Originally Posted by
mr_smiles
Thankfully he's alright.
I must have been the smartest kid ever to live. I even had a set of those cap guns that had the real looking bullets you took apart and put the paper cap on the bottom of the casing and seated the bullet on top.
But I knew from day one a toy was a toy and a gun was a gun. I even knew a bb gun could hurt (asshole brother) at my grandfathers house ammo was kept in the box right next to the gun in the open on the rack. I never felt the need to screw around with the guns ( on occasions I would count how many .22's where left in the case. I liked to count shit as a kid)
I will say I didn't learn finger outside of the trigger until I became an adult, but instead we simply didn't have the gun loaded until ready to fire, and it wasn't don't point at what you're not willing to destroy. But don't point at anything I wasn't willing to kill.
+1
I had both toy guns and real guns.
I even had one of those Replica Models 1911s that was the same, size, weight and fields stripped just like the real thing. And at 10 years old, even though I had .45 ammo that would have fit in the magazine I knew damn well real bullets didn't belong in a replica gun.
I knew the plugged chamber with the rod sticking out would cause "problems" if one attempted to chamber live ammo. This is why the dummy bullets looked like hollow points. I also knew that if I did successfully fire a live round in the replica gun the thing would explode as it was made of cheap metal.
I knew the old junker Mauser (Turkish I think) that my grandfather demilled (plugged barrel, welded up chamber, firing pin removed and ground bolt face) was no longer a real firearm and was at that point a welded up steel pipe in a piece of wood. I knew the handful of Mauser rounds I wore on a bandoleer (fired brass, dented primer, no powder and a bullet pressed into the case) were not live rounds but dummy rounds. I knew the welds prevented me from chambering them and the ground down bolt face wouldn't extract them so I never bothered taking them off the bandoleer.
These were dummy guns with dummy ammo. They made "playing army" a little more exciting than plastic guns did. I may have learned some trigger ability but nothing more. It was about fun.
The real guns and ammo I had was just that. It never occurred to me to "play with them" as that would be stupid and dangerous. Not to mention I took care of my real firearms and "in the dirt" was no place for them.
By contrast, one of my Dads friends had a kid that was such a dumbass he sat on the driveway and struck live .22 rounds with a hammer. To him it was like fireworks and he seemed oblivious to the fact that after the noise that round "went someplace." At least until he put a round into his own thigh. He lived and the parents solution was "No guns period" as far as the kids were concerned. The Dad had to keep his guns locked up like Ft. Knox and get Congressional approval from his wife to go hunting with one.
Bottom line if all your kids know are "toy guns" they won't know shit about the real ones. This lack of knowledge can make their first encounter with a real firearm extremely dangerous.
By the same token, not having toy guns won't make a kid who is irresponsible any safer with a firearm. The kid either knows and respects the difference or he does not. I've seen kids who never had gun and those who did. I've seen kids who had toys guns and those who didn't. And there are those from all of the above that I wouldn't trust as an adult with a firearm and plenty from each group that I would.
The hard part is figuring out which kind of kid you have, even if it isn't the kind you are hoping for, and proceeding accordingly.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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