These people have an agenda, and a narrative. It isn’t going to be beaten back by rational analysis.

The want to make guns socially unacceptable. Something that nice people don’t like, and don’t have, while they rely on money (gated neighborhoods and security guards) to protect them.

After all, if you admit to owning a gun, or liking them, you have identified yourself as an ill educated racist redneck.

Water balloons pollute more. You've got little bits of rubber all over your yard... and don't think your kids will find every last piece... that are likely to get eaten by birds and things.

Yes, water guns are plastic too but can be used over and over again for years.

Water balloons cause ACTUAL harm.

Also, with a water gun you can hit someone from far away.

That said water balloons are fun as well.

Of course they should. That way he will know how to behave in polite company. Gun safety culture is the same all over the world. It’s a cross-cultural, internationally accepted set of practices. More believers than any religion. More followers than any political party. Enforced sternly at the local, even personal, level without any counter-protest. If you want something we can all agree on, gun safety may be number one.

Colonel Jeff Cooper (USMC, dec.), and co-founder of the modern handgun techniqe, lists the four rules for gun safety. But his commentaries are fun reading on their own..

http://dvc.org.uk/jeff/

Can’t fundamentally destroy a society without going after the kids minds. Making them paranoid of toy guns. Or pictures of guns, in 5 years it will be turn in parents if they have a gun in the house.

At the very least, parents should have the sense to say no to any toy gun that looks somewhat real from a distance, if they don't want the child-owner to get shot by someone ELSE.

Also, parents have every RIGHT to say, whether the item is a toy gun or not: "If you want something, pay for it yourself. The only free items you'll ever get from me are the ones *I* think of giving first."

If lefties were serious about ending "gun culture," they'd stop their Hollywood allies from making movies that glorify it.

Entertaining police and crime shows can be made without guns. The British do it all the time. Americans used to. Columbo rarely pulled out his gun. It was probably as rusty as his car.

What you have to understand is that there's so much inefficiency and corruption in Hollywood that American movie studios need foreign market revenue to be profitable. You can't pay Denzel Washington $10 million and the mob $2 million for trucking services and make a profit with only a modest showing.

That means foreign distribution to markets hungry for cinematic fare; and that means Asia. Asia, where so many languages must be sub-titled for the audiences that the sub-titles often obscure the screen. That means less dialogue and more action. Big action. Things need to explode, people need to be shot, and cars need to chased. Alien invaders need to be fought and superheroes need to battle to save the planet; not just cities or even countries, but the planet itself.

So, Hollywood preaches gun control and then glorifies guns and violence. It's not hypocrisy, it's business.

People are amazed we have a gun problem in this country. How do you think we got the country in the first place? In a slap fight? ~ Nick DiPaolo

Also, parents have every RIGHT to say, whether the item is a toy gun or not: "If you want something, pay for it yourself. The only free items you'll ever get from me are the ones *I* think of giving first."

Lenona at April 23, 2021 1:06 AM

The Ebenezer Scrooge parenting gambit. Designed for those who want their children to move out as soon as possible and never return, (even to make sure that the cat hasn’t eaten you).

"Also, parents have every RIGHT to say, whether the item is a toy gun or not: "If you want something, pay for it yourself. The only free items you'll ever get from me are the ones *I* think of giving first."

Lenona at April 23, 2021 1:06 AM"

It only works when the grandparents don't live in the same city.

It's not even the inlaws that will mess with your authority. It's gonna be your own parents who will mess with your authority.

Fair warning: The angrier you will be at them, the broader the sh*t-eating grin they will give back at you.

Water balloons are simply dummy grenades. This ninny wants kids to learn how to lob grenades at their enemies?

Will someone think of the children!

Hollywood preaches gun control and then glorifies guns and violence.

This is precisely why I can't stand Liam Neeson.

This is precisely why I can't stand Liam Neeson. ~ IRA Darth Aggie at April 23, 2021 6:55 AM

Don't leave out Danny Glover. Glover, star of violent films such as the Lethal Weapon series, Silverado, and Predator 2, is an ardent gun-control advocate.

