Pulling the old "Gun in the toy bin" bit

2

243Ben

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This came on the airwaves in the Kansas City area last night. Tell me if you see anything wrong with this story:

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=e6beae10-d403-4411-81e5-3664a7e65cf7


I was hoping to find the video version, but can't (not looking real hard to be honest).

In any instance, it was the dumbest thing I think I've ever seen - hiding a gun in a toy bin, giving the toy bin to kids, and telling them "we've found more toys for you to play with", then acting surprised when the boys, tired of playing with barbies and trainsets, find the gun and start pointing it at others.

I'll stop typing, it irritated me to no end last night, and it still irritates me today.
 
hahaha gunshow, that would be great to see the reporters reaction if that happened...chances are though they would argue, well, he shouldnt know that much about guns at this age, blah blah blah
 
okay, actually i'm not going to quit typing. This pisses me off. What is the "news" actually reporting here? Does this not define "manufacturing" the news. It'd be one thing if a kid just recently found a gun in a toy bin, or worse, if a kid found one in a toy bin and shot someone. As far as I know, that isn't the case here. Instead the news just decided to switch from objective journalism, and go into full activism mode. Seriously, what gives? What do they teach journalists in college? If there is nothing going on on a particular day, don't report boring stuff, just make something up?

As to the "study" itself - the detective says "I see a couple of injured kids in there" or some such thing - meaning, had the gun been loaded. Really detective? You mean to tell me that if a kid accidently shot his buddy, he would just keep pulling the trigger? That doesn't pass the sniff test.

The reporter makes a big deal about how quickly the kids found the gun - 15 or 20 seconds in one case - whoopdee doo! If you can find the video, everything in the room is brightly colored, except this one black handgun, so when the kids turn the toy bin over, emptying its contents, its pretty easy to see. I'd be worried about the health of the kids if they couldn't spot a black object against a blaze orange, or pink object.

okay, my thoughts are blurring again. I'm out for another 5 minutes.
 
lets run the same test with an open beer

I hate this sudo proof BS this kind of reports tries to make. I've often wondered what the results would be if they ran the same test with an open beer in the offering.
 
You know, the sad thing is that what this really demonstrates is that we need to teach firearms safety in schools.
If you gave these kids ANY dangerous item that they hadn't had any safety training with would the results have been any different?

I was especially irritated by the comment that they hoped the 12 year old boy scout would have done better. Like the scouts (can) teach anything about firearms safety these days.
 
Video is in upper right hand corner - not exactly clearly defined - but its to the extreme right of the column.

This really makes me think about moving up my decision to expose my children to firearms. My boy is still a knucklehead, but I think it will be worth ti to drive the message of firearm safety home early and often.

NRA has it down pat fro kids:

If you see a gun:

STOP!
Don't Touch.
Leave the Area.
Tell an Adult.
 
What surprises me isn’t so much the obviously flawed nature of the test, it is the parents (viewers) that buy this crap, apparently without seeing the the flawed nature of the test.

Teach parents and kids gun safety, but not from the perspective of an adult staged toy world. In my opinion, the news makers expose kids viewing this propaganda to an unrealistic gun situation without offering a context. Not a good message!
 
This tests just shows what I have said for years. No matter how well you teach a young child gun safety they just do not have the capacity to keep it in mind at all times.

You can call it staged or rigged all you want but the fact is, the kids often failed the test. Every similar test I have ever seen has similar results.

I cringe all the time when I hear people say nonsense like "my six year old is safe around firearms because I have taught them right."

They should be taught from as early as possible, but trusting a small child to use the knowledge is foolish.
 
There's no safety in ignorance. Making kids wait until older for proper instruction just keeps them in the dark (danger) longer. Teaching them when they're younger is better I think because younger kids learn & retain it better for long term. I think if a kid is old enough to make a toasted cheese sandwich on a gas stove, they're old enough to be instructed in firearms safety. Assuming competant parents of course.

Even if I wasn't a gun owner, I think I'd seek firearms safety instruction for my kids because firearms are so prevalent in this society and they will come across one eventually. They have to know what to do.

Guess how different the test would have went if they had picked a group of kids from a junior shooting team.

