When I think of a Christmas gift for a 15 year-old...

[MissMillie]

nothing says "May your days be merry and bright" like a firearm.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/gun-used-in-michigan-school-shooting-was-an-apparent-christmas-present-prosecutors/ar-AARr71T?ocid=U483DHP&li=BBnb7Kz

"Mom and son day testing out his new Christmas present," the mother wrote in a social media post referencing the gun, McDonald said.

***************************************************

Remember when kids just wanted an x-box or a skateboard?

[hlthe2b]

1. My father & WWII generation of uncles, cousins grew up hunting. At most they'd get a bb gun at that

age (with restrictions) and be allowed to use a rifle to hunt with the uncles in close observation. NOTHING was ever stored loaded nor unlocked. Handguns weren't even a thing and had I (or my sister) had any desire for a gun for protection (which we did NOT) we most likely would have been introduced to a shotgun, period.

This obscene gun culture is just beyond me.

[LisaL]

3. And parents were apparently told by school their kid was looking to purchase ammunition

and drawing violent images.
Why did they think it was a good idea for their kid to have access to a gun?

[PTWB]

28. A shotgun is really a poor choice for home defense.

[LisaL]

2. Especially if the kid is troubled.

I am glad parents of a school shooter are being charged. Finally. Don't buy guns for your little darling especially if your little darling has issues.

[Claustrum]

18. Sadly, I don't think they think their little darling has issues.

He is just misunderstood.

Of course, until he does the very thing he threaten to do. I wonder if the parents still think he did the right thing.

The things he say or do is probably taught to him. When you have angry Trumper parents, it's likely you learn and take on the same resentment and anger when you are a teenager.

[left-of-center2012]

4. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania in the 1950s

It was a hunting and fishing culture.
A lot of kids got guns for gifts.

No one accidentally shot themselves or shot a neighbor or family member.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Same in rural NJ.

Boys (9 to 15) would be walking around in the open, passing police cars, carrying rifles, reminiscent of Stand By Me.

[DenaliDemocrat]

7. Grew up out west and duck hunted over 90 days a year

I received guns and ammunition for Christmas; however this new gun culture is just … weird

[left-of-center2012]

12. We were taught gun safety

Not only by our fathers and older brothers but our scout troop went to a rifle range for about five safety classes, and shooting practice. We had to pass a test to get our first hunting license.

Today folks just buy a gun and think they know how to use it from watching movies on TV.

[hunter]

20. Unfortunately that wasn't the case in my childhood community...

... when two teens went out shooting ground squirrels and only one came back alive. I was ten years old, had absorbed the gun safety lectures, considered those guys nearly adult, and couldn't figure out how it happened.

I remember a few other "accidents" as well. One of my classmate's father "accidentally" killed himself while "cleaning his gun."

I've got stories worse than that and don't pretend there were any good old days. One of my childhood friends killed himself with a gun, but nobody thought that was an accident. He was a misfit by mid-twentieth century standards.

There's a strong hunting and fishing culture in my family, but I haven't been hunting here in the 21st century and it's not something I passed on to my children. My wife's a vegetarian. I cook both ways for family gatherings. I've eaten plenty of animals I've seen alive, but now I'm mostly vegetarian as well.

[bullwinkle428]

25. In that particular era, the NRA itself existed primarily as a GUN SAFETY ORGANIZATION.

[marble falls]

6. My 14th Christmas gift was a Remington .410 single shot, shot gun. About $30 from ...

... the neighborhood hardware store, and a pair of "Wellys" to tromp the field and woods in. Never shot a living thing with it. Wasn't good enough as a shot and didn't have the heart to kill pheasant, grouse or bunnies, anyways.

What it wasn't was an almost $1000 Sig Sauer customized semi auto pistol given to a kid busy "sharpening knives" over his enemies.

I will admit I was going to go to Jr High one day with a ball bat. It wasn't an assault bat, it was a purely defensive bat. My dad caught me rolling out the door with it.

Unarmed, I went to school and took my smacking around and gave back as best I could. Pretty much ended the smacking around part of being bullied.

I think there will have been a bullying aspect to this thing, as well as a dad who drove the kid "to stand up for himself" and a big dose of RW politics and it's pro violence components.

We need to stop bullying, we need to stop weapons in schools. Gun violence is no acceptable answer to bullying.

[onethatcares]

15. this!

conversation at the dinner table , "Dad, Joe hit me upside the head today on the way to gym class and laughed at my grades".

