N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
Just step back and take in the stupidity of the GOP
This is why comments like that make me laugh. Don't you think everyone has a little hypocrite in them?
I've noticed you can use the same arguments for many cases, they just flip sides. Much of the anti-gun crowd is for legalizing more drugs. Doesn't legalizing drugs mean more drugs in the country, and more drugs in the country means easier access for kids? I can repeat that tweet with the anti-gun and drug argument and it'd be the same.
I'm no exception. I'm pro-life, but for capital punishment. Everyone's got a little hypocrite in them.
Not to that level of stupidity. I'm not sure that the pro-life, pro-DP is the same either
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
All of those other things would be illegal. There is nothing illegal about letting a 10-year old shoot a gun. Maybe it isn't your thing, that's fine. I shot my first gun at 10. But it was more of a father-son thing than teaching me about safety. We spent a lot of time on safety though. I probably wouldn't want to be at a range next to a 10-year-old with an AK-47. My dad took us out to the woods to go shooting without anyone else around, and spent a lot of time on safety before I got to take my first shot. My dad was a cop, guns were part of his job. He kept them locked up and away from us. We would go 2-3 times a year. It was something we both looked forward to every time. I was probably 15 before I shot anything other than a .22.
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
When I was younger, my father limited me to certain guns: in particular, a .22 and a .410 shotgun. It was only as I got older,stronger and displayed competency that I 'graduated' to larger caliber guns like my dad's .30-06.
Teaching kids gun safety, respect for guns and how to handle them at an early age is wise- otherwise... they're staring down the barrel wondering why the gun never went off after they pulled the trigger.
* And again (it seems as if this point is either stupid or lost on people)... there is NO solution for the short term. The country needs to begin taking the steps so that in 10-20 years... a difference can be made. People have sacrificed more for quality of life (young American men buried in Europe for example). It's time to admit to necessity and embrace a meaningful change effort.
Just step back and take in the stupidity of the GOP
This is why comments like that make me laugh. Don't you think everyone has a little hypocrite in them?
I've noticed you can use the same arguments for many cases, they just flip sides. Much of the anti-gun crowd is for legalizing more drugs. Doesn't legalizing drugs mean more drugs in the country, and more drugs in the country means easier access for kids? I can repeat that tweet with the anti-gun and drug argument and it'd be the same.
I'm no exception. I'm pro-life, but for capital punishment. Everyone's got a little hypocrite in them.
Not to that level of stupidity. I'm not sure that the pro-life, pro-DP is the same either
Clearly *You're Blanched* can't offer more to the conversation other than offering spite remarks...
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
Because the children hunting is not a damn issue. They are not the ones shooting up schools. The ones that are seems to be ones with too much time on their hands and parents that do not spend quality time with them doing things like hunting. Hunting is no more of a causal factor than video games. Would you rather a child that has been hunting since they were 10 purchasing a rifle at 18 or the kid whose only experience with guns is through Call of Duty purchasing one at 18?
The other thing that seems to be happening is these events only occuring in well to do Schools not Schools in the hood as the term goes or in minority communities i wonder why ? we've already talked about private schools but Schools that are in poor neighborhoods not so much ....
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
I guess I was different because I got to shoot and drive at a young age?
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
Because the children hunting is not a damn issue. They are not the ones shooting up schools. The ones that are seems to be ones with too much time on their hands and parents that do not spend quality time with them doing things like hunting. Hunting is no more of a causal factor than video games. Would you rather a child that has been hunting since they were 10 purchasing a rifle at 18 or the kid whose only experience with guns is through Call of Duty purchasing one at 18?
That doesn’t answer the question I asked.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
I guess I was different because I got to shoot and drive at a young age?
Do you think letting kids drink and letting them drive (not drink and drive) at a young age is still a good idea?
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
Because the children hunting is not a damn issue. They are not the ones shooting up schools. The ones that are seems to be ones with too much time on their hands and parents that do not spend quality time with them doing things like hunting. Hunting is no more of a causal factor than video games. Would you rather a child that has been hunting since they were 10 purchasing a rifle at 18 or the kid whose only experience with guns is through Call of Duty purchasing one at 18?
That doesn’t answer the question I asked.
Do you believe they should be able to cut their steak with a knife 10? Do you think a 10 year old could mow a lawn, play sports, ride a bike or go cart? Hell, tons of children get life altering injuries from sports. Why are you worried about the 10 year old learning to shoot a pheasant or deer?
