Just heard a report on the radio this morning that the NRA has issued an "APP" that helps improving ones aim, and gives information on gun laws in the users state...aimed at 4 and above! Indefensible.
From what I understand it has three "game modes" -- two target and one skeet. While it may raise some ethical questions, its no doubt better than the popular violent video games kids are playing now.
I dont know about "better"...The ex 82nd Airborne Psychologist LtCol Dave Grossman has studied violent computer games and concluded that we are "training" killers. The Army has techniques to "make" a soldier point his weapon and fire without thinking...drop real people without a second thought and go on afterwards...the techniques are very similar or exact to what modern violent computer games are teaching our youth...The gaming fraternity would even have the ability to morph your and your friends face onto the computer combatants (around 2001)...but i think it was the FBI who put a ban on that...why? Both initiate the youth into a deadly weapon uneccesarily and then teach them how to use the weapon effiiciently...why? And the computer games teach that weapons are to be fired on people...just people...why? Leaving ones youth to watch the Wiggles is one thing, but leaving them with a death teaching machine seems ludicrous...
It's important to read the article and not just the headline. The NRA is not marketing its app as appropriate for 4 year olds. That is how iTunes rated the NRA app, at least, according to this article in Politico: Emphasis added by me.
I skimmed through that article earlier and missed the fact that iTunes, and not the NRA, assigned the rating. Thanks for pointing that out.
I started teaching my children how to shoot when they were around eight. My eldest is a pretty good shot and she enjoys shooting, although she has trouble cocking the .45. I was hunting by myself when I was 13 or 14, although I don't hunt anymore. I lost interest when I was in college. I sold my Remington Model 1100 around then. I wished I still had it. The only 12 gauge I have now is an ancient single-shot that was my father's when he was a boy. It kicks like a mule. It is close to a hundred years old and it was given to him by the sheriff after it was taken from a criminal.
The fact of the matter is that the NRA's Eddie Eagle program "simply teaches children not to touch firearms and to tell adults immediately if they should come into contact with a firearm of any kind." Unfortunately, that's not as sexy as "the NRA wants to turn our toddlers into murdering lunatics."
I was wondering if the NRA had come out with a new program. I've looked at Eddie Eagle, trying to find out if there's a program in my area that I can take my daughter to at some point (unfortunately, no), and from what I'd read, it wasn't teaching kids to shoot people, but just the opposite....to recognize the dangers in guns and to leave them alone until they get further training in firearm use and handling. As for the "violent video games training killers", I've been playing computer games for many years now. I must have defective copies....I haven't killed anyone yet. Come to think of it, none of my guns work, either, because they haven't jumped out of their storage and killed anyone randomly, either.
This is crap! The Army does not teach you to fire without thinking, in fact one of the things most highly stressed is not to fire unless the target has been identified as hostile. This prevents non-combatants from being whacked indescriminately. A praticularly important skill in the environments the military has been fighting in over the last 11 years. It's one form of discipline. I don't know how many "soldiers" you've been around, but they don't kill without a second thought. The people that you kill are always with you, they come visit you in your dreams during the night. I don't know where you came up with the "kill" without a second thought stuff. Want to cause a returning combat vet problems. Have somebody ask him, "how many people he killed". Anger and increased consumption of alcohol will then begin. In todays wars, just as in past wars, the vast majority of deployed military personnel are never shot at, nor ever shoot at someone else. They are there to support the troops that do engage in combat. If you run across someone bragging about how many people they have killed or that they did it without a "second thought" there is a 99.9% chance you have a poser. All this is not to say that a soldier will not kill without hesitation, you are trained to immediately assess the situation, determine if and which targets are hostile and quickly eliminate the threat, and continue the mission. It is not to say that prolonged exposure to combat and killing cannot make someone temporarily numb to the act and cause them to react kinetically to a perceived threat. This is part of the psychological toll, but is related to actual combat with all the sights, smells and real physical danger the servicemember is in, and the body's physiological responses. How many video games place you in real physical danger? How many cause an adrenaline dump? IMO, violent video games only negatively affect those that already have a personality flaw, and