since kids aren’t usually allowed to train with guns… were they all training with their parents before? or is it not that hard, so can any person with no expirience technically just pick up a gun and start shooting people?
(asking not 4 myself obvs, just out of curiosity)
It’s not exactly hard to operate a firearm. They are designed to be used by the lowest common denominator of person - total morons.
Or alternatively (historically), expendable peasants that you don’t want to finance painstaking archery training on.
I shot my first guns in kindergarten. My uncle’s handgun and my grandpa’s shotgun. Lived on the farm, it was just normal. But it was just in the farm, supervised of course. The moment my cousin and I were old enough we were in a firearms safety course so we could go hunting. Hell we used to help make ammo (just reloading shells).
Guns are really simple to use. Reloading for most guns people will ever encounter outside the military is simple. You got the safety switch and the trigger and it’s really point and click at that point. I tell you the hardest part is learning how to hold it correctly. We’ve all seen videos of people holding a gun wrong and shenanigans ensues when they lose control of it. https://imgur.com/gallery/shotgun-fail-odC6s
The most successful gun designs are those that could be put in the hands of teenagers to turn them into killing machines
my friends and i played with guns as kids in a completely unsafe manner with no experience or instruction. chamber a round and pull the trigger. they’re designed to be simple
Shooting is like driving a car. A baby could do it. Few can do it safely.
Using a gun is really easy. And I suspect school showers aren’t particularly concerned about safety, so that’s not an issue for them
It takes real, practiced skill and/or quality equipment to hit a bullseye at long range, or to kill an armed opponent at short range quickly and cleanly enough to not give them the chance to shoot you back. It takes no skill to hit an undefended, person-sized object at <10 meters, the distances involved in most indoor locations.
They just aren’t that hard to use.
As Thelma says, “can’t be that hard, idiots use them all of the time”.
The point of guns was to make warfare easier
I learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp when I was about 13. We shot .22 long rifle and 20 gauge shotguns. Many of my friends hunted (never appealed to me) and learned even earlier.
The hardest parts of gun use are aiming at long range and proper maintenance. Neither of those are a concern for someone planning to shoot at close range and not live another day.
since kids aren’t usually allowed to train with guns
What?
I went to a rural school, and everyone had a “hunters education” class in like 7th grade. We never touched a gun but we could legally go hunting with a gun after.
A shit ton of kids hunt, and most ranges are fine with kids if an adult is with them too.
Like, it varies state to state, but in lots of areas it’s weird for someone to graduate highschool before shooting a gun.
But besides all that, guns aren’t difficult.
so can any person with no expirience technically just pick up a gun and start shooting people?
So yeah, pretty much.
I went to a rural school, and everyone had a “hunters education” class in like 7th grade. We never touched a gun but we could legally go hunting with a gun after.
That’s crazy. I had no idea anyone had a class like that. We’re basically training kids to be school shooters… at school?
You can’t expect parents to do everything.
No, I don’t expect parents who are ignorant about guns to teach their kids safety. We shouldn’t have to, but that’s where we’re at.
Hunter’s ed is basically the opposite of what you stated. It’s not part of the state curriculum. It’s similar to drivers ed courses for people to be able to get a learners permit before they turn 18. Similarly below a certain ages, most states require completion of a hunter’s education course to be able to purchase a hunting license and legally hunt.
The courses go over topics like property rights, how to carry a weapon making sure it’s not pointing at anyone, what high vis clothing is required, always knowing what is behind an animal before even aiming, rules about how a weapon must be unloaded when in a vehicle, and they strongly urge keeping an interference lock in the action of any firearm in storage.
Hunter’s ed doesn’t teach kids how to shoot, they teach kids how to not be idiots when hunting.
The person I replied to specifically said it was part of the 7th grade curriculum. Classes like that existing is not surprising, but it being part of middle school curriculum is very surprising to me.
A large amount of Americans that grew up with firearms in the home learned to shoot at the ages of 5 to 7. The reason those ages are mentioned is because that’s the time that an average human is able to hold a pistol unattended and play with it if they don’t understand the danger. I never wanted to play with guns because I knew what they were and how they worked my entire life. Most of that training will simply be that if you find a firearm unattended, you are supposed to find an adult to attend that firearm. Explaining the dangers of firearms and that anything pointed at by a firearm will be destroyed. Explaining only goes so far. Seeing on the other hand, the power and destruction that can be wrought leaves a much more lasting impression. The main purpose of all of this is because children educated purely through media have many false ideas about firearms and weapons and damage that they can cause.
Media glorifies guns and gun use and violence. In media people get shot all the time and take no real damage for it. It is important to impress upon children that have easy access to firearms that they are tools and weapons and not toys.
Tldr Children are taught about guns for the same reason kids are taught sex education.
Sounds like an elective class. My ex-wife’s niece was in an after-school shotgun club. I gather it was more target practice than hunting.
I’m of the opinion that familiarity with actually shooting is more of a deterrent to the school shooter mentality than fetishizing guns. I’m basing that mostly on the idea that these school shooters can’t seem to handle a weapon, given that kills are the goal.
As they said, you really dont need to know much to operate a semi automatic weapon. Everything you need to know is public knowledge that can be found on wikipedia, youtube, etc.
You dont need to be a very good shot if you shoot at 5m distance…
I learned how to shoot a shotgun when I was 13 at school. We were in the shooting club. It was just shotguns and skeet shooting, but still.
Even without much education, I was a geek in a rural location, one time a friend’s dad put a cigarette (half 3/4 done or so) on a fence cause we were having a competition and we hit them all. Mean the cigarette was only say 15 - 20 feet away but I I split it in half with a BB gun (yes no kick of course), probably luck but I was hitting the targets too and the dad figured no one would hit that one. It wasn’t a long range but I figure someone with access to a rifle should shoot fine enough if they practice even a bit if I can without access. I only shot a gun maybe a dozen times in total.
It’s not like using a gun is hard. Training is more about maintenance and safety as well as accuracy. You don’t need to be accurate if you’re iust firing indiscriminately into a crowd at close range and you also probably don’t give a fuck about safety or maintenance.
I am from Croatia, we have 1 rifle at home (hunting) and as a child I remember we will sometimes put plastic bottle and aim for bottle, so I guess similar is in USA? In rural places specifically. Of course it was all done with multiple of adults nearby. But I was always bad at it, and I am still scared to go near guns (intrusive thoughts)