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
I guess I was different because I got to shoot and drive at a young age?
Do you think letting kids drink and letting them drive (not drink and drive) at a young age is still a good idea?
I wouldn't let a 10 yo drink a beer, that's immoral.
I have no problem with showing them how to drive, shoot a gun, hammer a nail, fix a flat on a bike, operate a boat, make mac n cheese on a stove, start a fire, light a firework...
All things I did as a child. Things I've done with my younger cousins and friends' kids.
I have had one parent tell me it's ok with the fireworks and another parent right next to them tell me no so it's not for everyone I guess, but you need to teach kids about things. They are curious and you want them to be safe
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Do you believe they should be able to cut their steak with a knife 10? Do you think a 10 year old could mow a lawn, play sports, ride a bike or go cart? Hell, tons of children get life altering injuries from sports. Why are you worried about the 10 year old learning to shoot a pheasant or deer?
I’m fine with kids playing sports, or riding a bike, or cutting food. I'm generally in favour of kids taking some risk; I just think that the risks they take should apply to themselves, not others.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
Yeah I think there's a little bit of overprotective nature from my fellow lefties on here. Kids have been operating dangerous tools like guns and cars and farm equipment for many generations, and yes, it's true that there have been many maiming and life ending accidents to go along with that, so I understand the nature of the feeling. Country life is different. The thing is, kids did those things because they were a part of life, and you don't hold your kids back from life if you want them to grow into confident and competent adults. Also, the kids were totally needed for their help. The counter argument is that life has changed and kids don't need to hunt/drive/operate machines and tools, but I think that is false and it's entirely born of an unsustainable way of life. I've seen some very harsh words for hunters from people who eat meat from a grocery store every day and never once think about the fact that it was once a living animal with beautiful eyes...and then some person (or even worse, machine) killed it, bled it out, gutted it, skinned it, and chopped it up into neat little unrecognisable chunks so they can enjoy it as delicious food without care. It's understandable that that way of thinking (and the accompanying disdain for kids using guns) has arisen in our sanitized metropolitan lifestyle, but that is NOT a viable option for the future of this planet and our survival on it. I think that proper supervision and a little bit of risk is a combination that has worked for a long time, and either without the other isn't as strong.
My son will learn to drive the tractor, he will learn to use a knife, he will learn to shoot a gun, he will learn to use drills and saws and tools, and he will learn his place in the food chain with the always solemn burden and sometimes thrilling experience of ending a life respectfully and with dignity. In that order, beginning as soon as he's ready.
He will not have access to firearms until he has a home of his own though.
Most 10 year olds with a gun are more safe than some college kid going to the range for the first time. I'm not saying it never happens, but every 10 year old I've seen at the range has a parent hovering over their every move, over-explaining every safety feature, walks them through every step slowly. I know several years ago that instructor was killed because that little girl couldn't handle the recoil, but that was just dumb, if I remember they gave her some semi-auto assault rifle. I think doing that at a range is a terrible idea. And I've seen college-aged kids go to the range for the first time and act like what you think the 10 year old would. Probably because they've gone for the first time and no one has ever taught them about basic safety rules.
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Do you think letting kids drink and letting them drive (not drink and drive) at a young age is still a good idea?
I wouldn't let a 10 yo drink a beer, that's immoral.
I have no problem with showing them how to drive, shoot a gun, hammer a nail, fix a flat on a bike, operate a boat, make mac n cheese on a stove, start a fire, light a firework...
All things I did as a child. Things I've done with my younger cousins and friends' kids.
I have had one parent tell me it's ok with the fireworks and another parent right next to them tell me no so it's not for everyone I guess, but you need to teach kids about things. They are curious and you want them to be safe
I have no problem with most of what you've listed here, but I think there is a real comparison between hammering a nail or making mac and cheese, and firing a gun. Hammer a nail incautiously and you've got a bruised thumb. Don't pay attention when you're making mac and cheese with a parent standing by and you have burnt mac and cheese. Fire a gun incautiously, even with a parent standing by, and you may have an injured or dead person on your hands.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
Not even sure where to start, but here goes anyway. I don't think our solution or even a factor in gun related violence is due to children being taught to hunt or shoot when they are under 18. It should be required that parents who are active gun owners teach them about safety and the dangers of a gun. If the family owns guns, the kids should at least be educated on the dangers, why you own them and what they are meant for. That doesn't mean just let them start shooting anything you own or leave them unsecured. All guns should always be secured and kids should not be allowed to shoot them without parental supervision. Unfortunately, there are lots of bad parents who won't abide by this which correlates to higher risks than most other poor parenting situations.
