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Iowa bill would allow kids to handle handguns under parental supervision

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How I imagine the conversation:
"Hey, let's give these people without fully developed brains a tool that can quickly and easily end a life."
"I see no problems with that."
 
Send in Seagal..he'll handle them.

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Never had a problem with kids and hunting rifles, but hand guns are designed to kill people. This is all kinds of fucked.
 
Why should a kid below 14 years old ever use a gun anyway? Are you Americans preparing for war or something? Beliefs like those have led you were you are now, multilple homicides and accidents involving guns. Most people in Europe have never fired a gun in their life and are fine, will never understand you.

For sport? Shooting at the range? Hunting? State laws vary but after you pass a hunter safety course you can use a hunting firearm (like a shotgun or rifle) to hunt.
 
Why should a kid below 14 years old ever use a gun anyway? Are you Americans preparing for war or something? Beliefs like those have led you were you are now, multilple homicides and accidents involving guns. Most people in Europe have never fired a gun in their life and are fine, will never understand you.

I had an air rifle and a .22 rifle when I was a kid. I used them for shooting cans, bottles, pine cones and the occasional action figure.

Anyway, I don't like handguns. They're shit with no real redeeming value.
 
It may come as shocking news, but one of the best ways to teach a kid about safe gun handling and the inherent danger of guns is to teach them how to shoot. Even in my incredibly liberal Southern Oregon town, a lot of my friends grew up learning how to shoot, and those people were always very vigilant about safe gun handling in my experience. But let me tell you a little story. When I was much younger, my dad gave me a small single-shot .410 shotgun that I would use when we would go bird hunting. One day I had it in my room for some reason or another (it was probably being cleaned), and a friend of mine came over whose parents owned guns but never really taught him anything about them. A combination of curiosity, lack of gun safety knowledge, and overall dumbassery compelled him to pick up the shotgun, cock the hammer, point it right at my face, and pull the trigger. Obviously it was unloaded because I'm still here, but that's the kind of dumbass shit kids (or even adults) do when they're not taught proper gun safety and suddenly find themselves around guns.

Yea. But I also think one can teach children gun safety in the context of a "typical" child's interaction with guns (stop, don't touch, get an adult) without letting them shoot.

I won't be letting my kid touch my guns unless she indicates supreme responsibility and actually has a desire to go to the range. Other than that they'll be locked away.
 
For sport? Shooting at the range? Hunting? State laws vary but after you pass a hunter safety course you can use a hunting firearm (like a shotgun or rifle) to hunt.

This is under 14 years old, though...nobody that's under 14 needs to be handling a gun. A teenager is fine, go out hunting with dad (I did) but some 7th grader? Let's not. Seriously.

Hell, at least put it on par with getting a driver's permit.
 

Compared to the millions of instances of parents properly supervising minors in shooting? But yea those don't make the news.

http://youtu.be/3f8VmJRuBFY

I'm just saying its up to the parents. My kid won't but I'm not so arrogant to think I'm gonna tell someone else what to do in this regard. I know, I know we make laws telling people what they can't do all the time but this ain't one of em.
 
It is. It's important for children to learn gun safety, and to not fetishize them.

It's like how alcohol laws have led to binge drinking in the US.. Making it illegal glamorizes it, taking an every day part of adult life and makes it forbidden and magical to children, causing them to abuse it.

No, what's important is for children to get a well rounded education. Everything you've stated there is already contradicted by the experience of many countries in the developed world where guns are greatly restricted and controlled, and without the mass slaughter that is now becoming typical in the US. This sort of stupid shit is why the rest of the world routinely mocks America. Anyone putting a gun into a child's hands deserves all the consequences that inevitably follow.
 
For sport? Shooting at the range? Hunting? State laws vary but after you pass a hunter safety course you can use a hunting firearm (like a shotgun or rifle) to hunt.

He can hunt with those guns when he is an adult. Does a kid really has to use a shotgun or a rifle before the age of 14?
 