This is Anti's trying to prove that guns are not safe because of "the children" and was a despicable set-up.:mad:
 
We let the children in on our test and took the opportunity to teach them about gun safety. It's a serious conversation that can mean all the difference when you're not there.
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oh yeah, after the test is a great time to teach them about gun safety :rolleyes:
 
I cringe all the time when I hear people say nonsense like "my six year old is safe around firearms because I have taught them right."
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Understand that exposing kids to guns and instructing them in gun safety does not mean turning them loose at age 6 with loaded guns. It's the instruction and exposure to real guns that make them safe, not the access to them, silly one!!

(You must not be a parent.):D
 
(You must not be a parent.)
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Nope, but I helped raise my young brothers and my nephew. Then there is that little matter of my Masters degree in psychology. I obtained my degree to teach (and maybe go CIA after the military) and did alot of my work with pre-adolescent children. I hear all the time how some people feel it is okay to have loaded guns unsecured around small children because "they have been taught about guns." They have also been taught to not steal cookies from the cookie jar, goof off in school, or fight with their siblings...we all know how well that works. And we all know how no kids ever start smoking or drinking at a young age even after being taught better.
 
So are you saying that 6 yr olds can't discern the difference in the gravity of the situation between sneaking cookies and handling a real dangerous device? That if he'd steal cookies then he can't be trusted with guns?:D:D:D:D
 
So are you saying that 6 yr olds can't discern the difference in the gravity of the situation between sneaking cookies and handling a real dangerous device? That if he'd steal cookies then he can't be trusted with guns?
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That is exactely what I am saying. People make the mistake of assigning the reasoning abilities and thought processes to young children that they have as adults and it is just not the case.
 
Please refer to the last line in the first paragraph of my first post in this thread.

You can't expect a kid (or anyone) to know something that they've never been taught, and they do learn better at an early age, you should know that.

I hear all the time how some people feel it is okay to have loaded guns unsecured around small children because "they have been taught about guns."
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Those must be the incompetant parents.

It's the instruction and exposure to real guns that make them safe, not the access to them
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You can't expect a kid (or anyone) to know something that they've never been taught, and they do learn better at an early age, you should know that.
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They absorb knowledge better at a young age but being able to put knowledge into practice increases with age. You can tell a 6yr old something and they can repeat it but they cannot understand the implications. they also do not understand the concept or irreversible consequences.

I said you should teach them but never trust them around a loaded gun unattended. The two worst times to do this is under age 9 and early adolescence (for two different reasons).
 
How many gun owners leave their Glocks in their kid's toy bin?
Seriously, if I was a kid, I would expect TOYS to be in the toy bin. The test created a "safe" environment, then violated that with an unsafe AND unrealistic (...at least I HOPE!) situation.

It proves one of two things
1. These kids did not know how to accurately ID a real pistol.
2. They did not think about/know basic firearm safety.
OR a combination of both...which IMO is the likely reason.

The likelihood of a toy gun being in a toy bin is pretty high. The likelihood of a Glock being left in one is substantially lower! As a child, it is more likely that one would assume the gun in the toy bin to actually be a toy.
 
There is at least one very glaring flaw to this "test". The gun was placed in a TOY BIN, along with a bunch of TOYS. It might be natural for a child to assume it is just a fancy and realistic TOY GUN and then play with it.

This so called test says NOTHING AT ALL if the children were to come across the gun in a place not ordinarily associated with toys. They might not be so quick to play with it then. I don't know but I dount they would get results like that.

I mean it's like putting putting poison in a cookie and putting it a cookie jar with other kinds of various cookies. If a kid eats that, it in no way indicates that he/she would start chowing down on cleaners under the utility sink with Mr. Yuk signs on them.

This is a phony publicity stunt to serve ratrings and scare more people about guns. It's dishonest and shameful.
 
I suppose they're completely unfamiliar with the concept that kids have been hunting squirrels and rabbits with .22 rifles at age 10 or younger for 100 years or so with near zero problems.
 
I suppose they're completely unfamiliar with the concept that kids have been hunting squirrels with .22 at age 10 or younger for 100 years or so with zero problems.
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Yes, and that is completely the same thing as a young kid being unsupervised around a loaded hangun in the home. :rolleyes:

C'mon, you can't truly make a comparison between those two unrelated circumstances.
 
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