Ashcons
Member
what good timing...
From personal experience, my dad taught me to shoot at 12 years old and bought me a 20-ga and a .270 that year. I ended up not enjoying hunting or shooting much and had no interest in the guns that our family owned. It took about 16 additional years for me to start enjoying.
On the other hand, I LOVED shooting our old Sheridan pump air rifle and used it the same way I would use a "real," gun, because it was. My friends and I loved playing with toy guns. That air gun was never used on another human and we may or may not have learned not to use our toy guns on non-participants after shooting our younger siblings; my memory is not completely clear on how we came about that bit of knowledge.
My wife's mom is anti-gun ("Nothing good comes from guns") and hates the idea of little boys pretending to shoot each other with guns. My wife has and I see eye-to-eye on firearm ownership. She knows that guns are just tools and toys are just toys. We just had our first baby (son) this October.
Our boy will have toy guns and start to learn gun safety at an early age, with the exception that he can play and shoot willing participants with his toys. When he is ready, he will learn about "real" firearms and the morality behind their ownership. I firmly believe from my own experience that education trumps prohibition.
From personal experience, my dad taught me to shoot at 12 years old and bought me a 20-ga and a .270 that year. I ended up not enjoying hunting or shooting much and had no interest in the guns that our family owned. It took about 16 additional years for me to start enjoying.
On the other hand, I LOVED shooting our old Sheridan pump air rifle and used it the same way I would use a "real," gun, because it was. My friends and I loved playing with toy guns. That air gun was never used on another human and we may or may not have learned not to use our toy guns on non-participants after shooting our younger siblings; my memory is not completely clear on how we came about that bit of knowledge.
My wife's mom is anti-gun ("Nothing good comes from guns") and hates the idea of little boys pretending to shoot each other with guns. My wife has and I see eye-to-eye on firearm ownership. She knows that guns are just tools and toys are just toys. We just had our first baby (son) this October.
Our boy will have toy guns and start to learn gun safety at an early age, with the exception that he can play and shoot willing participants with his toys. When he is ready, he will learn about "real" firearms and the morality behind their ownership. I firmly believe from my own experience that education trumps prohibition.