22 with a pink stock for her birthday that her rifle is an assault weapon and she has to turn it over to government or be arrested for felony possession?
18 comments
a 10-year-old little girl […] be arrested for felony possession? I tried to look up the English word for “Strafmündigkeit” to ask if that is even possible in the USA (in Gernany, it is not possible, as below 14, you are not strafmündig )…indeed, this IS possible and a lot of US states do not even have a concept of a minimum age for criminal responsibility at all, and it is possible for INFANTS to be tried as adults. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, AMERICA?!?!?!?!?!?
You don’t give a child an assault weapon in the first place, you crazy-ass person! Who do you want her to assault? Her parents? Her little brother? Her classmates? The Orange Clown?
I just turned 50, and I have barely seen any weapons in real life. When we went on a school-trip to iron-curtain-time Hungary, there were armed border-guards entering the bus we were travelling on. That’s all I can think of right now.
How do you explain to her what happens to a human body, if you hit it with bullets from assault weapons?
How do you explain this to the NRA?
Certainly their opponents ?
One of the latter who is pro -gun control being Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Just this 'Thought Experiment' alone will be ammo enough for those like him, o OP.
@Bastethotep I am going to guess it’s something like ‘culpable’ or ‘accountable’. The notion that a being (A child, an animal, a person with neurological disabilities) doesn’t have the ability to make decisions like a mentally healthy adult human would, and therefore they aren’t held to the same standards of responsibility under the law.
Well, it depends on the state - the US is not all California and/or Florida, and the Clinton-era bans expired fifteen years ago (and a new one’s apparently been stuck in the Senate since it got introduced).
More importantly, however, you don’t give an actual firearm to a ten-year-old . Under the right circumstances, I’d like to believe there are kids that age that are responsible and intelligent enough to be trusted to own a firearm without shooting themselves or someone else - raised in a family that’s big on hunting, for instance - but that would require responsible and intelligent parents who have been able to properly teach them the rules of gun safety. Responsibility and intelligence seem to be in even shorter supply than they normally are lately, so just don’t do it, period.
“Sorry, kiddo, no idea how in the bloody fuck this got here but it’s going back to the store. Now, if you liked the concept, we can go shooting together next month and I can buy you a hunting rifle when you’re 15, deal?”
Tah-Dah!
Yeah, I’m a leftie gun nut and I still wonder how hard it is for these idiots a to communicate simple things. I’d love for my 10 year old, gender irrelevant to have interest in shooting and firearms but there’s a proper and responsible way to encourage the good side of the passion, instead of just dumping military style assault weaponry on them.
The idea of a child shooting a gun might not be as appalling as it at first appears. In gun owning cultures like parts of the U.S.A, it is generally considered desirable to start the kids shooting very early - in single figure years. The idea is to instil firearm safety instincts that the shooter will then automatically follow throughout their lives, and find psychologically hard to forget or to break.
In the case of American kids who ‘own’ rifles like the Ruger 10-22, I would think that the majority of them only get to ‘have’ the rifle under parental supervision. In other words, they only hold or clean or shoot the gun when the parent is there. Otherwise the parent has it locked away in his or her gun cupboard/safe. Sort of like what @Skide suggested, actually.
Well that’s what it should be, anyway! No doubt some assholes have thought it perfectly OK for their kids to have the gun under his or her bed.
(Indcidentally, .22LR is not considered powerful enough for human-sized animals, or even for bunnies that are more than 100 yards away. This might contribute to the reason why more U.S. civilians are killed by it than any other round - people underestimate it.)
Uh, guys, it’s not mentioned here, but Marion Hammer is a spokeswoman for the NRA. Hence her stupid, stupid comments. Because the NRA would very much like parents to start buying their 10-year-olds guns; more money for them!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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