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I assume this was covered somewhere on TTAG in the past few days, but I still wanted to throw it up anyway, because I had a point to make. I really see no issue with parents talking to each other about stuff like this. But parents talking to each other is not a replacement for talking to your own kids about guns, so they know what to do if they encounter a firearm “in the wild.” But while you’re talking to your kids, don’t stop at just guns. Teach them about respect for other people’s stuff. Like many others, I encountered guns at the homes of my friends when I was a kid. And like many others, I didn’t touch them. Why? Not because I’d been taught about guns . . .

because I hadn’t. I didn’t touch them because they were someone else’s guns. Teach your kids about guns, sure. But in a larger sense, teach them that whatever it is, if it’s not theirs, they should keep their grubby mitts off, unless permission is sought and received. Kids who aren’t taught to respect other people’s stuff when they’re young grow into entitled adults who think everything is (or should be) theirs for the taking.

“The way we Americans casually, often unthinkingly, incorporate gun metaphors into our everyday slang says a lot about how deeply embedded guns are in our culture and our politics, and how difficult it is to control or extract them.” That’s the thesis statement from Landon Y. Jones piece on how “gun-related” language is helping to keep us from doing the smart thing and getting guns out of our lives. Read the rest (if you can stomach it) over at wapo.com.

About a month ago, the Digest had the story of a collection of Wyatt Earp memorabilia that was going on the auction block, including a Colt .45-caliber revolver that is believed by some to have been carried by Earp during the shootout at the OK Corral. That auction took place last Thursday, and the revolver ended up selling for $225,000. The whole collection brought in over $445,000 in total.

Carnik Con’s Super Pistol training course. NSFW language warning. Stay to the end for the gag reel.

Carnik Con is one of the best gun guys on YouTube. That is all.

Richard Ryan apparently has liquor company sponsorships now, and so builds an apple tree-shaped det cord creation for Johnny Appleseed Hard Cider, with jugs of red paint (wired with more det cord) standing in for apples. It still looks like he’s having fun, but the amount of work he puts in building these things is pretty impressive.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. We at Everytown for Gun Safety™ advise parents to teach their children that guns in shoeboxes are toys and that parents should store their guns loaded without a locking container.

    We have raised $50 million for a grassroots campaign so that we can have Nancy’s nephew Frank make graphics that depict rifle rounds with cartridge casings exiting smoothbore barrels. For the children.

    • Yeah, you ‘raised’ 50 Million from Bloomberg. Grassroots my AR. Take your lies to the fools that can’t read or think, I believe they’re called Democrats.

        • As I don’t know the poster, I can only go by what I’ve read. It was written, IMHO, by a typical uninformed Lefty, so I responded.

    • Aren’t you also going to teach them to fire up a GoPro before playing with the nice loaded guns? So we can save the money we’d spend to fake it? For the children?

  2. Matt,
    I was going to pull the trigger on that WAPO article, but the caliber of their writing is like shooting blanks. No substance worth the time.
    So I set my sights on the Carnik Con video instead.
    That guy is quite a pistol. His videos are good primers for continuing education.
    Enough for now, I’m going to take a powder, and get a grip on myself.

  3. Whoa, hold up. Teach children to respect others and their property? That’s ridiculous. I teach every child I come into contact with to take whatever they want, whenever they want it, regardless of who it belongs to. Because they are each shiny, beautiful, unique snowflakes who are incapable of doing anything wrong, and are God’s greatest gift of all time to anyone, ever. “Parenting”? No thanks, I’m good. And, as a bonus, every time someone says or does something that I find bothersome but doesn’t really affect my life in any way, shape or form, I can cry out to have it stopped because of the children, when really it’s just because I don’t like it, don’t understand it, and don’t want to put my latte down long enough to listen to what it’s really about. Then, after a long day of not really parenting because I’m minding everybody else’s business, I can go home to my husband and tell him to make dinner because I’m really tired and I have to go change out of my SuperMom undies. Life is hard enough already without having to worry about actual life lessons. Good suggestion though. Well, I’m off to pay some Chinese people to like my vaguely-named, elitist, controlling Facebook page. Toodles!

