Al Pachino’s Scarface played as the 13-year-old boy sat inches away, glued to the 60-inch plasma screen. The famous line, “Say hello to my little friend,” echoed when his father came to tell his son that they were all set on lane 4. This 13-year-old boy is just one of the many children learning to properly handle and use guns for their own future safety.
The federal law prohibits ownership of handguns for anyone under the age of 18. However, there is no minimum age for possession of a long gun (rifle), which is what the boy was learning on.
Shooting ranges have different, more specific gun laws and regulations. According to the New York Penal Law § 265.05, “…persons between the ages of 12 and 15 may use and possess firearms…at a shooting range if under the ‘immediate supervision, guidance and instruction’ of a military officer, verified instructor, parent, guardian, or otherwise qualified person as provided by statute.”
Blueline Tactical Supply & Shooting Sports, a shooing range located in Westchester County, clearly outlines the regulations to use their facility. They state, “Your child who is older than 12 years but not yet 16 years, may accompany you onto the range for the purpose of shooting introduction/demonstration and/or long gun shooting by the child. The child must be physically able to control the firearm to shoot it. The child must remain in the same lane as you.”
For this to be outlined thoroughly on their website, there must be a high demand for the use of the facility by minors. The boy’s father, who preferred to remain unnamed, said, “He’s been shooting since he was 10. When I was a kid I was shooting way before that. It builds character… I would rather him know how to handle a gun than not.”
He handed his son a rifle, which was a single-shot .22 caliber. This was not the same gun that the father was using. His father was using a much louder sounding, higher recoiling, semi-automatic rifle. His son, headset on ears, safety glasses on nose, and gloves on hands, excitedly skipped towards the table where the ammunition laid. The second he reached the table his eager mood changed completely. His body became still, his feet became planted to the floor, his breathing slowed down, and his excitement disappeared from his face. He slowly loaded the rifle with the .22 bullets with perfect attentiveness. The 13-year old boy’s maturity was no longer that of a child’s as he prepared for shooting.
In his 2014 column “Letting Kids Shoot Guns is Good for Them” in Time Magazine, Dan Baum explains what happens as a child steps up to the table. It reads: “Shooting a rifle accurately requires children to quiet their minds. Lining up the sights on a distant target takes deep concentration. Children must slow their breathing and tune into the beat of their hearts to be able to squeeze the trigger at precisely the right moment. Holding a rifle steady takes large-motor skills, and touching the trigger correctly takes small motor skills; doing both at once engages the whole brain.” Learning these skills at a young age can serve as a platform for learning and discipline as children continue to develop and grow.
Organizations have responded to the growing demand in parents who want their children to be well knowledged in shooting and safety. The YSSA, The Youth Shooting Sports Alliance, is a program that allows young children to receive the proper gun safety education through professional help. The YSSA extends their hand to help “support the needs of successful and safe youth programs” and “provide leadership in the development and promotion of family-friendly shooting range facilities to encourage continued participation in the shooting sports.”
Blueline Tactical Supply & Shooting Sports offers their own youth league for children ranging in ages 12 to 18. Their purpose is to provide “appropriate competitive opportunities and socialization in a responsible atmosphere.”
“There is no shortage of children for this program. In fact we sometimes have to do waiting lists for the youth events,” the membership coordinator at the shooting range explained as another parent walked towards the counter with his two sons.
There have been numerous issues that have arisen in the past regarding accidental shootings by children who would argue that children should not be around guns at all. While for critics accidents bring up obvious concerns regarding children and guns. However, some parents would argue that these horrible accidents are the reasons that learning gun safety is key in these youth programs.
First, from an early age, children are taught safe-storage precautions that would keep their firearms out of the hands of their inexperienced children in the future. Many of the other cases stated in the article are solely because their parents did not follow the safe-storage rules. In result, children found their parent’s firearms improperly laying around in bedrooms of the house and fatal accidents in result occurred.
According to USA Today, 70 percent of deaths could have been avoided if gun owners had just stored their guns responsibly. The issue of child safety and the accidental shootings occurring have a large part in the parents’ ignorance to proper storage safety due to lack of instruction. The National Institute of Health found that “43 percent of homes with children and firearms report having at least one unlocked firearm… deaths of children are at least 10 times higher in the U.S…” These youth programs teach children storage safety from a young age so that in the future when they have kids of their own, they will have been practicing storage safety for many years and preventable accidents can be evaded.
Second, these children who are unaware of the dangers of guns are more likely to be the causes of accidents. Children who are a part of the gun community are conscious and alert to the risks that come along with it and would not be fooling around with guns. Children who are taught from an early age will have the knowledge of how to handle guns and they can help mitigate the issue of the accidental child shootings.
Perhaps gun laws should include rules that state if a parent has guns in the house, children must be required to register for youth shooting programs like the YSSA in order to increase awareness of the severity of the guns that are under the same roof.
A commonly proposed remedy for the issue has been to increase gun regulations and make it more difficult for the purchase of firearms. However, according to the Forbes article titled, “Disarming Realities: As Gun Sales Soar, Gun Crimes Plummet,” only “two percent [of prison inmates] who owned a gun at the time of their offense bought it at either a gun show or a flea market [legally]. About 10 percent said they purchased their gun from a retail shop or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source.” Creating restrictions on gun sales will only affect a small percentage of gun owners. People will find a way to obtain their guns whether it is in a legal fashion or not.
Firearm sales are at an all time high in 2015 based on the surge in background checks since 2011, according to Time Magazine’s article titled, “This Year’s Gun Sales Could Set Record for U.S.”
Gun crimes are actually lower than it has been in the past despite the contrary belief. A Pew Research Center study found that “U.S. gun homicides rose in the 1960’s, gained in the 1970’s, peaked in the 1980s and the early 1990s, and then plunged and leveled out the past 20 years.” According to their research, “56% [of Americans] believed gun-related crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% said its lower…26% believed it says that same and 6% didn’t know.”
So over the past 20 years, gun sales have increased while gun-related violence has decreased. But why does it seem that there is shared assumption that gun-violence has increased over the past 20 years? This can be credited to the large increase in media outlets that are running 24/7 and are broadcasting a significant amount more of the problems that are occurring globally. Twenty years ago there was not coverage that was as extensive as it is today.
Although more children at shooting ranges learning proper safety precautions and techniques may sound crazy at first; these provisions taken will lead to a safer future for gun users and non-gun users alike. Teaching safety will act as a lifelong lesson that should be learned and absorbed at a young age in order to start a new cycle of consistent and educated gun use, passed on from generation to generation.