The NYT might have been published in German if not for men with guns.

Isab and Sixclaws,

I only phrased it that way to keep it short. There is no reason why parents who WANT to give their children thoughtfully selected toys or fun experiences on a weekly basis can't do so, just as long as the kids are polite enough to WAIT for the parent to ask "is there something you'd like? What is it?" That way, they learn to prioritize instead of voicing every whim - and not to beg and whine, over and over. Plus, they learn to save their money - and maybe even ask to EARN money around the house.

Not to mention that if they take the kids out regularly for experiences such as free concerts or free items listed on Craiglist, it helps them to think twice about spending money in general when so many freebies are available when you look. (Btw, my father and I, as adults, would regularly have elaborately mapped yard-saling outings in the summer - he would insist on spending no more than five minutes at each yard sale - except when he wanted to chat with the owners - so that we could cram in as many sales as possible before they closed.)

And, for what it's worth, I sometimes wonder where all these stories of spoiling grandparents come from, when I hear just as many stories of grandparents who don't want to be with their grandchildren that much, let alone shower them with presents, because the millennial PARENTS spoil their kids badly when it comes to behavior.

And, for the record, the Frugal Zealot (Amy Dacyczyn) had that rule with her six kids. That is, whenever they went shopping (whether at the supermarket or a yard sale), if a kid demanded something, her response was "where is your money?" Her kids also had to earn their money; they didn't get allowances. This meant they were empowered, since they didn't have to wait for allowance day to roll around; they could earn money whenever they wanted.

Want proof that it worked out well? See here for the 2013 interviews with her three daughters (her sons didn't want to be interviewed). One of them said that while they seldom had anything new, they were, in fact, materially spoiled - and emotionally spoiled,

http://thefrugalshrink.blogspot.com/search/label/Dacyczyn%20Interviews

Quote from the youngest, Laura (she was about 22 at the time):

"My advice to parents is that children depend less on money for happiness than adults do. It doesn’t matter if the toy costs fifty cents or fifty dollars, they are just going to play with the box it came in anyways. My fondest memories of childhood are not of the toys or clothes I owned, instead they are of the family I spent my time with and the general wonder of being a child. On the flip side, the most negative memories I have of childhood are in no way connected to money."

From a past thread, here:

Amy Dacyczyn has 6 kids (born from 1983 to 1991) and a 100-year-old, 2,500-square-foot Maine farmhouse attached to a 4,500-square-foot barn (this doesn't include the two attics, the carriage house, and the icehouse). About her oldest son, she said:

"Alec turned 13 this fall (1996). Despite the pessimistic predictions about teenagers chafing at the yoke of frugality, he seems to have few wants. He has a science lab, a telescope, model rockets and a launching pad, an archery range, a metal detector, a like-new bike, cross-country skis, fishing gear, camping equipment, his own kitten and so on. When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday, all he could come up with was a new watch."

And, in 1994, she was able to feed her family of eight - in Maine - on $180 a month - the fact that impressed people the most. One source says that's $321.71 dollars, in 2021. Yes, they ate a lot of rice and beans - but also a lot of produce from their garden. Plus some meat.

Ugh, the undermining parents thing is SO TRUE. My Mom really wants my ten-year-old to have a smart phone or ipad. I keep telling her if she gets her one, I will be taking it away. She's top of her class, I don't need her getting addicted to screens just yet. I know how addictive this stuff can be, there's a reason Gates and Jobs didn't let their kids have them.

My Mom is acting like I'm some crazy luddite. I'm not. The kids can use our computers sometimes for movies or games.

A child of 10 that isn't a moral defective should be trained to respect the responsibility of firing a firearm.

G Gordon Liddy talked about his "scared straight" approach with the kids where at an impressionable age, he exposed them to a .45 into several watermelons as a surprise and without hearing protection, followed by a promise that, once older, he'd teach them how to respect and use the gun. Literature and culture used to be replete with examples of stories of boys misusing a gun (a .22, a pellet gun, a sling shot) and shooting e.g., a bird, and then having remorse over having so callously brought its death. Childish things have to be put aside; training to be self-sufficient used to do that. Hunting and fishing used to teach reverence and respect for life.