No, what's important is for children to get a well rounded education. Everything you've stated there is already contradicted by the experience of many countries in the developed world where guns are greatly restricted and controlled, and without the mass slaughter that is now becoming typical in the US. This sort of stupid shit is why the rest of the world routinely mocks America. Anyone putting a gun into a child's hands deserves all the consequences that inevitably follow.

You do realize that the majority (overwhelmingly so) of kids that shoot at ranges and such do so correctly and without incident. Can't acknowledge the outliers and not acknowledge the norm.

Kids have been doing it for decades on decades with no major issues.
 
With parental supervision? Eh. If the same law applies to rifles and shotguns, I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I'm anti-gun ownership in general, but this doesn't seem that far out of left field.
 
With parental supervision? Eh. If the same law applies to rifles and shotguns, I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I'm anti-gun ownership in general, but this doesn't seem that far out of left field.

Im inclined to agree. Odds are this bill isn't going to make new shooters out of kids but allow parents that were already legally supervising their kids when they shoot to use handguns instead of just 20ga and 22lr
 
Compared to the millions of instances of parents properly supervising minors in shooting? But yea those don't make the news.

http://youtu.be/3f8VmJRuBFY

I'm just saying its up to the parents. My kid won't but I'm not so arrogant to think I'm gonna tell someone else what to do in this regard. I know, I know we make laws telling people what they can't do all the time but this ain't one of em.

So laws restricting an 18 year old's right to booze is OK but not their right to arm themselves? Jesus.......

gun%20ownership%20countries.jpg


http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america

Read this.
 
Adults dont even understand how dangerous guns are, do you understand how stupid kids are? Kids arent going to fully grasp the concept of it.
Now give them a something which sole purpose is to kill.
 
With parental supervision? Eh. If the same law applies to rifles and shotguns, I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I'm anti-gun ownership in general, but this doesn't seem that far out of left field.

Don't we want more gun control, and not less? Instead of giving children handguns, they should have made a bill to take away the rifles and shotguns.

Not to bitch at you. I come in peace :P
 
Yea. But I also think one can teach children gun safety in the context of a "typical" child's interaction with guns (stop, don't touch, get an adult) without letting them shoot.

I won't be letting my kid touch my guns unless she indicates supreme responsibility and actually has a desire to go to the range. Other than that they'll be locked away.

In an ideal world, kids would always follow that rule. But IMO it's unrealistic to expect that. Likewise, kids often experiment with weed or alcohol at a young age regardless of what you tell them. The difference is playing around with guns without truly understanding how dangerous they are can be much more deadly. When I was young I found that I had a much better understanding of WHY unsupervised use of guns was off limits after actually using one for myself. Someone telling you a gun is dangerous doesn't instill the same sort of respect for their inherent danger than actually using one for yourself. I'm not gonna tell you how to parent, though. :) Sounds like you're great about keeping guns locked away, and that's very important (and sadly something a lot of people don't do, resulting in tragedy).


Great, a young, annoying, AWPing camper.
 
In an ideal world, kids would always follow that rule. But IMO it's unrealistic to expect that. Likewise, kids often experiment with weed or alcohol at a young age regardless of what you tell them. The difference is playing around with guns without truly understanding how dangerous they are can be much more deadly. When I was young I found that I had a much better understanding of WHY unsupervised use of guns was off limits after actually using one for myself. Someone telling you a gun is dangerous doesn't instill the same sort of respect for their inherent danger than actually using one for yourself. I'm not gonna tell you how to parent, though. :) Sounds like you're great about keeping guns locked away, and that's very important (and sadly something a lot of people don't do, resulting in tragedy).

My dad showed me the dead deer he killed and explained that's what guns do. Got the message, lol.
 
Don't we want more gun control, and not less? Instead of giving children handguns, they should have made a bill to take away the rifles and shotguns.

Not to bitch at you. I come in peace :P
I'm totally with you, but this is about what I expect from the wonderful state of Iowa. It's not like there's going to be kids running around the streets with firearms. At least, not any more than usual.

