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  1. #1
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    Kids and Shotguns

    My 11 year old grandson had to do a 1rst week of school project called "25 things you didn't know about me." It was supposed to be a poster and illustrated. So he mentioned things like his trip to the State Little League Tournament (he is an unbelievable catcher. He's a pretty good pitcher, too with a mean fastball and a good cutter and change up) and going to Canada and catching a trophy Northern. And he put on it a picture of him shooting skeet at the gun range with his grandfather. And the teacher made him remove the picture of him shooting a shotgun. Too controversial.

    So I saw this posted on another website. It just illustrates how "dangerous" allowing kids to play with shotguns can be. Might make them do crazy things like run their retrievers at the national level!

    https://www.facebook.com/46734982662...2759130423343/

    You go girl!!!

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  3. #2
    Senior Dog IRISHWISTLER's Avatar
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    T'is the dumbing down of America and a cultural shift of the "educational" system in promotion of a single view of a subject that meets a specific agenda. Pathetic. Our constitutional rights are being trampled on with increasing frequency by the very institutions that should be protecting them.

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  5. #3
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    Mike I could not have said it better myself. The masses having weapons is not part of the socialist/liberal agenda, all guns must be evil.

  6. #4
    Senior Dog POPTOP's Avatar
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    Such a shame. Gosh, there are shooting competitions in the Olympics. One does not have to be going out shooting at anything/everything. The key is being taught cautions and responsibility. I grew up learning how to properly shoot a pistol and rifle and loved the sport of skeet shooting, not that I was that good.
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  7. #5
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    I ordered him a Team USA Shooting T-shirt that he could wear to school. No pictures of guns on it. But it brings up the fact that guns are, indeed part of the Olympics. (Not to mention part of the Biathelon in the winter games.)

  8. #6
    Senior Dog Abulafia's Avatar
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    I'm going to be the unpopular one here, but I am with the teacher here in re having him remove that photo (and as a parent, I would *never* allow such on anything my kid produced).

    This is not about anybody trampling anybody's rights (these rights do not pertain to school children, folks), or about anybody coming and taking anybody's guns (which is an ad campaign promoted by the gun industry). This is about keeping guns out of the hands of inexperienced adults and pretty much most children.

    Really, I see this as an issue entirely disconnected w/ any child learning how to shoot responsibly. I'd like my son to (though I learned later), but my SFPD friend said he wouldn't take him to a range until he was 16 at the youngest. I'm absolutely fine w/ kids learning how to shoot responsibly and competitively. I think that's great. I don't want kids who don't have that kind of training and supervision see a photo of a classmate and decide to go do something asinine.

    My son is 12. Last year, when he was 11, a kid in his school threatened to bring a gun to school and kill people (the child was permanently removed from school). Kids shooting is one thing. Advertising such at school, I don't think we need.
    Hidden Content Hokule'a ("Hoku") / b. 06.08.15

  9. #7
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    I appreciate your feelings and fears vis. kids and guns.

    I thought about this as a lost opportunity for the teacher and a student (or students). Guns are everywhere. Kids see them depicted everywhere and in media, often used to facilitate the drama of a story... i.e., to get revenge or settle scores or whatever. They're glamorized. The people using them are POWERFUL!!! And, of course, the deaths dealt out on the screen (movies, video games, whatever) are surreal. Death without loss, sorrow-free... too bad, so sad... next scene. Wouldn't it be more constructive for kids to hear about how guns are used in real life, in safe hands? Couldn't it be reiterated to the class that my g-son was on a range... with his grandfather and a range officer? Even the briefest discussion in a classroom could be constructive. (Q: What do you do if you see a weapon? A: You step away from it and immediately tell an adult. Q: What if the gun is unloaded? A: Guns are ALWAYS considered loaded.) Treating guns as a reality in a real world (because they are) can possibly prevent accidental shootings. (Or, to coin a phrase... "if it saves even one life...")

    I was just thinking about kids and guns and what I've seen in my nursing career... one of the most tragic patients I cared for not too many years ago... was a young guy who was rendered quadraplegic. He and his buddy were drinking, saw two guns (I have no idea where, how... but they did) and decided to play quick draw with each other. Ah, dear God. Just like they'd seen in the movies. Maybe... possibly... who knows... if guns had been de-romanticized, if they'd been told how/when/where guns could be safely used... I just think if we don't discuss guns with young people, we cede the field to the movies and video games.

    The irony in all of this is that just down the hill from my grandson's school is the High School where they award Varsity letters for the Rifle team. My grand-daughter, his sister, took her first buck at age 13 and felt that the varsity rifle team was too easy... she wanted to work for her varsity letters. Do you kinda see how these policies by the school district have students and parents scratching their heads? In one school they are treated like the object-we-must-not-look-upon, in another school... "Hooray! You're the best shot in the district!"

    Guns are everywhere. Kids see them everywhere. It seems counterproductive to go around expunging photographs and thinking that we alter that reality. This was a real (but squandered) opportunity to de-mystify guns and teach responsibility.
    Last edited by TuMicks; 08-18-2016 at 08:38 PM.

  10. #8
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    As a retired teacher and school administrator I went back and read the assignment 35 things you didn't know about me. I don't imagine that this was a stand alone assignment and that each student got to talk about their presentation and explain their choices. At least that is what I would have done. The teacher missed that teachable moment. Here was the opportunity to teach about the safe, and responsible handling and ownership of guns under the supervision of an adult. I am Canadian and we have some of the strictest gun laws going. If you have read some of my other posts you will know that one of my biggest complaint about handlers at hunt tests is they don't know the first thing about gun safety because they have become used to waving a wooden replica around. Kids need to know that there is a safe and responsible way to handle fire arms and that there are places that fire arms are acceptable and places where they are never acceptable.

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  12. #9
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    Sorry that was 25

  13. #10
    Senior Dog Abulafia's Avatar
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    So, where I live, guns aren't everywhere, and kids don't see them everywhere. I am certain that my son has never seen a gun. I know that some of our friends probably own them, but my son has never seen one. He's 12.

    My son doesn't watch TV. He doesn't play FPS video games. He has seen guns in movies. Guns are not everywhere, guys.

    Finally, it is not a teacher's job to teach gun safety: not ever, and not especially in the context of 6th grade students talking about "what you didn't know about me." The teacher might have been pro-gun, or anti-gun, and may have had training in gun safety, or may not have. It is not his or her job to turn an all-class assignment into an ad hoc "let me tell you about gun safety." This was one of 25 "things about me"—why in the world should it become the focus of the kid with a lesson in gun safety? That is indefensible pedagogy. It doesn't hold up.

    All kids should be taught gun safety. At home. Or, if appropriate, by LS officials at a school. Please, folks, don't put this one on the teachers. We are already being told, with straight faces, that we should be armed in our classrooms (Hint: NO. I am not there to save your kids).

    How about just keep guns out of all schools? Educate. Keep them out.
    Hidden Content Hokule'a ("Hoku") / b. 06.08.15

 



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