These same pearl-clutchers would also be against instilling a respect for the awesome responsibility of personal firearm ownership because they live in a society in which they are insulated from negative consequences and from scarcity.

Count yourself lucky NicoleK. My father spent over a year trying to keep my kids from getting potty trained. It got bad enough I had to ban him from the kids for half a year.

> How do you think we got the
> country in the first place?

I used to work (in the beating heart of Hollywood) with a lot of very sincere young people. One day I passed through a conversation in the scheduling department, which had apparently decided that Israel was the most troublesome nation… I asked why. "Because Israel defined its borders by a war!"

What you think I said next is exactly what they heard, and the look on their faces will gladden my heart 'til the day I die.

Yes, let's talk about that fine, upstanding G. Gordon Liddy, doddering ex-con and gibbering moonbat.

But the real question is, should we allow our boys to bite pieces off a Pop-Tart so that the remainder roughly forms the shape of a gun, and pretend to shoot someone with said gun?

That's odd... was it your potty training method he objected to, or training them at all?

Males of most species have to fight. This includes humans. The world is still a dangerous place. There are muggers, home invaders, antifa, and even crazy neighbors (ask Rand Paul about that). If antifa invades your neighborhood, it might be good to know how to defend yourself. Just because a person wants peace and kumbaya does not mean that the rest of the world will agree.

As kids we had pea shooter battles and my dad made us rubber-band guns. Good compromises and we got to actually shoot our friends (can't do that with a 22).

Beautiful quote.
People unused to power, don't often do well with it. Despite that diplomats from America helped foment rebellion in France, or that the day the American revolution was triggered occurred in response to the British seizing arms and ammunition in private communities, there's always crazies. An armed society is a polite society, said Heinlein. But I've stood in uniform where a day care became a bomb crater. Worked with victims of genocide, foreign and domestic victims of terror and in human rights. And grown wary and weary of what people can be convinced to do. Yet, I am a dinosaur, struggling in all sincerity to adapt to a world where so much of what I once believed seems no longer extant. As much as I challenge myself to see things from as many points of view as I can, I find myself treading the same old trails. There is nothing new in saying I'm not sure the solution to our problems is socially engineering Orwellian distrust, higher taxes and fewer freedoms. We seem to have less for which we're called upon that would anchor us forward, or that would cast some light into our shadows. I get it, though. It is American to disagree. And we do it as well as anybody.

Training them at all, NicoleK. Both he and my wife fought it. All the way to my wife putting anti-kid locks on the bathroom doors and stealing all the toilet paper.

A lot of people see potty training as a major developmental milestone. People who aren't able to accept kids growing up often freak out at that point. My father has an issue where he resents his father 'forcing him to grow up'. Supposedly a common issue with the boomers. Consequently he tried to infantilize my kids. Looking back I can see where he tried to do the same thing with me at random intervals. After being blindsided by this potty nonsense I am on a hair trigger to cut him off from the kids.

He also tried the ipad stuff like you had. Those ipads are very nice with educational software and kid safe wrappers . . . and spend 99% of their time on the top shelf in my closet. They are not good things for kids.

My SIL bought my son a BB gun. I paid her back by buying her kid a drum set.

Columbo rarely pulled out his gun. It was probably as rusty as his car.

Make that "never". Every few episodes someone would remind him that he needed to qualify at the shooting range, and he'd mumble some excuse.

Jeesus. You cite a television character?

So many are fantasizing a perfect life. If only they could VOTE it into being!

Jeesus. You cite a television character? ~ Radwaste at April 24, 2021 11:36 AM

Yes, as an example of popular non-violent crime programming once extant on American television. All in an argument that anti-gun Hollywood now glorifies guns and gun violence, while lamenting and criticizing it in non-cinematic life; as if that criticism in the midst of their glorification is not hypocrisy and somehow provides absolution.

> You cite a television character?

You voted for one.

I mean, Raddy, you ELECTED one. To 'the highest office in the land.' What was your 'fantasy' of 'perfection'?