On Thursday, February 22, 2018 at 11:37:48 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2018 16:11:18 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 2/22/2018 3:45 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2018 14:21:01 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 2/22/2018 12:13 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:25:20 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

Here's a weird one. In Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states, a
15 year old can legally purchase and own a long gun with his/her
parent's permission.


If the parents are OK with it, can't a kid have any gun they want at
any age? Who is going to stop them?
I had my first shotgun at 14-15 when I started to hunt but I had a .22
for years before that. I suppose technically it was my dad's, handed
down from my grandfather but I had free access to it and they sold
ammo at the 7-11.


Fortunately, most parents I know personally have more smarts and a sense
of responsibility to allow their kids at any minor age to own guns.


That is Acela corridor thinking again and big city thinking at that.
In the early 60s hunting was a thing most of my friends did before
they could drive and this was just outside of DC in PG county.
Like I said, the 7-11 sold shotgun shells and .22s
I am sure that sounds strange today but you could walk in the woods
all the way from the DC line behind Eastover shopping center and
Forest Heights to the river, down past where National Harbor is now
and never see a thing but woods. That was 4 or 5 square miles
contiguous with the woods behind my house before they built the
interstate. Typically we did not really do much hunting east of 210
but there were some good quail and rabbit fields before you got there,
pretty much where the right of way for I-495 is now. West of 210 there
was just about anything you could expect to find in Maryland.
The strange thing is there is still a pretty big undeveloped parcel
down there right now.



There are plenty people who hunt in Massachusetts and the areas we've
lived in are probably more heavily wooded than your experience in
Maryland. The last house I lived in with my parents as a kid was
surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of woods and undeveloped land.

I still don't know of any parent I know who would allow a minor child to
have his/her very own gun. BB guns, yes. Firearms ... no.

Different place, different culture I guess. Kids from the south and
the west grew up with guns. My dad grew up in Oklahoma.

When I was about 9-10 years old I was with my dad and a group of 4-5 men that were shooting pistols. One had a new .44 Mag revolver that they were taking turns with. I begged to shoot it, and they looked at my dad. He told them to let me shoot it. To their amazement, I did, and handled it just fine.

What they didn't know is that I had been shooting with my dad for years. He was an amatuer gunsmith and reloaded ammo as a hobby. We went to a sand-pit about every other Sunday and went through quite a bit of ammo every time. I was no stranger to a .44 Magnum.

The thought of shooting up anything has *never* crossed my mind. I was taught from a young age how to handle a firearm, how to respect it, and what to do with one in the presence of others.

When deer hunting with my dad at a dog-drive club, they put the hunters out on paved and dirt roads in the country, then turn dogs out to drive the deer out past the hunters stationed along the road. You are hunting with shotguns, and are stationed about every 100 or so yards along the road.

When the truck comes back after a hunt to pick you up (2 or so hours), you let the truck stop beside you. You let the guys in the back of the truck see you clear the chamber of the live round, and leave the chamber open so they see you have your gun in a safe condition. Then you climb in.

This is the kind of education that these shooters these day never got. They never went hunting with their dads. They weren't taught what to do, and not do, with weapons. They are throwaway misfits of society, no father or family unit, the model liberal modern family, and we wonder why we are in the situation we are now in.