LoriAnn, sorry I asked about you being at the other board--I completely ignore the names people leave at the end of posts.
I started shooting when I was maybe 6? In my family, the reason to learn to shoot was so you could go hunting with the rest of the family (when I was considered too young to deer hunt w/ the family, they'd give grandma the best stand. She'd kill out the first day, then take me squirrel hunting the next.
) The "thrill of killing something" is mostly a phrase used by people who've never killed anything but a bug. They've seen a lot of movies and think there's some dark monster inside them craving blood--but it just ain't so, for most of us. There IS a thrill in a great shot, or in outsmarting a wild turkey in its element, but killing is a very small part of the hunt. In my family we hunt doves EVERY year. I have honest to god killed maybe 10 doves in my lifetime, because they're just so damn fast--but it doesn't matter! I keep going back because it's a good time with dad and grandpa so I don't have to kill anything (although doves tasted good.) BTW, my dad stored his guns in the living room closet w/o locks, and I NEVER touched 'em without permission. I don't recommend that anyone store guns that way but it can be done.
About the ABC special, I saw it too. My mom and I watched it together and were extremely irritated.
1. They left the guns IN THE TOYBOX. Does anyone really believe that's a true test? They successfully proved that even Eddie Eagle can't save kids whose parents are stupid enough to leave guns in the toybox. Duh.
2. SO WHAT if the Eddie Eagle program can't stop every kid/gun accident? Nothing can, but that's no reason to abandon it.
3. They tried to claim that the NRA's stance was that the RKBA was OK because Eddie Eagle exists, therefore if they prove Eddie Eagle ineffective the RKBA is invalid. Bull.
It's easy to laugh this stuff off but reasonably intelligent people like yourself with little firearms experience tend to believe it, get scared, and then we get new laws.
Hope that's not too much to throw at you your first day. Good luck!
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Don
"Its not criminals that go into schools and shoot children"
--Ann Pearston, British Gun Control apologist and moron