  4. The super pistol killed me. When they CS gassed everyone I laughed maniacally for a few minutes. I couldn’t believe he actually hit his friends with that stuff.

    My parents taught me that you do not mess with other peoples property. This means you don’t walk in other people’s yards, touch their belongings and in someone else’s house you leave everything inside alone.

  5. Tomorrow is April 25, which is ANZAC day. Please raise a glass, or two, or three (heck, just drink the entire slab) for those who fought and died for the ANZAC tradition.

    And a good way to spend to the day is to watch the ANZACS mini-series (the one with Paul Hogan). And watch the full 10 hour version, and not the butchered 2 hour movie version.

  6. On the subject of kids asking permission, I strongly advise any parents here to drum in the “and received” portion.

    Children can be little logicians to put Aristottle or Bertrand Russell to shame.

    My own daughter [precisely once, at age five] used as a defense which I was forced to accept that she had in fact asked permission – which had not been granted, but I’d not stipulated that part.

    “Don’t go in the shop without asking permission.”

    “Yes, daddoo.”

    Oops.

    Yes, it’s a stupid technicality but if she’d been crushed by an engine that’d have been cold comfort.

    When in essence making a deal with the Devil, make damned certain of each and every clause because loopholes can have dire consequences.

    My 2¢

    • Russ, I’m laughing really hard at that.
      Used to ask my son, “how was school?”
      His reply, it was great.
      That morphed into, how was your day at school.
      Which morphed into, how was the teachers day at school.
      Which morphed into,
      How was everybody else’s day around you in school today?
      Thanks for that.

  7. Grubby little mitts…. Get your hands off of my stuff you damn dirty ape…

    IMHO
    That is a good point, lack of respect (for others belongings and life) and lack of parenting has added to the decay of our society more than any other identified reason.

  8. The mom in that video is hot. I didn’t really hear what they were talking about. Something about a casserole? Astrophysics?

  9. No need to read the WaPo article, I already know their little argument by heart. Heard it time and time again from all the leftist progwads in grad school. Controlling the use of language is their favorite wedge to use against the aspects of society that they hate. If they can control the language we’re allowed to use, they can eventually make it impossible for anyone to disagree with them — how can you express reasonable opposition when the very words you need are unacceptable in the realm of public debate?

    • “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.”

      — Syme, 1984

      • +10,000.

        That book should be required reading. It’s on my list for my children.

        I think 1984 and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress make good companion books. Between those two, one opens a lot of doors for discussion and to find parallels in contemporary society.

        There are, of course, many others that could go on such a list as well.

        • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of my favorite books. I love the fact that it is incredibly entertaining, funny, action packed, all while being thought provoking.

          I read this book at a time when I was rapidly questioning my political beliefs. Bush had just pushed the patriot act, the TSA was now performing security theater violating everyone’s 4th amendment rights.

          I read this book and the following quote shocked me to my core.
          “Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: “Please pass this so that I won’t be able to do something I know I should stop.” Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them “for their own good” — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.”

          My previous belief’s on the supremacy of government to legislate morality started to crumble. This was just the chink in the chain i needed to start questioning my other beliefs to see if government should be involved, and the answer to nearly every question that started with “Should the government…?” was a resounding NO!

          There’s no real point to this story except to say that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was transformative in my life.

  10. The WAPO article, another piece of liberal whimsy. If we could just get rid of words and phrases like “hotshot”, “offhand”, and “keep your powder dry”, then all guns will vanish. Ironically, by revealing the correlation between commonly used expressions and firearms history he may have piqued an interest in firearms history for at least a few people who never would have thought about it.

  11. I like this one…”what other natural, constitutionaly protected rights do you think should be abolished”

    It sends ’em in a tailspin and is fun to watch.