I don't see an age limit written in the 2nd amendment.
Arm the infants

Baptise the babies in bullets

Freedom
 
You have no idea how batshit insane your country looks from the outside.

No kid should ever have to be close to a gun, end of discussion.
 
I shot all kinds of guns as a kid in upstate NY and rural MO due to having extended family that were hunters. Never seemed weird.
 
A child of 12 can get a junior handgun permit here in Australia (my state anyway). I'm assuming there are similar setups in other countries.

However, there doesn't seem to be a lower limit to this Iowa bill? Is a Glock a suitable 1st birthday present?
 
A ton of gun owners already let kids 14 and under handle their guns without supervision, as evidenced by all the kids that shoot themselves or their sibling/parent/friend. Might as well pass this law.
 
I shot all kinds of guns as a kid in upstate NY and rural MO due to having extended family that were hunters. Never seemed weird.

It wasn't weird because you weren't raised by people expressing uniformed faux outrage on the internet.

The thing no one seems to realize about America and it's "gun" culture is that for every crazy mass shooter or tragic accident, there are millions of responsible, recreational gun owners who aren't crazy, and who get drowned out by the rhetoric of the right-wing super vocal nut jobs. It's really sad.
 
I get allowing kids to use rifles. Allowing it for hunting and lessons makes sense to me. Allowing handguns does not make sense. The gun industry is very kid friendly. They've pushed to reach out to younger kids for years. This bill is nothing more than that.
 
It wasn't weird because you weren't raised by people expressing uniformed faux outrage on the internet.

The thing no one seems to realize about America and it's "gun" culture is that for every crazy mass shooter or tragic accident, there are thousands of responsible, recreational gun owners who aren't crazy, and who get drowned out by the rhetoric of the right-wing super vocal nut jobs. It's really sad.

Fixed that for you. Ratio is no smaller than 1 in 13000. Kinda off from 1:1000000+ that you proclaim.

The 1:13000 ratio is also assuming that every defensive incident and officer involved shooting resulted in a death. Source is a website which records American gun incidents from over a thousand sources, daily. Using the year 2015 numbers. I'm using 100 million as the number of gunowners in the US.

If you want to talk about responsible gun owners acting responsibly, for every gun-related incident significant enough to make news or draw attention from the authorities, the ratio falls down to 1:2100. There were at least 47,000 such incidents last year not involving police shootings or defensive incidents. 47,000 grossly underestimates minor gunshot injuries that do not draw the attention of authorities. If that website had access to Emergency Room data, the numbers would look much worse. Again, kinda off millions.

Gun violence is more frequent than you think. About 77 times more frequent?

Edit: 2,600 people in America have already been shot this year, not including police-involved or defensive shootings. And that's an improvement, compared to the past two years.
 
Context and clarification is required. Does this allow minors to operate a firearm with adult supervision at let's say a range under parental supervision or does it allow a minor to carry handguns as the headline implicitly states?

No text in the article indicates they'd be allowed to carry. But possess under adult supervision. Which was already the case for long guns in the state.



Yea that bill says nothing about carrying. Sounds more like "hey if you want to let your kid operate a handgun when you go out target shooting or whatever you can."

Never had a problem with kids and hunting rifles, but hand guns are designed to kill people. This is all kinds of fucked.

People in this thread, jeez...! Why would anyone want to stop a kid from being able to shoot at a range with his or her parents. That's the best way to learn firearms safety and proper handling.

I've been to tons of pistol matches with kids shooting, and they were amazing. We should be happy to have kids these days doing something with their parents outdoors.
 
There seems to be a discrepancy between the title and the content. The Iowa law apparently allows children under 14 to "handle" rifles and long guns with parental supervision, so for things like target shooting or some such, and this law will extend that to handguns as well.

It's not saying kids are going to start carrying guns everywhere...
A gun toting kid patrolling his parents property is bad enough actually. Suppose it's an acreage or a massive expanse of land.
 
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