Conn. Senate OKs machine gun ban for children

[MedicineBow]

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, this law is nothing more than knee-jerk legislation. It serves no real purpose.

It serves the purpose of outlawing handing automatic weapons to kids under 16.

Which is a good purpose.

And entirely consistent with other good laws we have banning giving dangerous things to kids.

So, while you're entitled to your opinion, absolutely this is a good law which may do some good and will do no harm.

 

[B. Lahey]

We dont let kids under 16 drive, buy smokes, drink, play hockey without faceshields, go to strip joints, operate excavators, etc etc why should they blast machine guns?

Um... Because I got to blast machine guns when I was 11 or 12, it was fun as hell, and other kids should be able to have the same experience?

I wouldn't be half the gun nut I am today if it hadn't been for stuff like that.

.22s are great, but if you let a kid shoot the guns he wants to shoot, that's even better.

 

[chemgirlie]

Some of the underage laws baffle me, this one included.

For instance, last time I went to the grocery store I got a bottle of wine. The cashier was under 18, so she had to call another guy over to scan the bottle. Apparently she might get drunk from running a bottle over a scanner.

Shouldn't parental responsibility take a place somewhere? Some kids are ready to shoot at a young age (even machine guns), and some aren't. It's up to the parent to decide when the kid is ready, not the legislature.

Where do we draw the line between laws protecting kids and the government overstepping on parental responsibility and discretion?

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Bah, I can't find a link - too many hits and no combos worked.

The story, IIRC, was that some guy buys a Desert Eagle 50 AE at the gun store or rents it. There is an indoor range. Dude goes to the lane and the gun is too much for him. He leaves the gun and tells the range employee that he can use up the box of ammo. The employee is found with two rounds fired. The analysis was that the first round recoil brought the gun back and he spasmodically fired one back into his head.

I don't think I dreamed it.

 

[MedicineBow]

It's up to the parent to decide when the kid is ready

No, it's not.

I have zero interest in letting parents decide when a kid is "ready" to drive a car, drink, work in the porn industry, operate bulldozers, or handle automatic weapons.

No one has to like it, but it's a fact that a minority of adults are so damn careless or destructive that -- as in this CT case -- they'd decide that kids are "ready" for all of the above when they're 8 years old. And then there's suddenly huge danger for the kids and us.

Laws are written to protect against aberrant behavior, not the norm.

Where do we draw the line between laws protecting kids and the government overstepping on parental responsibility and discretion?

You're right, that's the question (except these laws don't just protect the kids; they protect adults too, and society). And that all gets worked out in the neverending debates among the public, their representatives, and the courts.

 

[KLRANGL]

Laws are written to protect against aberrant behavior, not the norm.

Haha, are you Kyles mom from South Park by any chance? WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!

You must know what is better for someone then their own parents, that makes you special...

 

[chemgirlie]

I have zero interest in letting parents decide when a kid is "ready" to drive a car, drink, work in the porn industry, operate bulldozers, or handle automatic weapons.

Actually in my state a parent does have the right to allow their underage child to consume alcohol with their consent.

This isn't about porn or driving. It's about an activity that many people (underage kids included) participate in.

 

[chemgirlie]

Laws are written to protect against aberrant behavior, not the norm.

When the law makes normal people who are not hurting others or violating other's rights criminal we need to consider changing the law.

For example, prohibition made many "normal" people criminals. The solution was not to crack down more on alcohol, the solution was to change the law to suit the needs of the people it governed.

 

[MedicineBow]

You must know what is better for someone then their own parents, that makes you special...

Yep, many of us know more than a minority of parents do. And we pass laws to make sure that kids don't do things that would hurt them or hurt us.

Nothing new there.

This isn't about porn or driving. It's about an activity that many people (underage kids included) participate in.

Sure it is. It's about laws that prevent parents (or anyone else) "deciding" that kids should be allowed to do a bunch of things that are dangerous to themselves and us.

 

[chemgirlie]

Yep, many of us know more than a minority of parents do.

Shouldn't parents who allow their kids to do harmful things be held accountable.

And by harmful things I don't just mean being stupid with firearms. Stupid things also includes perfectly legal stuff like playing around deep water if the kid can't swim, eating peanut butter cookies if the kid has an allergy, etc.

We don't need laws for every single stupid thing that kids/parents can do.

Even if we try and go through all of the possibilities there will still be somebody who manages to get creative and come up with something on a whole new level of stupid that wasn't banned.

 

[Wildalaska]

It's about an activity that many people (underage kids included) participate in.

Like consensual sex and the law tries to stop that too

WildweshouldmaybefocusonrealissuesAlaska ™

PS

No need to get everyone's panties in a knot because this law involves some sort of gun.

I missed that...the Gunwoobie has been invoked! And not by me!

I think I need a gunwoobie hat!!! I have in my head a picture of Lou Costello ready to be sacrificed to Vingo the volcano god whilst wearing a sarong and a fez with a open mouth fish on the top while dancing girls undulate around him singing "O Vingo of the Mou- oun-tain, O Vinjo jingo Vingo jingo*insert tahitian drums and hip sashay here* (See Pardon My Sarong 194(2?))

Anyway, I need a fez with a.....glock, yes a glock on top so that I can put it on when folks freak out over some silly excersize in posturing by some two bit legislature in an economically deprived state....I personally think energy should be saved for the big issues and yes, I am aware of creeping incrementalism or what not and no, I dont view banning machine guns for 16 year olds as the first step to confiscation and tossing patriots into camps to be reindoctrinated by Marxist babes with birkenstocks, dreads and unshaved armpits..

So whoever photoshops me a Gunwoobie hat gets a T Shirt of some type

Domo arigato, hai! Sumimasen, watashi wa bakaa gaijin! (I'm practicing)

 

[B. Lahey]

Shooting machine guns under proper supervision is no more dangerous than shooting any other gun.