  12. It’s April 25th, 2014….

    I have read the following:

    “I encountered guns at the homes of my friends when I was a kid. And like many others, I didn’t touch them. Why? Not because I’d been taught about guns . . .

    because I hadn’t. I didn’t touch them because they were someone else’s guns. Teach your kids about guns, sure. But in a larger sense, teach them that whatever it is, if it’s not theirs, they should keep their grubby mitts off, unless permission is sought and received. Kids who aren’t taught to respect other people’s stuff when they’re young grow into entitled adults who think everything is (or should be) theirs for the taking.”

    Can I officially nominate Matt in FL for TTAG Writer of the Year and TTAG Post of the Year now?

    • Yes.
      I immediately flashed to a memory. Very vivid in my mind.
      The parents are throwing a party. (E-9’s did that back in the day). Thats the highest rank without being an officer.
      A guy shows up, who is a friend of a very close family friend. He proceeds to ask where he can set his carry piece. Dad points to the fireplace mantle he’s leaning against.
      I never thought about touching it.

  13. Richard Ryan gets det cord, carnik con gets full auto galil rifles…..
    how…? What..? Do rules not apply to YouTube Sensations?

    • You dudes do realize that’s intentional, right?

      “They” are experts at manipulating your base urges. Miss the message (or its full meaning) or agree with it because of the subliminally induced “desire” for the messenger is a very, very old tactic.

      This is one of those times to swallow a red pill, exercise some self discipline and not let “them” have that particular power over you.

  14. It really bugs me that there are so many parents out there who think a gun in the house unlocked is okay because “I told my children not to touch them”….such naive thinking!!

    • Actually, though, what’s wrong with that?

      Are we to put the responsibility onto the technology (the lock), or are we to both demonstrate and exercise responsibility ourselves?

      What’s the difference with

      — don’t play with the kitchen knives
      — don’t play with the poisons under the sink
      — don’t run into the street without looking first
      — don’t walk up to a dog you don’t know and just start petting it
      — don’t snark off to bigger, meaner kids
      — don’t take my keys and drive my car (pre-license age)
      — don’t play with matches / lighters
      — etc.

      The problem with “lock thinking” is that we are putting responsibility onto the tool…the lock in this case…and creating a blamable point of failure in the case of ‘accident.’ It absolves us of responsibility – “Well, I had it locked!”

      Let’s not go down the road upon which the anti’s love to lead us – the road of “guns are a special brand of evil.” We used to have guns hanging on the walls UNLOCKED (Oh My!!) back when children were taught not to play with them.

      The problem then, as now, was the children that were NOT taught gun safety, not the absence of locks and safes and technology to “make us safer.”

      Though I will admit that just TELLING them not to touch is insufficient…it must be a LIFESTYLE of gun safety to be effective.

      • “Though I will admit that just TELLING them not to touch is insufficient…it must be a LIFESTYLE of gun safety to be effective.”…..+100

    • You might try considering the fact that if you lock up all your guns out of sight and pat yourself on the back for it, when your kids go to a neighbor’s house they may well pick up his gun and shoot themselves with it. If they’ve been taught not to touch other people’s stuff, particularly guns, that won’t happen. When they’re older, if they have been prevented from ever seeing or touching your guns, they may pick up a neighbor’s gun and shoot themselves with it. If they are always in the rankings at your local 3-gun competitions, they may start a productive discussion about that make and model and caliber.

      Just sayin’.

  15. +3 on that, one for each of our sons. They were taught firearms safety and use, as well as the other general household “scary things”, from the time they were old enough to comprehend. Never a problem, never a locked gun in the house but for those for long-term storage. All 3 proficient with firearms and chef’s knives alike. We lived in a small community where the kids played (gasp!) outside most of the time, and there was a parent… yes, and actual, bloodline parent…in the home 24/7, because we made that choice, too. May have done things differently if we lived elsewhere, but we made our home and life choices around simplicity and family. They are all adults, never had their blood leak but from skinned knees, and each his own man.

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