Dad,"Well what are you gonna do about it?"

"Dad, he's 5 inches taller than me"

Dad, "Well equalize it"

the rest is, as they say, history in the making.

[marble falls]

22. The summer after that I worked as a "stoop" laboror on a 'muck farm' (big commercial ...

... truck farm) cutting and crating lettuce, cutting and bunching spinach, pulling/cleaning/bunching onions and beets.

Got beat up regularly because I wouldn't fight, swear, or smoke. I got tossed off moving trucks, hit with thrown vegetables, punched but I never ran, never cried and I showed up every day. Just before summer one of the kids, Howdy Campbell came to me and asked, "Why won't you swear or smoke a cigarette?"
I said, "I'm going to become a minister."
He said, "We don't need a minister, we need a lawyer!"

We became good friends. I became neither preacher nor lawyer.

[Mike Nelson]

8. Well...

... I did get a BB gun for Christmas, once... and I was taught to shoot a real gun around that age. However, society and culture change. There are fewer places in the US where people hunt for their own food. Way fewer... Now, people hunt people. It's not appropriate to buy a gun for a 15-year-old. It's obvious... look around and turn on any - liberal or conservative - TV station. What are teenagers doing with guns? They are killing people! I would not want my teenager running around with a gun! In fact, I don't want anyone running around with a gun, other than expertly trained police officers!

[MissMillie]

9. Did you shoot your eye out? (n/t)

.

[Nay]

16. I see what you did there. nt

[Demsrule86]

21. My nephew had a good friend who actually shot himself in the eye with a BB gun and it

killed him...just a freak thing. I had bought a BB gun for my son that year but considering I caught him shooting his sisters with an air gun and with paintballs, plus My nephew's friend's fatal BB gun accident, I took it back.

[babydollhead]

10. "We want you to have Grandaddy's gun"

My in-laws from Georgia said that to my 10 year old son.
The gun grandaddy used to kill himself at 22 years old because he had 3 children, 17 year old wife pregnant with their 4th. He had bounced a 2 dollar check, so he commuted suicide.
“The kid had no impulse control.we don’t even let him use a fork” says I, a PA city girl. Offended and incensed, mother-in-law retorts, “if you keep saying that he never will.”
Upon telling husband’s brother this absurd exchange, he slammed his hand hard on the table and twanged out, “god damn it! I wanted that gun!”
From then on, when we went to Georgia my kids would drawl southernly, “ let’s kill something! Let’s burn something! It’s fambly time!!”
Then pawpaw informed them, at 6 and 5 years old, “y’all going to burn in hell” for not being members of his exact church. They said “ok pawpaw” and he said “you don’t just burn a little. You burn forever. Hell is hot” and the five year old quipped “Georgia is very hot too.”

[SYFROYH]

11. Gifts are fine. But they need to be secured.

[LisaL]

13. Not if your kid is troubled.

NT

[SYFROYH]

17. Well sure, but the OP was more general than that.

[Wingus Dingus]

14. What?? You don't run out to get your emo/hormoney teenage son with the half-developed brain

and poor impulse control a 9mm handgun? What kind of parent are you?

[cbabe]

19. Reminiscent of

M. Scott Peck’s 1983 book ‘People of the Lie: the hope for healing human evil’.

Peck related cases of patients stubbornly resistant to change mainly due to malignant narcissism.

One frightening story is about parents giving troubled son a rifle for Christmas…

[Kaleva]

23. A gun was a common Xmas gift when I was young

[Texasgal]

24. Me too.

I received a small kids Winchester rifle when I turned 14.

The difference from then was that we had a locked gun safe. I was never allowed to handle it except on my grandparent's ranch with an adult. I was taught gun safety. I learned to respect guns and wildlife.

To me, gun culture is weird. I'll never understand it.

[Kaleva]

29. Boys could take guns to school during hunting season.

I was in early grade school when that was still going on. The boy had to show the bus driver the gun was unloaded before he was let on the bus and when we got to the school, the boys turned in their guns and ammo to the principal who kept them in his unlocked office. when school was let out, the principal returned the guns and ammo to the boys.

[maveric]

26. I got hockey equipment at that age.

Not a big gun culture in Boston.

[jmowreader]

27. I'll take a wild stab

He wanted an official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time, but they couldn't get one (possibly because Daisy doesn't make Red Ryders with compasses and sundials) so they got him a real gun instead.