My life experience allowed me to start shooting a BB gun at the age of 7. I was trained and lectured on proper usage for days before I got to even handle the BB gun by myself. It was the only gun I was allowed until I turned 12 and got an air rifle (pump bb gun and pellet gun combo). Another lesson ensued. Did I do a lot of dumb things, yes, but I also did a lot of dumb things when I started driving. In neither situation did I ever purposely do something to harm someone else, but I was way more likely to hurt others by my piss poor driving decisions than handling an air gun or even a .22 rifle once I turned 16. I still only got to shoot my dad's .270 when it was time for deer hunting. That gun scared the shit out of me at that age and I knew how dangerous it could be if used improperly. I don't think I can say the same for my attitude towards vehicle safety and driving a 2 ton hunk of metal that could go 100mph and oblitrate anything in it's path as well.
I guess my point is that while those who have never handled a gun may not understand why any "kid" should be allowed to handle a gun, that doesn't mean it is a cause to our current problems. It seems a lot of the cause comes from negligent parents who either allow unrestricted access or enable poor behavior and usage (in the case of kids under 18, anyway). There are also parents of kids who are out of high school allowing access to their guns without knowledge of their intentions or mental state, which has contributed to a few of the recent incidents. I can't possibly imagine what the parents of these active shooters thought they knew about their kids before these incidents happened. It's easy to call them negligent dopes now because it's so clear to us, but I would bet that if I had become an active shooter at that age, you could have pointed to several personal instances where I was emotionally unstable, angry or disturbed about social status and had access to a gun, yet I never had that thought to harm others. I played violent video games, watched horror movies and did whatever other reason you could consider a factor. I can't say that I never thought about harming myself and with access to guns, I was probably a higher percentage risk, but I didn't do it.
There is a cognitive breakdown somewhere in the spectrum of when these instances occur for these people. Obviously whether they have access to firearms and what type of social emotional support, or lack there of, they have seem like the 2 biggest factors to me on if they can carry out their plan. Right now, it's easy to see that the firearms are the one thing we could readily control in these situations because without them the number of victims wouldn't be 10, 20, 50 and so on. I do believe that there is no purpose for an AR-15 style gun being available to the public unless you go through an extensive background check, apply for a permit and have grounds for it's use. Obviously bump stocks need to go and as many provisions as possible need to be in place on gun owners to secure their firearms. Written laws and policies won't stop mass shootings any more than they stop rape, murder and robbery, but they can be a proactive deterrent to lower the numbers if we can start enforcing stricter regulations around gun ownership. In time, the gun culture could evolve, but not without the support from the NRA (fat chance unfortunately).
I no longer own guns or shoot guns, but I have been around them enough in my life to understand we can make simple changes to help protect our future generations and bring these numbers down.
Yeah I think there's a little bit of overprotective nature from my fellow lefties on here. Kids have been operating dangerous tools like guns and cars and farm equipment for many generations, and yes, it's true that there have been many maiming and life ending accidents to go along with that, so I understand the nature of the feeling. Country life is different. The thing is, kids did those things because they were a part of life, and you don't hold your kids back from life if you want them to grow into confident and competent adults. Also, the kids were totally needed for their help. The counter argument is that life has changed and kids don't need to hunt/drive/operate machines and tools, but I think that is false and it's entirely born of an unsustainable way of life. I've seen some very harsh words for hunters from people who eat meat from a grocery store every day and never once think about the fact that it was once a living animal with beautiful eyes...and then some person (or even worse, machine) killed it, bled it out, gutted it, skinned it, and chopped it up into neat little unrecognisable chunks so they can enjoy it as delicious food without care. It's understandable that that way of thinking (and the accompanying disdain for kids using guns) has arisen in our sanitized metropolitan lifestyle, but that is NOT a viable option for the future of this planet and our survival on it. I think that proper supervision and a little bit of risk is a combination that has worked for a long time, and either without the other isn't as strong.
My son will learn to drive the tractor, he will learn to use a knife, he will learn to shoot a gun, he will learn to use drills and saws and tools, and he will learn his place in the food chain with the always solemn burden and sometimes thrilling experience of ending a life respectfully and with dignity. In that order, beginning as soon as he's ready.
