General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Gun culture" begins with parents. Any law that doesn't restrict parents won't change gun culture. [View all]ancianita
(36,023 posts)adults, then what is education for at all. AT ALL. I've been a high school, college prep teacher. Why would people send their kids to me for 34 years, to teach the basics of civilization's morality through its culture, while I also have to accept less of those parents as gun owners.
You're concentrating on adults. I'm talking about the maintaining of the moral code of their descendants.
If I have to face that adults -- and that's who you're concentrating on here -- have the constitutional right to produce fucked up, self serving uses for guns as "fun" ways to relate to their children -- in spite of all your pragmatic training -- then they shouldn't be allowed to own guns until their children are age 21.
Saying they can use guns however they choose, no matter their training -- if they're willing to bear the cost or take the consequences -- is like telling them they have the freedom of speech to shout "fire," incite crime, spew "fighting words," make true threats, and share obscenity as defined by the Miller test/child porn. When you imply that we can do nothing but let them have guns and just use them as their free wills see fit.
But I'm talking about the moral imperative of adults to morally train their children through parents' own mandatory training in use of a life threatening tool they own.
Cooking education teaches the absolute morality of knife use, and so can gun training for parents. I learned how to cut a whole chicken at age 11, how to handle, sharpen, clean and store knives. I learned how to clean, handle, store guns and how to shoot game. Not play at throwing knives into boards, thrill contests, shoot targets or anything I wouldn't eat, or point any of them at unarmed people. I call that respect for the tools that can protect or kill.
Finally, I'm glad you said this:
Because that right there is morality. Respect contains within it the recognition of humanity's and living creatures' right to exist, the effort of empathy that is our duty as humans, and the best kind of fear of the power of the tool.