A few thoughts:

- Perhaps we have different ideas of the appropriate age to wean kids off of toys and teach them to use real (and sometimes dangerous) things. Today's discussion is about guns, but the same could be said for boats, motorcycles, woodworking equipment, etc. I would like my children to be well rounded and well equipped when they become adults. However, I acknowledge that this may not be normal anymore: Many families seem to be content with their teenagers playing games all day long (ironically, games with guns!)

- It sounds like you have the gun in a "toy" category. For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility. I would rather my kids never get used to guns as toys.

- This is bigger than just personal decisions: In my state, teenagers used to be allowed to work on construction sites in the summers. By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!

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Dylan16807 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Unsupervised access to most dangerous tools can wait until they're teenagers. Dangerous tools shouldn't be the only option.

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crusty 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How big are your feet? Because the shoe horn you just used to squeeze your barely veiled disdain for parentting "choices" that aren't like yours into this thread about user-adversarial parental settings by major game system manufacturers was massive.

	▲	sojsurf 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This thread was a follow-up to squibonpig's comment about the parental responsibility and the value of giving young people access to things that are dangerous when it's done with proper guidance. I agree with him, with the caveat that "the internet" is dangerous more like a city at night than a gun.

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BeetleB 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility.

The same is true for cars. Are you also against toy cars?

> By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!

This is a totally different issue from access to games. Why couple the two? Are you implying one cannot be taught those skills if they have access to games?

	▲	sojsurf 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Are you implying one cannot be taught those skills if they have access to games? Nah, I think games can be very valuable, especially communal, in-person games. I don't mind access to games at all... I think I look at the various forces around children and teens today, and it feels like we've taken away a lot of the things that were very valuable for development because they might be dangerous, and replaced them with replicas that are safe but lack some of the value and experience that came with the dangerous thing. As an example, hunting games are safer than hunting, but hunting games do not teach you to be patient and still for hours, they do not teach gun safety, they do not teach you to stick it out when things get cold and uncomfortable. They do not teach you how to do something useful with the animal after you shot it, and there is no real cost to being sloppy and injuring but not killing an animal that is now suffering in the woods. I'm sure you've heard people talk about the "infantilization" of young adults. What factors do you see behind this? How would you suggest we teach young people how to do hard things?