It makes me wonder where this kid's parents are to teach him about safety. I did crazy stuff too when I was a kid (most ending with something exploding ), and I learned from my mistakes...but kids like this are going to blow a finger off (or worse kill someone), and worse yet, they post it on the internet! There's a trend it seems of young people on the internet who attempt to make these dangerous guns. Not only is it unsafe, but I believe it might fall under the ATF category of "all other firearms", making it illegal, as well.
Why those kids could even poke an eye out if they're not careful. They could do themselves a mischief for sure.
Of course I don't know where that kid's parents are but it probably doesn't matter anyway because it's unlikely that they could teach him about gun safety, or anything else, or that they even know how to do it.
They sure could teach him about locking stuff away from him, though, and other forms of debilitating mistrust. Many parents today are good at that and those parents are at both ends of the spectrum.
The anti-gun parents are best at it. They know nothing about firearms, don't want to know anything, shriek in horror at a picture of one, expel kids who draw those pictures, and want to be Mayor Michael Bloomberg when they become filthy rich. About all those anti-gun parents and their Bloombergian icons can do is teach kids that they're too stupid to learn much of anything and they need to be very, very afraid of the world because they're not competent to handle it. Stay home. Let mom and dad take care of you. There be wild beasts and wild men out there, ready to devour you. Watch
American Idol. Be
American Idle. Somebody will watch over you. You deserve it. You need it, because you sure as hell ain't gonna survive otherwise.
But many of the so-called pro-gun parents are their match. Today's pro-gun parents who can't teach their kids much about gun safety look and sound very much like their anti-gun counterparts. But instead of banning guns from their house and their world, they exile them to the safes and the trigger locks. Funny thing here: the Supreme Court just explained in its majority
Heller decision that a handgun with a trigger lock is useless for its intended purpose, but I bet Justice Alito thought he was addressing an anti-gun argument. He wasn't. The sophisticated pro-gun parents think exactly the same, as the flames that that this post will attract should demonstrate, and as far as I can tell there's no real difference between them. They're not prudent people. They're scared people, which is not the same thing at all.
Kids can't be taught by lectures or by "telling" them. They can be scared by lecturing, they can be put off by them, they can be disgusted or bored or have any number of reactions to the lecture but they don't learn
anything the lecture
intends to teach. Try lecturing a young kid about how to tie his shoes, then see if he can do it. Speak loudly if you'd like and feel free to threaten him with doom if he doesn't. See how well he can tie his shoes after you're finished.
Kids learn from observing, imitating, and experimenting accompanied by explanations. Teach them guns are for adults only, by locking them away from the kids, and the kids will prove that they are much smarter than their parents. The kids
know they'll be adults some day so they will embark on a self-directed learning program without their parents' guidance. It's the same way about sex, alcohol, finances, work, and every other aspect of the world that an adult confronts. Parents either start real teaching very early or they abdicate their role as their kids' teachers altogether. It happens fast and decisively. A parent who isn't trusted is mistrusted forever. If you think diamonds are forever, mistrust is much more durable and harder too. Mistrusted parents are the felons of each generation: never forgotten, never forgiven, and never entitled to a vote in their kids' lives.
Teaching requires mutual trust between teacher and pupil. The kid needs to trust that his parent really does love him and wants to help him grow well, strong, sturdy, and successfully. The parent needs to trust that his kid will respond honestly and directly, with no sneaking. What's required is mutual trust and affection, with the conviction that both share a special bond.
You don't get trust by locking things away from the people whose trust you want. As an "older gentlemen" with much experience I can describe what's needed, but I surely can't accomplish the remediation of an entire generation that wouldn't recognize good parenting if it bit them in the ass.
By the way, any fool can tell good parenting from bad by looking at the product. If the kid can't be trusted, it's because somebody didn't help him learn how to be trustworthy. If the kid shoots, stabs, poisons, strangles, or sets afire his cat, dog, sister, grandmother, friend, or homeless person, it's because somebody didn't help him learn not to be a sociopath. The somebody who should have done it sure ain't me. The somebody who didn't do it sure ain't me either.
So the YouTube kids are doing just what kids will do when they're exploring the world without a guide. They're flying solo, as kids will do when they've been abandoned and want to survive. The BATFE? It can't be expected to substitute for good parents. Good parents would have helped shape a different kind of BATFE years ago anyway. Again: look at the product to assess the people who helped make it.
In case it matters, I prefer the term "person from an earlier time" to "older gentleman." I'm always
older but not always a
gentleman, so that term is inaccurate. I distinguish between words like "man" and "gentleman," and "woman" and "lady," because I am indeed a person from an earlier, tougher, and much more discriminating time. We were raised to become at least self-sufficient, responsible adults. That's the way some of us raised our kids too. It's not done by hiding stuff.
), and I learned from my mistakes...but kids like this are going to blow a finger off (or worse kill someone), and worse yet, they post it on the internet! There's a trend it seems of young people on the internet who attempt to make these dangerous guns. Not only is it unsafe, but I believe it might fall under the ATF category of "all other firearms", making it illegal, as well.
