Taking kid to gun range

[Gerle]

OK PixelSquish, you've made your point. Guns can kill.

But not by themselves.

 

[DrPizza]

Taking a gun to kid ranges seems to be frowned upon so I guess this is a better option.

I think a lot of people are in favor of involving youth in sport shooting. I know that locally, more kids are on the trap team than any other sport except football.

If you think a gun was invented to put holes into paper you are a fool. They have hole punchers for that. Yes target practice is a use for guns. However it is not it's primary rule of existence. And target practice is a way to hone skills with a gun, to make it's primary role of existence more reliable - and that is to put holes in living things to cause them serious damage.

I am also more afraid of getting hit on the road by an idiot driver than getting shot by a gun. Still doesn't change what the primary role of a car is vs a gun.

You seem ignorant that a lot of firearms are specifically designed for target shooting, e.g., long guns designed for trap, skeet, and sporting clays. And the target loads (ammunition) in those guns is equally designed for that purpose.

edit: to put it another way, I hunt deer. I would have to be an absolute moron to use the same gun I would use for trap shooting, to hunt for deer.

 

[Gerle]

DrPizza, no, they have hole punchers for that.

 

[BurnItDwn]

9 is plenty old, take em to an outdoor range, have them start with a 22 rifle or something like that. Never too early to teach them some safety and responsibility IMO.

 

[SketchMaster]

OP, I would say you should wait a few months while you become very familiar and competent with guns and safety before you start to introduce your son to them. It's not that he isn't ready, it's that you need to be ready for the responsibility of helping your son learn how to handle a gun with respect. An instructor can teach your kid in a one day/week class how to handle a firearm, but you're the one that will need to help remind him daily of the lessons he was taught.

My father was a competition shooter with his own reloading station well before I was born, and had a Type 1 licence (meaning he could buy/sell basic firearms) that let him keep a healthy stock in his gun safe by the time I was two. Every time I saw a gun, even if it was just watching my dad clean it, my father would remind me what it was. Not a toy, and something you should have a healthy fear of. Not a fear of it's presence, but a fear of what it can do if it's not respected. He would also take the opportunity to drill into my head the four rules of gun safety.

My father took me the the range many times to shoot other guns, but this is timeline of what I was allowed to have access to at home while growing up:

Dad would let me shoot a BB gun in the back yard under his supervision when I was six. When I was ~8, I could take the BB gun out only if I asked first. When I was ~10 I could keep the BB gun in my room and use it as I wished. When I was 13 I was old enough to use the RSW .22 air rifle, but only with his permission; a .22 pellet flying at 900+ FPS is enough to do real damage at a short distance. When I was 14-15 the RSW became mine, and I kept it next to my BB guns if I needed to chase off some varmint in the garden. By the time I was 16, all of my fathers guns were available to me.

Every step of the way my father would remind me the responsibility I had holding those guns. If I messed up he would punish me accordingly, I had my gun privileges revoked on more than one occasion while growing up.

Once you feel comfortable teaching your son safe gun handling, then feel free to bring him along to the range.

 

[amddude]

9 seems plenty old enough to me. I've seen younger kids do it.

Just make them memorize the 4 rules of firearm safety before you let them go.

Also I'm not sure a full auto uzi is on par with a 10/22 or something.

 

[keird]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5QrVmWU-I&app=desktop

Teaching kids how to shoot is an American tradition.

 

[pontifex]

9 is fine. my niece and nephew are 8 and 10 and have been shooting for a few years. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as your teach them safety, how to use the firearm, use an appropriate firearm (.22 LR), and supervise them.

the problems with kids and guns comes from not understanding them and thinking they are toys. if people taught their kids abut them instead of making them out to be evil things then we'd have a lot less problems (hell, this applies to adults too).

 

[pontifex]

Scary with all of the mass shooting parents want to teach their kids to gun down people.

who is teaching them for gun down people? this is the 2nd person that said this..

