And now it's time for my response to all of you who have thoughtfully bothered to post to my original status. Let me back up a bit.
My grandson is 11 and quite sharp. He also has trouble with impulse control and considering the consequences of his actions, which is quite normal for his age and gender. That particular day, he was bored waiting for his parents to come home and so was entertaining himself by shooting his sister with his Nerf gun. She was getting annoyed but was largely ignoring him by not responding. The Nerf "bullets" are soft enough but swift. If hit in the right spot, they can hurt. To be a fair fight, both people need to understand that they are in it...like paintball or a neighborhood Nerf War in which all of the participants are "armed and dangerous". When only one person is participating, it is one-sided and unfair. I finally stepped in and told him not to shoot the gun in the house anymore. A few seconds later, another Nerf missile came through the dining room where his sister and I were sitting. I admonished him again, saying "I just told you not to shoot that in the house again." He said, "Oh...I thought you said not to shoot it at anybody." (I didn't buy that, by the way.)
We'd already had the conversations about the teacher at school who had a glass eye because his brother had flipped a rubber band at him when they were kids and hit him in the eye (any object in the wrong hands can be a weapon); about the time that my mother was very nearly killed by her brother when they were kids because Uncle Bud had jokingly picked up Grandpa's shotgun, aimed it at her, and pulled the trigger (not understanding that the guns on the farm were always loaded; he missed her head by inches); and about the boy who was recently shot and killed by a police officer because the boy was waving a toy gun around, but the policeman thought it was real (even toy guns can be mistaken for real). We even discussed the fact that guns are weapons of destruction...that killing things is the only reason for their existence. Toy guns are "just for fun" but they should be treated with respect. (Pointing a toy in someone's face is not a wise thing to do.) Blah, blah... But back to my story.
Mere minutes after telling me he had "misunderstood" my ban on shooting the gun in the house, Ryan shot the gun again...in my direction. I don't think he meant to pull the trigger, and I'm not even positive that he knew it was loaded, but a Nerf "bullet" came whizzing at me, unseen because my attention was turned elsewhere, hit my glasses on the right lens, and deflected away from my face. I was instantly stunned and angry. I had just told him--not once but twice, only five minutes before--not to shoot the gun in the house. He, of course, looked stricken, near tears, and started in on "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" When I saw how mortified he was, I calmed down and told him I was shaken up but not physically hurt, but that that sort of behavior was exactly how terrible accidents occur, and that if I hadn't been wearing my glasses, my eye would most certainly have been injured. Obviously, he lost the use of his Nerf gun for the remainder of my visit there.
When I first posted the story on Facebook (which I probably should not have done), I realized that I could be opening a proverbial can of worms. I have many FB friends who have taken their love of guns to the extreme, one of whom proposes that ALL children should be indoctrinated in gun safety which would, he professes, solve the problem of children accidentally shooting themselves and others. I have long maintained that it won't. There is a maturity factor and a curiosity factor that pre-empt any education about guns. Some of the gun hobbyists also think that all one needs in order to share their enthusiasm for the sport is to shoot a few. I HAVE shot a few, and so has my grandson, but I still don't feel the passion for it. Not even for self-defense. I don't own a gun and never will. But that's another post.
Aaron and Travis: Your posts helped me to see that I was over-reacting to the deal with my grandson. His Nerf gun IS, after all, a toy not generally designed to hurt people (unless, of course, they get hit in the eye). I think I was more opposed to his aiming the gun for my head, even if he thought it wasn't loaded. It was the behavior and not the gun that concerned me. (I can only compare it to the time that one of my high school students snuffed a crumbled Sweet Tart into his nose with a rolled up dollar bill--like cocaine--in a moment of stupidity carefully screened from my view by his buddies who had bet him to do it. Never mind that his face was red and his nose out of whack the rest of the day! I had to consult with the nurse to see if he could have harmed himself first, then I felt that I needed to call his mother because it was such a druggie behavior. It wasn't so much what he snuffed that bothered me, but that he seemed unconcerned about what he was doing to himself in order to gain the $5 his buddies offered him.)
Cal: Dear, dear Cal. I expected (and got) the response from you that I figured I would. You and I have had this conversation before. You started out well. I liked the notion that some education about guns is better than none. But then, as you often do, you went off the deep end. Suggesting that someone chamber a round to teach a lesson--as in Russian Roulette--is not only irresponsible--it's insane. Then you turn your comments into a political rant about "public centers for liberal indoctrination"--schools. Do you have your head up Rush Limbaugh's butt?? You should know better! I was a teacher in public schools for 40 years. Your experience with education starts and stops with when you were a student back in the 60s. You don't get it. Part of the problem with American Public Education right now is that our society (starting with OUR Baby Boomer generation, thankyouverymuch) has put more and more responsibility on the schools. It isn't the schools' job to teach about guns. (And, btw, driver's ed is no longer offered as part of school curricula. It's complicated.) Indiana public schools are already seriously underfunded--but that's another subject. Taking time out of the school day to teach gun safety requires a qualified instructor and--believe it or not--parent approval. Many parents are as passionate about guns, pro and con, as they are about religion and anything else that usurps their power as a family unit. I would not want to be in a district in which a single kid got hurt as a result of gun training, however well intended...like the poor child who killed her instructor at a gun range because she was given an automatic weapon to shoot that she couldn't control. It wasn't her fault, but she will have to live with that for the rest of her life.
Also, you need not compare regular kids with the youngsters that you see that the National Muzzle Loading Rifle shoots that you go to. Those children have been raised in a gun culture, with Daddy or Grandpa...or maybe even Mommy...teaching and training them from the beginning about the sport of shooting. These aren't street kids. And then there is the mother who was murdered by her son, who went on to murder 30 children and teachers in Newtown, CT.... She had guns in the house and was part of the gun culture, too. Her son had every safety lesson on the books. (Oh...I forgot. That never happened. It was all a conspiracy by the government.)
I'll stick by my guns here (pun intended). I still maintain my original point: that no amount of education about guns, toy or otherwise, is going to change accidental death or injury. If people are stupid enough to trust that their talking and illustrations will deter a tragic outcome, they are nuts. I could go on and on, but I think I've gone on long enough.
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