Sato Ord
Member
My wife knew I owned and intended to keep firearms when she met me. She was never an anti, but she was a confirmed pacifist. I took her shooting and she learned to do a halfway decent job with my Taurus model 85.
Later, when she was pregnant the subject of guns came up. (Did you know that pediatricians actually ask if there are guns in the house these days?)
Anyway, she said she didn't want our child running around with toy guns and playing violent games. She wasn't so much worried about him becoming violent, as she was about other people's perception of him being violent.
I know, I know, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it wasn't worth arguing at that point. I knew then and I know now, boys will be boys.
Well, the boy is extremely intelligent and was hyper-verbal right from the start. His command of language was incredible at 18 months old. However, he had never even heard the word "GUN". It simply wasn't part of his vocabulary.
One day he was in the yard playing. I was cooking on the grill, and my wife was watching him while setting the table. She turned her back on him for just a second and when she turned back around he had picked up a fallen stick that looked amazingly like a rifle stock. He had the thing to his shoulder (good form, too!), was pointing it at a tree and saying POW-POW.
The kid was 18 months old and had never seen a gun in his young life! All of my guns had been carefully stored in cases since before he was born! He didn't even know the word "gun", because my wife had insisted he not get such an education too early!
So, she asked him, "Connor, what are you doing?"
His reply was, "Hunting."
He had never heard me talking about hunting either. Remember, we lived so far out in the boonies we only got the local PBS channel on the TV, and mostly only at night. He'd never watched commercial TV either. Never seen a cop show, never seen a hunting show.
She decides to continue her questions, keeping her tone vary neutral, "Connor, what is that you have there?"
He looks at her a bit perplexed, and you can see he is actively trying to find a word to sum up his "toy". He finally shrugs slightly and says, "It's my 'HUNTER', I use it for hunting."
Couldn't fault the kid's logic!
Boys will be boys, and human beings will find a way to make weapons out of what they can find in their environment. That's the reason we are at the top of the food chain but don't have long teeth and claws.
PS Becoming a mother has taken the wind out of the pacifist sails. If someone wants to hurt my son they might just find that my wife is ready, willing, and able to drill them a .380 whole in center mass. Now-a-days she is determined to defend herself and her family with any means necessary.
Later, when she was pregnant the subject of guns came up. (Did you know that pediatricians actually ask if there are guns in the house these days?)
Anyway, she said she didn't want our child running around with toy guns and playing violent games. She wasn't so much worried about him becoming violent, as she was about other people's perception of him being violent.
I know, I know, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it wasn't worth arguing at that point. I knew then and I know now, boys will be boys.
Well, the boy is extremely intelligent and was hyper-verbal right from the start. His command of language was incredible at 18 months old. However, he had never even heard the word "GUN". It simply wasn't part of his vocabulary.
One day he was in the yard playing. I was cooking on the grill, and my wife was watching him while setting the table. She turned her back on him for just a second and when she turned back around he had picked up a fallen stick that looked amazingly like a rifle stock. He had the thing to his shoulder (good form, too!), was pointing it at a tree and saying POW-POW.
The kid was 18 months old and had never seen a gun in his young life! All of my guns had been carefully stored in cases since before he was born! He didn't even know the word "gun", because my wife had insisted he not get such an education too early!
So, she asked him, "Connor, what are you doing?"
His reply was, "Hunting."
He had never heard me talking about hunting either. Remember, we lived so far out in the boonies we only got the local PBS channel on the TV, and mostly only at night. He'd never watched commercial TV either. Never seen a cop show, never seen a hunting show.
She decides to continue her questions, keeping her tone vary neutral, "Connor, what is that you have there?"
He looks at her a bit perplexed, and you can see he is actively trying to find a word to sum up his "toy". He finally shrugs slightly and says, "It's my 'HUNTER', I use it for hunting."
Couldn't fault the kid's logic!
Boys will be boys, and human beings will find a way to make weapons out of what they can find in their environment. That's the reason we are at the top of the food chain but don't have long teeth and claws.
PS Becoming a mother has taken the wind out of the pacifist sails. If someone wants to hurt my son they might just find that my wife is ready, willing, and able to drill them a .380 whole in center mass. Now-a-days she is determined to defend herself and her family with any means necessary.