He will not have access to firearms until he has a home of his own though.
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
Because the children hunting is not a damn issue. They are not the ones shooting up schools. The ones that are seems to be ones with too much time on their hands and parents that do not spend quality time with them doing things like hunting. Hunting is no more of a causal factor than video games. Would you rather a child that has been hunting since they were 10 purchasing a rifle at 18 or the kid whose only experience with guns is through Call of Duty purchasing one at 18?
i would prefer the dad didn't have guns in the house for the son to take to shoot up his school.
N.J. teens shot guns this weekend and thought it was 'really cool'
Sebastian Mongeau fulfilled a lifelong ambition on Sunday.
"I always wanted to shoot a gun since I was a kid," said Sebastion, who at 14 years old arguably still is one.
But now the brawny Lacey High School freshman is a kid who's fired not only a 9mm Glock pistol, but also a fearsome Stag Arms AR-10 semi-automatic rifle, thanks to an event titled, "Common Sense Gun Safety Training for Students," on Sunday, organized in response to an incident in March that angered Second Amendment activists and parents in the generally gun-friendly Ocean County community.
So how was his first pull of a real, live trigger?
"It was really cool," said Sebastian, who now more than ever wants his own Desert Eagle semi-automatic handgun.
"I thought it would have more kick," added Sebastian, who got a ride to the event at a Middlesex County gun range from his half-brother, John Barrow, 24, also of Lacey.
The event was held at the Union Hill Gun Club in Monroe, organized by the president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, Alexander Roubian, in response to the disciplining of two Lacey High School students after one of them had posted a photo on Facebook taken at a gun range they were visiting with adults during non-school hours.
No threat of violence accompanied the photo and no criminal activity was ever alleged by authorities. And Roubian was one of 200 or so people who packed a school board meeting where district officials were repeatedly accused of meddling in a perfectly legal family activity, off campus and after school hours. One father was cheered after telling school officials, "It's none of your damn business what our children do outside of school."
Participants in Sunday's free event were given a safety briefing by the gun club's chief instructor and safety officer, Rocco La Rocca II, a National Rifle Association-certified firearms instructor and counselor. La Rocca also runs a self-defense training firm known as ROC -- "Recognize, Organize, Counteract" -- based at Union Hill Gun Club, a two-story indoor shooting range owned by Paul and Beth Picone that also includes the Legend Firearms gun shop, tucked away on a wooded stretch on Union Hill Road.
The Lacey school district was not officially involved in the event.
During Sunday's briefing, participants were given a list of safety precautions, including these three "NRA Gun Safety Rules":
Keep the gun pointed in a safe direction
Keep your finger off the shoot trigger until ready to shoot
keep the gun unloaded until ready to use
To those, La Rocca added two more points:
Always assume a firearm is loaded and act accordingly.
When forced to use a gun, be mindful not only of what or who your target is, but also of what, or who, is behind it.
Sunday's event was two days after the nation's latest mass school shooting, when eight students and two teachers were killed on Friday in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities say a 17-year-old student used a shotgun and a handgun legally owned by his father and kept in the attic of their house.
Asked how gun safety education might minimize the chances of harm in mass shootings like Friday's, La Rocca did not hesitate to hold parents accountable.
"Very simple, the parents themselves should know that firearms themselves are mechanical devices that can injure somebody or themselves," La Rocca said in n interview after the briefing. "Why don't you lock them up? Why don't you do that? Why don't you buy a safe? I've had some (adult) students come in my class and say, 'Oh, no, it's fine, it's in the drawer.' No it's not. No it's not. Get a safe."
A Rutgers survey of gun-safety studies recently published in Health Promotion Practice found that safety training is unlikely to prevent harmful or fatal mishaps when guns are accessible to young children. The survey found that:
Children ages 4-9 who participate in gun safety programs often ignore what they learned when encountering a real firearm without adult supervision
Boys are more likely to ignore safety rules than girls
Few studies have been done on gun safety programs for children beyond 4th grade.
how utterly absurd. a kid that age can't legally drive a car but hey let's let him shoot guns. what a good idea. the last 3 points of the story show how stupid it is. jeezus our guns laws are so utterly fucking stupid.