 

[zinfamous]

Bullshit. A gun is designed to fire a bullet. That's it. It shoots a bullet. Where that bullet goes is entirely dependent on the user.

don't be silly, you silly person. What is the purpose of firing that bullet? Why the fuck ever develop the need to fire a bullet in teh first place?

Ah yes! warfare!

Guns are weapons that exist only as effective killing tools. You obviously know that, so why pretend that you don't? Man up and admit it. No shame in it.

There really is no reason to so vigorously defend the 2nd amendment if your bullet-firing weapons could not effectively kill; er, I mean "defend yourself." I see that you guys are victims of semantic word play; one that has been going on for some decades now. Where what we now use for "defend," obviously refers to war, to potential death. Recall that the "Department of Defense" was previously known as The "Department of War." But that was considered icky. PC assholes, no? Probably the same PC assholes that want you to think of your effective killing weapons as a "fires-a-deadly-projectile-if-someone-happens-to-get-in-front-of-that-not-my-problem!" tool

I'll wait while you consult your NRA handbook on the next course of semantic wizardry that you are instructed to take.

Hey, like I said: I like my weapons. You should like yours, too.

 

[Perknose]

I've taught mine to gun down paper targets... some of those paper targets had zombies on them.

My son has shot my Glock 9mm (one round and he put it down-said it kicked too much). He has also shot my .44 Magnum lever action rifle many times which he loves. He loves the Ruger 10/22 and .22 Mark IV pistol.

I have plenty of concerns with people owning guns, primarily military styled weapons with large capacity magazines. I also have concerns with arming the entire population like conservatives seem to think is the answer to all our problems. There are a lot of stupid people and stupid people are prone to making stupid mistakes and decisions based on emotion and that is a bad thing when you introduce guns into the mix. It is just a recipe for disaster. Look no further than that shithead in Florida who gunned down an unarmed teen for playing loud music or the two CCW holders in Michigan who got into a road rage incident and killed each other in a parking lot.

Anyway, I've owned guns for 25 years. I keep them locked up inside my house and I have no desire to carry a gun anywhere. I'd rather rely on my intellect than something that can so easily take a life. My guns are for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of people I go to the range a few times a year with. That's it. Nobody has ever broken into my house and I've never had to use a gun in self defense... hope I never do.

My .02

Well put all around, good sir! :wub:

 

[HumblePie]

I think a lot of people are in favor of involving youth in sport shooting. I know that locally, more kids are on the trap team than any other sport except football.


You seem ignorant that a lot of firearms are specifically designed for target shooting, e.g., long guns designed for trap, skeet, and sporting clays. And the target loads (ammunition) in those guns is equally designed for that purpose.

edit: to put it another way, I hunt deer. I would have to be an absolute moron to use the same gun I would use for trap shooting, to hunt for deer.

Some people don't know and nothing you say will change that fact.

FACT guns are made for sending a projectile across a distance through use of a trigger mechanism.

Sames a bows, crossbows, and even catapults.


The purpose of why those projectiles are hurled can be for many reasons. Most reasons that guns are used for hurling projectiles is for target shooting, although many are used for killing living organisms as well. They do excel at that which frightens some people.

 

[HumblePie]

I've taught mine to gun down paper targets... some of those paper targets had zombies on them.

My son has shot my Glock 9mm (one round and he put it down-said it kicked too much). He has also shot my .44 Magnum lever action rifle many times which he loves. He loves the Ruger 10/22 and .22 Mark IV pistol.

I have plenty of concerns with people owning guns, primarily military styled weapons with large capacity magazines. I also have concerns with arming the entire population like conservatives seem to think is the answer to all our problems. There are a lot of stupid people and stupid people are prone to making stupid mistakes and decisions based on emotion and that is a bad thing when you introduce guns into the mix. It is just a recipe for disaster. Look no further than that shithead in Florida who gunned down an unarmed teen for playing loud music or the two CCW holders in Michigan who got into a road rage incident and killed each other in a parking lot.

