Discussion for article #227098
Guns are dangerous! And homemade ranges are likely to be dangerous, too, because they won’t be carefully designed to avoid or at least minimize dangers like ricochets, bullets missing the backstop and hitting people maybe a mile away and other hazards.
By the way, the (stock) photo used is not a bolt-action rifle. It’s also not a .22. It’s a lever-action, probably a Marlin .308 of .35 cal. Very different from what the kid was firing.
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Another one of those “fun times at the gun range” the NRA brags about. And to the parents: This time you were lucky. Remember that stupid is as stupid does.
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First time commenter, because I feel the need to speak up in defense of the family involved. I see this as an unfortunate accident during a situation where the parents did everything right. Seven is an appropriate age to introduce a child to target shooting under supervision, and a single shot .22 is the correct rifle to teach with. This is a scenario where you have the opportunity to teach someone how to correctly and safely handle a rifle, where the dangers are, and what your limitations of control are.
I also don’t see a problem with them shooting on a home range. If someone has the available property to set up a range with a safe backstop then it’s their right to do so.
That the boy was hit by a ricochet is an unfortunate accident. In his favor though, a .22 would have lost so much velocity that I’d be surprised if it did more than puncture the skin.
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Seriously, you spent time writing this up? A kid was hurt in an accident. I know TPM has an anti-gun agenda but there have to be better stories around.
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Really, this “accident follows” a continuous string of shootings of kids by each other and under supposedly controlled circumstances. Don’t make it sound like an outlier pair of two!
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Sorry, but this has nothing to do with the 9-yr old’s terrible accident.
The conflation of 1) the normal use of a standard kid’s gun (I started with that myself, and am not a gun-lover) that happens to bring a rare random accident and 2) an abnormal use by a kid of a standard military gun that brings predictable idiocy only weakens the position of a reasonable gun-control movement.
I hear you. But if I had a 7-year-old son, he would NOT be shooting a gun of any kind. I guarantee it.
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You must be blind for all you see. No seven year old child should be allowed to hold a gun let alone shoot one. I grew up inside a hunting lodge, guns have been my family business for five generations. What has not been in my family for five generations is stupid. Stupid is building a shooting range yourself. Stupid is putting a gun in a grade school childs hands. On my family’s hunting lodge we send safety “scouts” with every ADULT hunting party because guns are dangerous even in trained hands. What you and your ilk say is a huge steaming mountain of bull.
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has the property to*…“set up a range with a safe backstop then it’s their right to do so.”*
So what about the rights of the neighbors to be protected from all the “what ifs”?
And who gets to decide that the so-called range was properly set up? Is that guranteed under the 2nd or will you take the 5th?
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Ricochets happen all the time at gun ranges. The only unusual thing about this one is the bullet came back with enough force to penetrate the boy’s chest. The design of the range might be part of the problem, but it is also likely that the bullet was an eco friendly bullet. Traditional lead bullets expends there energy splattering on the target. More eco friendly designs have a tendency to retain a lot of energy when they bounce back.
Give me a break. Hyperventilate a lot?
Guns are dangerous, but in this case the kid was under the supervision of his father. He acted responsibly at all times. This was a ricochet accident. Apparently the bullet bounced off the backstop retaining enough energy to hurt the child.
The CDC needs to drop its Ebola efforts and start work on a vaccine for Gun Infection …
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Seven is appropriate? Really?
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I think the notion that people were doing things “right” is exactly the problem here. Yes, a single-shot .22 is probably a good way to introduce a kid to firing rifles if you’re not going to spring for a .177 or .22 pellet rifle. And still, at a homemade range the odds of injuring your kid or an adult are kinda high (speaking as someone who almost lost an eye to a BB). Which means people should really think a lot more before doing it.And possibly regulate it. (And no, the constitutional thing really doesn’t come in when you’re talking about 7-year-olds shooting) If it were anything but a gun, people would have no problems with regulating it – imagine someone introducing their kid to skydiving with a homemade rig, or to driving on the highway, or arc welding.
(I also have my suspicions about this story, because creating a safe backstop for a 22 bullet just isn’t that hard, and 180-degree ricochets are darn unlikely, and everything is according to deputies who took statements from the participants after the fact.)
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“Ricochets happen all the time at gun ranges.” That does not make ricochet’s acceptable. It really says that gun ranges are all insufficiently safe for users, bystanders and those not on the range who might be injured or even killed by ricochets or shots that miss the backstop entirely.
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Tell Wayne I said hi.
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No responsible human would put a gun in a child’s hand, that is stupid. No responsible person builds their own shooting range, that is stupid. The right wing political correctness seems ensconced in nonsensical claptrap. I live in a world of guns both on the lodge and when I ( as all of my brothers, father, uncles, grandfathers and ancestors since the 1620’s ) served in the military. Guns are not toys and having one does not make you a man. Stupid does not run in my family.
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What is that supposed to mean?
I would rather a father work with a seven year old child than give the kid a bb or pellet gun and tell him to go have fun. That is what I call irresponsible. There is a big difference between people who live in big cities and those who live in the country.