Utterly absurd to teach kids how to safely handle a firearm and shoot? The kids were in high school, not 4-9. You can’t own a gun until 18 but you can legally hunt and handle a gun around the age of ten.
you seriously don't see how asinine it is to allow a 10-15 year old to hunt and handle a gun? i just can't fathom how anyone can think that is ok.
I see it perfectly normal . My kids will hunt with me when they turn ten but to each their own.
so where do you and the others here who see nothing wrong with a 10 year old shooting a gun draw the line? will you share alcohol with them to promote alcohol safety? will you let them drive to promote automobile safety? what else, besides guns, do you allow them to handle to teach safety at such an early age? is it ONLY guns you allow at such a young age? and if so why? i'm curious about the mind set here.
If you aren't teaching about all those things you mentioned at an early age then you aren't parenting or teaching...
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
Teaching about alcohol doesn’t equate to giving kids alcohol. Teaching about driving safely doesn’t equate to letting kids drive. Why should shooting a gun be different?
Because the children hunting is not a damn issue. They are not the ones shooting up schools. The ones that are seems to be ones with too much time on their hands and parents that do not spend quality time with them doing things like hunting. Hunting is no more of a causal factor than video games. Would you rather a child that has been hunting since they were 10 purchasing a rifle at 18 or the kid whose only experience with guns is through Call of Duty purchasing one at 18?
i would prefer the dad didn't have guns in the house for the son to take to shoot up his school.
I have zero clue as to why some parents don't lock their guns up with a gun lock or in a safe. It really isn't hard.
Comments
Oh Please...offer more to the conversation because it's unhealthy...
Hmmmmmmm I'm sensing a bit of Projection here...
I'm not sure that the pro-life, pro-DP is the same either
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
I shot my first gun at 10. But it was more of a father-son thing than teaching me about safety. We spent a lot of time on safety though. I probably wouldn't want to be at a range next to a 10-year-old with an AK-47. My dad took us out to the woods to go shooting without anyone else around, and spent a lot of time on safety before I got to take my first shot.
My dad was a cop, guns were part of his job. He kept them locked up and away from us. We would go 2-3 times a year. It was something we both looked forward to every time. I was probably 15 before I shot anything other than a .22.
I used to sit on my fathers lap as a kid and steer the car, got to drive a go cart and golf cart at an early age too. Was taught about drinking, drugs and sex at a young age.
When I was younger, my father limited me to certain guns: in particular, a .22 and a .410 shotgun. It was only as I got older,stronger and displayed competency that I 'graduated' to larger caliber guns like my dad's .30-06.
Teaching kids gun safety, respect for guns and how to handle them at an early age is wise- otherwise... they're staring down the barrel wondering why the gun never went off after they pulled the trigger.
* And again (it seems as if this point is either stupid or lost on people)... there is NO solution for the short term. The country needs to begin taking the steps so that in 10-20 years... a difference can be made. People have sacrificed more for quality of life (young American men buried in Europe for example). It's time to admit to necessity and embrace a meaningful change effort.
Very Intelligent answer from *You're Blanched*...come on *You're Blanched*???
Do you think letting kids drink and letting them drive (not drink and drive) at a young age is still a good idea?
Hell, tons of children get life altering injuries from sports. Why are you worried about the 10 year old learning to shoot a pheasant or deer?
I have no problem with showing them how to drive, shoot a gun, hammer a nail, fix a flat on a bike, operate a boat, make mac n cheese on a stove, start a fire, light a firework...
All things I did as a child. Things I've done with my younger cousins and friends' kids.
I have had one parent tell me it's ok with the fireworks and another parent right next to them tell me no so it's not for everyone I guess, but you need to teach kids about things. They are curious and you want them to be safe
Kids have been operating dangerous tools like guns and cars and farm equipment for many generations, and yes, it's true that there have been many maiming and life ending accidents to go along with that, so I understand the nature of the feeling.
Country life is different.
The thing is, kids did those things because they were a part of life, and you don't hold your kids back from life if you want them to grow into confident and competent adults. Also, the kids were totally needed for their help.
The counter argument is that life has changed and kids don't need to hunt/drive/operate machines and tools, but I think that is false and it's entirely born of an unsustainable way of life.
I've seen some very harsh words for hunters from people who eat meat from a grocery store every day and never once think about the fact that it was once a living animal with beautiful eyes...and then some person (or even worse, machine) killed it, bled it out, gutted it, skinned it, and chopped it up into neat little unrecognisable chunks so they can enjoy it as delicious food without care.