Anyway, I've owned guns for 25 years. I keep them locked up inside my house and I have no desire to carry a gun anywhere. I'd rather rely on my intellect than something that can so easily take a life. My guns are for my enjoyment and the enjoyment of people I go to the range a few times a year with. That's it. Nobody has ever broken into my house and I've never had to use a gun in self defense... hope I never do.

My .02

Just for a little bit of a fact check.

Michael Dunn was not convicted for shooting Jordan Davis over loud music. Not at all. He was convicted because he was an idiot in the heat of the moment and continued to shoot at a fleeing vehicle which contained 3 other occupants who never made a threatening move at him at all.

But yes, there are idiots and idiots with guns will always be a problem. Still with the invention of guns, that genie is not going back into the bottle. The better course is to teach people not the be idiots and definitely teach people early in childhood about guns, gun ownership, and gun respect. Otherwise they end up as idiots.

 

[Gerle]

don't be silly, you silly person. What is the purpose of firing that bullet? Why the fuck [rude] ever develop the need to fire a bullet in teh first place?

Ah yes! warfare!

~

Recall that the "Department of Defense" was previously known as The "Department of War."

Well, there's hunting too, or just sport shooting.

While we are thinking about the past, let's not forget about the other ancestor of the DoD, the Navy Department.

 

[MrSquished]

Well, there's hunting too, or just sport shooting.

While we are thinking about the past, let's not forget about the other ancestor of the DoD, the Navy Department.

hunting is indeed utilizing the guns primary purpose, to kill shit.

sports shooting is a secondary purpose of a gun.

it's not rocket science.

 

[MrSquished]

OK PixelSquish, you've made your point. Guns can kill.

But not by themselves.

nope not by themselves. and my point is not that guns CAN kill. it's that it is there primary designed purpose. it's a significant difference. forks can kill, yet it is not their designed primary purpose.

 

[Gerle]

Then I still don't know what you are trying to tell me.

I know what guns can do, but more importantly I know what people are capable of doing. Guns don't bother me at all, some people on the other hand...

 

[olds]

 

[MongGrel]

Pathetic, stupid, and you should turn in your man card (or woman card) for the pansy ass pussy card that Obama lovers carry.

Seriously, someone always has to do it.

Thread had not a damned thing to do with Obama.

If your mind operates in that manner, there should maybe be some screening for that. Sounds a bit radical to me.

()

 

[Pipeline 1010]

don't be silly, you silly person. What is the purpose of firing that bullet?

I don't know, ask the person firing the bullet. That's who decides. Not the gun or bullet.

Why the fuck ever develop the need to fire a bullet in teh first place?

I can think of several reasons, and I'll list them in order of how often they happen:
1) Target practice (recreation): the incredibly, insanely most-gigantic percentage of bullets ever fired. By far. BY FAR.
2) Hunting
3) Killing people: the incredibly, insanely lowest percentage of bullets ever fired.

And I hate this word "need" in this context. It implies that we may only ever own things or do things that we need. This has never, in any society, even the most tyrannical, evil dictatorships in history ever been the threshold of whether or not you may get to own something. Can we agree to stop asking questions like "why do you need that" in the context of whether or not you may own that?

Ah yes! warfare!

Last place in all possible reasons for firing a bullet. Let's examine the hammer. Most usage of hammer is to hit a nail. Somewhere down near the bottom of the list of hammer usage is to kill people. Rah, hammers are for warfare!!! That is literally your logic. And it's stupid.

Guns are weapons that exist only as effective killing tools.

Then they are pretty fucking shitty at doing their job since only .003% of them actually do that in a given year. What kind of a tool fails to do its job at nearly a 5 9s rate (99.999%)? How can you say that's its only job when out of 300,000,000 tools, almost none of them are used for that and almost all of them are used for other purposes? How can you argue that the least used purpose of an item is its ONLY purpose???