Banning kids from one sort of gun opens the door to ban them from all other sorts of guns, and youth shooting is possibly the most important way for people to be introduced to firearms in a safe and normal way.

By the time I was 16 I had no interest in guns, everything I learned about them I learned before 16 and after 25. Between those years all I cared about was beer, girls, and crazy music.

If we start cutting kids out of the shooting sports we are going to have a bunch of irresponsible 25 year old noobs as the youngest generation of shooters. And that will suck because I have known some of those dumbasses.

 

[MedicineBow]

We don't need laws for every single stupid thing that kids/parents can do.

Right. Just the real dangerous ones. Like, say, handing an Uzi to an 8-year-old.

 

[KLRANGL]

Yep, many of us know more than a minority of parents do. And we pass laws to make sure that kids don't do things that would hurt them or hurt us.

Unfortunately you got that part right. So wheres the law that says children under the age of X cant swim? You'd save more lives there than with this law for certain. What about the law where children have to use training wheels until a certain age?
If you can compare a law that says children cant use automatic weapons to the law where you have to be 18 to join the porn industry, you got things mixed up...

Nothing new there.

aaaactually... in the span of our country, passing laws to protect people from themselves is a rather new idea... Sure you got prohibition, but I don't remember bike helmets being required for kids until about the late 80s. Then there are seat belt laws, which weren't around until well after cars were invented. Its very new, and its very wrong.

I personally think energy should be saved for the big issues and yes, I am aware of creeping incrementalism or what not and no, I dont view banning machine guns for 16 year olds as the first step to confiscation and tossing patriots into camps to be reindoctrinated by Marxist babes with birkenstocks, dreads and unshaved armpits..

I mean you're pretty much mostly right. Its not worth getting into a fit over. Doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't say it isn't right. You don't seem me writing my legislator on the issue anytime soon.

Right. Just the real dangerous ones. Like, say, handing an Uzi to an 8-year-old.

You wana back that up with statistics? How many kids in the US have accidentally died from shooting a full auto weapon?

 

[chemgirlie]

Right. Just the real dangerous ones. Like, say, handing an Uzi to an 8-year-old.

Allowing kids with allergies around peanut butter is real dangerous too, but legal.

Ah Wild, you made me laugh... and now I have a very strange image in my mind and I can't seem to get it out.

 

[MedicineBow]

passing laws to protect people from themselves is a rather new idea

A. The 8 year old should have protected himself? You're missing the point of the law.

B. Oh, definitely, there are a lot of new ideas that have arisen over the last centuries. Heck, anymore we don't even let parents decide that kids can quit school at 8 and go work in factories. It's new-fangled ideas like this that will destroy this country, I tell you.

Allowing kids with allergies around peanut butter is real dangerous too, but legal.

I'm glad you agree with me that a law like CT's, dealing with one category of clearly dangerous behavior, is one of those good places to draw the line.

 

[B. Lahey]

clearly dangerous behavior

But it's not. This was one freak incident that resulted from the failure of a parent to supervise his kid.

When else has a kid been harmed shooting an MG?

When has ANYONE been harmed shooting an MG?

Hint: It doesn't happen. Ever.

 

[KLRANGL]

You're missing the point of the law.

Not so much. People like YOU think they know more than people like MY parents, and feel the need to tell them what to do.

Oh, definitely, there are a lot of new ideas that have arisen over the last centuries. Heck, anymore we don't even let parents decide that kids can quit school at 8 and go work in factories. It's new-fangled ideas like this that will destroy this country, I tell you.

there you go confusing legitimate concerns with wild hysteria driven hype... oh well, cant win em all...

I still invite you to show some facts showing that it is indeed a "dangerous" behavior...

Edit: wow, look at all these irresponsible parents http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVwI0SST-lk

 

[JuanCarlos]

Not being a legal beagle - don't normal laws against negligence handle this?

More than likely, but it's a tougher standard to prove. It's easier to show that you did X and X is explicitly illegal than to show that you did X and X is negligent.

Why just automatic weapons? Why not a law that prohibits children under 16 from playing with high explosives, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons, too?

Are you sure those aren't already against the law? I'm pretty sure letting anybody handle WMDs is illegal, and as for high explosives those are usually pretty closely regulated as well.

Um... Because I got to blast machine guns when I was 11 or 12, it was fun as hell, and other kids should be able to have the same experience?

I wouldn't be half the gun nut I am today if it hadn't been for stuff like that.

I'm betting you'd still be quite the gun nut if you hadn't fired machine guns until 16. Shooting machine guns is kinda like sex; regardless of what age you first do it at, you will want to do it every day after that for the rest of your life.

Some of the underage laws baffle me, this one included.

For instance, last time I went to the grocery store I got a bottle of wine. The cashier was under 18, so she had to call another guy over to scan the bottle. Apparently she might get drunk from running a bottle over a scanner.

This probably has more to do with the risk that underage cashiers (or servers in restaurants) will sell alcohol to their fellow underage customers, whereas 18-year-olds are (theoretically) more mature and also probably easier to prosecute.

But I could be wrong.



As for the law in question, I'd say it's probably best to just leave this to be prosecuted under general laws against negligence, but I have a hard time getting any real outrage going over it.

 

[MedicineBow]

People like YOU think they know more than people like MY parents, and feel the need to tell them what to do.

Yep. Welcome to the real world, where we don't let your parents decide that you, when you're underage, can but alcohol, cigarettes, drive a car, work in porn, operate heavy machinery, or work in factories.

And now -- in CT -- your parents don't get to decide to hand their 8-year-old who is standing next to me on the firing line and Uzi because they think he/she is "ready."

Bummer.