It's understandable that that way of thinking (and the accompanying disdain for kids using guns) has arisen in our sanitized metropolitan lifestyle, but that is NOT a viable option for the future of this planet and our survival on it.
I think that proper supervision and a little bit of risk is a combination that has worked for a long time, and either without the other isn't as strong.
My son will learn to drive the tractor, he will learn to use a knife, he will learn to shoot a gun, he will learn to use drills and saws and tools, and he will learn his place in the food chain with the always solemn burden and sometimes thrilling experience of ending a life respectfully and with dignity. In that order, beginning as soon as he's ready.
He will not have access to firearms until he has a home of his own though.
I'm not saying it never happens, but every 10 year old I've seen at the range has a parent hovering over their every move, over-explaining every safety feature, walks them through every step slowly.
I know several years ago that instructor was killed because that little girl couldn't handle the recoil, but that was just dumb, if I remember they gave her some semi-auto assault rifle. I think doing that at a range is a terrible idea.
And I've seen college-aged kids go to the range for the first time and act like what you think the 10 year old would. Probably because they've gone for the first time and no one has ever taught them about basic safety rules.
I have no problem with most of what you've listed here, but I think there is a real comparison between hammering a nail or making mac and cheese, and firing a gun. Hammer a nail incautiously and you've got a bruised thumb. Don't pay attention when you're making mac and cheese with a parent standing by and you have burnt mac and cheese. Fire a gun incautiously, even with a parent standing by, and you may have an injured or dead person on your hands.
My life experience allowed me to start shooting a BB gun at the age of 7. I was trained and lectured on proper usage for days before I got to even handle the BB gun by myself. It was the only gun I was allowed until I turned 12 and got an air rifle (pump bb gun and pellet gun combo). Another lesson ensued. Did I do a lot of dumb things, yes, but I also did a lot of dumb things when I started driving. In neither situation did I ever purposely do something to harm someone else, but I was way more likely to hurt others by my piss poor driving decisions than handling an air gun or even a .22 rifle once I turned 16. I still only got to shoot my dad's .270 when it was time for deer hunting. That gun scared the shit out of me at that age and I knew how dangerous it could be if used improperly. I don't think I can say the same for my attitude towards vehicle safety and driving a 2 ton hunk of metal that could go 100mph and oblitrate anything in it's path as well.
I guess my point is that while those who have never handled a gun may not understand why any "kid" should be allowed to handle a gun, that doesn't mean it is a cause to our current problems. It seems a lot of the cause comes from negligent parents who either allow unrestricted access or enable poor behavior and usage (in the case of kids under 18, anyway). There are also parents of kids who are out of high school allowing access to their guns without knowledge of their intentions or mental state, which has contributed to a few of the recent incidents. I can't possibly imagine what the parents of these active shooters thought they knew about their kids before these incidents happened. It's easy to call them negligent dopes now because it's so clear to us, but I would bet that if I had become an active shooter at that age, you could have pointed to several personal instances where I was emotionally unstable, angry or disturbed about social status and had access to a gun, yet I never had that thought to harm others. I played violent video games, watched horror movies and did whatever other reason you could consider a factor. I can't say that I never thought about harming myself and with access to guns, I was probably a higher percentage risk, but I didn't do it.
There is a cognitive breakdown somewhere in the spectrum of when these instances occur for these people. Obviously whether they have access to firearms and what type of social emotional support, or lack there of, they have seem like the 2 biggest factors to me on if they can carry out their plan. Right now, it's easy to see that the firearms are the one thing we could readily control in these situations because without them the number of victims wouldn't be 10, 20, 50 and so on. I do believe that there is no purpose for an AR-15 style gun being available to the public unless you go through an extensive background check, apply for a permit and have grounds for it's use. Obviously bump stocks need to go and as many provisions as possible need to be in place on gun owners to secure their firearms. Written laws and policies won't stop mass shootings any more than they stop rape, murder and robbery, but they can be a proactive deterrent to lower the numbers if we can start enforcing stricter regulations around gun ownership. In time, the gun culture could evolve, but not without the support from the NRA (fat chance unfortunately).
I no longer own guns or shoot guns, but I have been around them enough in my life to understand we can make simple changes to help protect our future generations and bring these numbers down.
Dirty, I think our fathers might be related lol.