 

[Pipeline 1010]

Anyhow, back to the main topic. Sorry, I am easily sidetracked.

My dad taught me how to shoot at roughly age 9. He first took what felt like a really long time to teach me about gun safety and about how to use the gun we were going to use. It was a bolt action 22 rifle that had a capacity of only 1 bullet. He took me through practice runs...open the bolt, pretend to load the bullet, close the bolt, aim, fire. Once I had that down he let me start shooting. He was right behind me to guide my actions. Over the years we progressed to higher caliber and then lastly to pistols.

My point is come up with a plan to teach him safety, then practice with him. He'll do great!

 

[Pipeline 1010]

nope not by themselves. and my point is not that guns CAN kill. it's that it is there primary designed purpose. it's a significant difference. forks can kill, yet it is not their designed primary purpose.

If a gun's primary designed purpose is to kill, then why are almost no guns ever used to do this? In fact the purpose that guns are LEAST used for is to kill people. You are arguing that the primary designed purpose of an item is in fact the least used action of said item. Stop doing that.

 

[Paladin3]

Anyone who blames the gun and not the person who misuses it violates a basic belief of mine: PEOPLE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

A weapon can do no harm without a hand to misuse it. Sometimes they are accidentally misused, which can be remedied with knowledge and training. Sometimes they are INTENTIONALLY misused by either an evil or mentally unstable individual. If we take better care of our mentally unstable that will go a long way towards solving that problem, but I'm not sure how we handle evil people using guns for evil acts short of good people with guns fighting back.

Cultural change will help quite a bit. Teach the next generation to be more responsible, caring, loving and empathetic towards others. Teach them that they have a responsibility to play nice with others. No amount of gun prohibition will ever disarm America, except maybe those who already choose to obey the laws, and they aren't really the problem.

As for the OP's question: I learned to shoot when I was ten and got a Ithaca Model 49 single shot .22 rifle. I started hunting rabbit and shortly there after was given a single shot 20 gauge shotgun for quail. I took a hunters safety class and only used the guns with adult supervision. I haven't hunted since my 20s, more than 25 years ago, but just bought a shotgun to start hunting duck and goose again. Deer season just ended, so the local shops have rifles on clearance. I've got my eye on a Savage AXIS .308 bolt-action that I might pick up for next years white tail deer season.

If the OP is interested in shooting sports then I would suggest a class or to and maybe joining a local gun club to continue your education. I would suggest you NOT apply for a CCW permit unless you get significant training in firearms self defense. Someone new to firearms does NOT need to be carrying one around concealed as it is a huge responsibility.

Once you have enough experience with firearms safety and use, then you can decide if your son is mature enough to go with you to the range. He needs a junior firearms safety class at minimum. You as a newbie are not qualified to teach him, IMHO, until you have more experience.

Weapons should be locked away from kids and anyone else in the home who in untrained or not mature enough to be trusted with one. In my childhood home my father would, stupidly maybe, lean a loaded gun in a corner of the room and he expected cobwebs on it when he returned. Not all children, or even some adults, have that kind of maturity and discipline so keep yours secured.

Good luck with what is a very enjoyable sport. Also, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing how to use a weapon for self-defense if the poop hits the fan. I hope that never happens. Remember, gun owners have a responsibility to play well with others, because they do have the ability to take life if given absolutely, positively no other choice.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[NesuD]

Yes, too young. That's my opinion. Some will agree, some will disagree.

I'd be more concerned about him accidentally shooting himself more than Lead poisoning potential.

Your wrong. The earlier you can start teaching safe gun handling the better. The scariest things i've ever seen related to firearms always involved an adult who little or no familiarity with firearms. Establishing safe habits is far easier when your not having to break bad ones first. Being he is a child the best course is to enroll him in a youth program. They stress range etiquette and safe handling over all other areas. There is generally more supervision in the youth programs as well.