the long term exposure to virtual killing with no discipline, or exposure to the actual physical effects of killing, exacerbates flaws already found in a miswired brain. If it were the violent video games alone, and their psychological effect why not more of these killings, tens of millions of people play them? If violent video games do train the brain in a manner similar to training received by soldiers, why don't we have a rash of mass killings by soldiers returning from the war zone? Similar training should produce similar results, should it not? What if I told you that violent crime in schools has actually, steadily decreased since 1993, along with a nationwide decrease in violent crime? It's true! Technology over the same period has allowed for more graphically intense video games, more powerful systems allow for more lifelike graphics, and the popularity of some violent video games has led the multiple millions of copies of them being sold over the same period. Why no corresponding rise in the violent crime rate? Don't believe me? Here's an article from NPR, a source which really can't be painted as right wing, mindless gun supporting, propoganda: Violence In Schools: How Big A Problem Is It? : NPR I do not think guns are the problem either. How is this for a fact? Chicago, a city with some of the strictest gun control policies in the country had 532 people murdered last year, and 2670 people shot. Last year in Afghanistan the coalition, not just the United States 324 deaths due to hostile causes (there were an additional 81 non-hostile deaths for a total of 405 deaths in Afghanistan from all causes, but hostile deaths should be what we are using unless we want to include Chicago's death toll from natural causes and accidents.) So there were 208 more people killed violently in one US city than in the war zone of Afghanistan, and that city has some of the strictest gun control policies in the country. There is a problem, but the problem is likely not video games or guns.
What's indefensable about informing people and improving ones skills? I'd like to see some sources on that. Not sure how the FBO would have the authority to ban it for one thing. Check out any local gun or hunting clubs. There was a gun club back in my home town that had competative teams and they were always looking for new shooters. Most of them were pretty old but I competed as part of a team of high schoolers (most or all scouts). They also had frequent hunter safty courses (which I think were NRA sponsored) that were open to the public. If you can find one even if they don't currently have a youth program it might not be too difficult to convince them to start one.
I feel programs to make kids aware of the danger of careless gun handling is a good one. My dad and uncles taught me old school hunting at a young age. They taught me a shotgun is like a Skill Saw, it's a tool. A tool that is dangerous. But, I could carry unloaded guns for them into the field or woods. My first shot was from a .410 with my dad loading it. By the time I was 10, I proved myself capable. To this day, I will chew out anyone I hunt with about leveling the muzzle of a loaded shotgun, or other careless handling. I dated a lady for years. Her son was 7 when I met him. He went with me turkey hunting when he was 9. I no longer date his mom, but he still wants to go hunt turkeys. The cool part, (and I love this), is he won't shoot a gun ! He loves the sport ! I've made him into a darn good caller.
.. Okay...I mean thinking about the "human-ness" of the target...being able to take the person out without moving into shock, being able to move onto the next target. You are VERY correct about the effects "later"...indeed the degree of PTSD is what spawned his research...As for the other points, please give him a read...
In combat operations, you do not murder, you inflict casualties. The "target" is the enemy. The enemy is trying to kill you and your buddies. To keep a degree of sanity, it's had to differentiate that mindset with most people, even combat troops. If the trigger puller in question freezes up or hesitates after engaging the enemy, then he and or his comrades can become casualties as a result of "indecisiveness". I do not understand what you are getting to or fishing for CAC. USMCPrice explained himself quite well I believe.
I taught my son to shoot when he was five. He shot his first deer when he was five (or six?). We still hunt and shoot together today. Edited to add one more photo of George, a timber wolf who was the third partner and main meat-packer of our hunting trips.
I have no agenda mate...just the truth. I liked your paragraph, agree with it...almost totally : ) Just the bit about the enemy trying to kill you...of course this is a common situation, but not the only scenerio where one kills another...You kill the enemy, as you have said...that can be in any number of situations, its not always kill or be killed...indeed, these situations are much harder to deal with later than simple self defence. USMCPrice may have explained himself well...but im struggling here! : )
It's all good friend. Been away from the thread for awhile and went through it just now. It's always good to get things and ideas aired out.
