BB guns debated at the San Fran Chronicle

[ericire12]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=54265

It's a scene right out of Humorist Jean Shepherd's A Christmas Story, only this story takes place in Palm Beach, Florida, so the cast of charters is a little different.

A boy gets a pellet gun for Christmas, and tries out his new toy by shooting his autistic cousin in the buttocks, according to the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches news site. The boy's stepfather, Christopher Fred Cady, a registered sex offender, decides he needs to teach his stepson a lesson, so he grabs the gun and shoots the boy in the chest. Pow!

The boy ends up at grandma's house with a huge welt, and Cady ends up in jail with a child abuse charge, and he's being held without bail for failing to report a change in address or his name as a sex offender.

"Maybe Cady would have been better served to force the boy to watch the 24-hour marathon of A Christmas Story to show him what happens when you get a BB gun for Christmas. Everybody knows you'll shoot your eye out - or get popped in the chest," writes Todd Wright in NBC Miami's Weird News column.

This story brings up a good question: Should young kids -- say, under age 16 -- have BB guns?

Nonpowder guns (BB, pellet, and paintball guns and air rifles) cause roughly 21,000 injuries annually, with about 4 percent resulting in hospitalization, according to a 2004 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends kids under 16 not use high-velocity BB guns or pellet guns. Between 1990 and 2000, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 39 nonpowder gun-related deaths, of which 32 were children younger than 15 years.

Of course, BB gun enthusiasts are loaded with information to counter these statistics. "When we talk about 21,000 kids were injured, we have to stand back and say, what did that injury mean? Was it a finger cut or did it go into his brain?" California air-gun collector Robert Beeman told the Washington Post after the AAP report was released. Beeman said the pediatrics statistics even count as a "BB accident" when someone sticks a BB in his ear. "What I'm saying is, for every several billion BBs produced, there is only one injury recorded," he said. "BB guns and air guns are probably among the safest recreational objects around."

And then there's the nostalgia factor. Many people have fond memories of playing with their BB guns as kids. My father tells stories about running through the woods with a BB gun in hand.

"In the '40s, '50s, even '60s, they were a rite of passage, held in the same esteem as a good pocketknife," writes Don Oldenburg in the Washington Post story.

"In my town, everybody had a BB gun and everybody shot everybody," noted environmental activist Paul Watson, who grew up four decades ago in the small Canadian coastal town of St. Andrews in New Brunswick, told the Post. "We used to play 'Cowboys and Indians' with real BB guns and bows and arrows."

Today, BB gun retailers appeal to nostalgia. In the Cabela's catalog, the description for the Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun reads: "the gun that got most of us started on a lifetime of shooting."

Oldenburg wisely points out, "America's Norman Rockwell-like nostalgia for the seemingly benign BB gun may be off target." The little boy who was shot by his stepfather on Christmas day would probably agree.

What do you think? Can playing with BB guns help kids learn important lessons? Or are nonpowder guns too dangerous for little hands? Did you have a BB gun as a kid?

"The Mommy Files" indeed..... Her statistics disprove her own point. 840 total kids in the entire nation needed hospitalization.... come on.... step back from the emotion and lets be realistic, that is a pretty minuscule number -- and its a 5 year old study.

*10 pages of comments to read at the link
*my favorites:

Dogs cause more injuries to children.

SO... bb guns are your "gateway gun" to larger and more powerful weapons?

[tt11758]

I had a BB gun as a kid growing up in the 60's.  Along with every other kid I knew.  I got it for Christmas when I was 8, and was instructed/threatened as to what would happen if I misused it.  My dad used it as a teaching tool to prepare me for the day when I'd be introduced to actual firearms.  I never played cowboys and indians with the BB gun, but I did shoot the hell out of the paper targets that Dad tacked to the back fence....the ones that, in my imagination, were rabbits, squirrels, lions, tigers, bears, deer, bad guys, etc.

By the way, nobody ever lost an eye, or even got shot in the ass, for that matter.  That wasn't safe use of the tool at hand, and such irresponsible actions would have disappointed my Dad, something which always bothered me a LOT more than the spanking that would have accompanied it.

[tombogan03884]

 But tt, that type of learning breeds responsible adults, not mindless sheep, which is the objective of the nanny staters.

[tt11758]

But tt, that type of learning breeds responsible adults, not mindless sheep, which is the objective of the nanny staters.

Yeah, well, as Vice President that is gonna be one of my pet causes..............PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

[TAB]

just for the record, there are air rifles that are just as powerful as guns that use powder.

The real prob with BB guns, its not the guns, its the parents giving them to kids that should not have them.


you have to understand, its the bay area, they ban farting if some one could show it cuased global warming.

[Sponsor]

[Badgersmilk]

Don't BB gun injuries fall under.  "Let's remove all the warning labels in the world and let things just sort themselves out."?

[tombogan03884]

Don't BB gun injuries fall under.  "Let's remove all the warning labels in the world and let things just sort themselves out."?

No, they fall into the category of the Parents are to stupid or self absorbed to teach the kids not to shoot each other with them.

[MikeBjerum]

This is one of those things I want to laugh of as rediculous.  However, it is just another 360th of a turn of the knob, and the frog ordered another Mai Tai 

[twyacht]

I didn't get one at 8, but at 12. A Crosman 760 pump. I wish I still had it. Damn accurate with those .177 pellets.

We used to have "1 pump" BB gun "wars" in my childhood. Kids with Red Ryder's were allowed. Imagine 6-10 kids, dressed like a Minnesota winter in South Florida.

Only rule was NO HEAD SHOTS!!!..

Somehow I survived unscathed.... We didn't wear helmets on our bikes either. Ate unwashed oranges right off the tree, drank from the garden hose, shared sodas.etc,....etc,...

Geez,....who is "wussifying" our kids today??

[fightingquaker13]

I didn't get one at 8, but at 12. A Crosman 760 pump. I wish I still had it. Damn accurate with those .177 pellets.

We used to have "1 pump" BB gun "wars" in my childhood. Kids with Red Ryder's were allowed. Imagine 6-10 kids, dressed like a Minnesota winter in South Florida.

Only rule was NO HEAD SHOTS!!!..

Somehow I survived unscathed.... We didn't wear helmets on our bikes either. Ate unwashed oranges right off the tree, drank from the garden hose, shared sodas.etc,....etc,...

Geez,....who is "wussifying" our kids today??

We didn't use BB guns because my dad would have kicked my ass. He was very strict with the "never point a gun" thing and I'm grateful for it. Instead we used modeling clay with wrist rockets (there being no rocks here in Fl.) and bottle rockets, just safe childhood fun. I wish to god that paintball guns had been around then. I'll still go play occasionally. It makes me feel like I'm 12 again, I don't care how silly I look. That's kind of the point. I would reccomend it to all board members. Hell we could organize a DRTV get toghther at a campground with a shooting range and PB field nearby. Beer and barbeque at night, mayhem by day. You could have the Tom TAB death match and I'll take on Eric and Path.
FQ13