Younger generations take up arms
“Three-year-old boy shoots himself in the face after finding gun in grandmother’s purse.”
“Five-year-old girl fatally shoots brother with loaded rifle left in family room.”
“Inside the mind of a 14-year-old school shooter: a plot to kill 50 or 60 students, if lucky.”
“Sixth-grade girl arrested after threatening to bring a gun to school to kill students.”
Yes, these are real stories.
Guns are becoming increasingly normalized, being widely seen in the media, games, and even our own communities.
Due to their prevalence, guns have specifically captured the attention of one of our most impressionable generations: youth. Kids are now possessing an innate attraction towards guns—a fascination that may leave children vulnerable to the real dangers of guns.
With increasingly easy access to guns, more and more stories are emerging that include children shooting themselves or others around them, as well as children being exposed to gun violence. A study in the journal Pediatrics found that an average of 1,297 children die annually from gun-related injuries, making guns the third-leading cause of death for children in America.
As part of a hidden-camera ABCNEWS experiment, reporters captured the reactions of kids who have been taught gun safety, such as 15-year-old Anthony Galella, who said if he ever came across a gun, he would "call the cops and tell them."
Yet when Galella came across the disabled and placed gun at a YMCA New York, he picked up then put back the gun nine times. Instead of calling someone, he ended up stashing the weapon out of sight, to help him resist picking it up again.
"Something in my head was just telling me to touch it and play with it," he explained, according to ABCNEWS.
This experiment also extended to kids in an elementary school, who had been taught gun safety by police just days before and had been reminded of their lessons daily through a collective chant. However, when two kids found two guns in their toy dinosaur bin, they started to look down the barrel and pretend shoot things around the classroom.
Even activities such as laser tag or paintball promote the idea that targeting other human beings is pleasurable—and the person who does this most successfully is “the winner.”
In an Offspring article, writer Michelle Woo explored the thought-processes of kids when presented with guns, specifically from the perspective of a parent.
“Kids make guns out of crackers, toast, their fingers,” said Sylvia, the director of Woo’s daughter’s preschool. “They’re a prop for dramatic play. These kids are exploring issues of power because they’re at an age when they realize they don’t have any. People tell them when to go to bed, when to get up, when to go to school. They’re trying to figure out, ‘What power do I have?’”
According to the Center for Media Education, by the time children complete elementary school, they will witness more than 100,000 acts of violence on television, including 8,000 murders. These numbers double to 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders by the time they complete high school.
This violence in television, films, and video games has the potential to negatively affect some young viewers, priming them to act aggressively.
Several studies have demonstrated that teenagers who play violent video games are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior and violence than are children who play nonviolent video games.
Gun companies are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising and appealing to younger generations.
In 2013, part of the National Rifle Association’s annual convention “Youth Day” was hosted, enticing youngsters to attend by offering free six-month memberships to the NRA. The event drew hundreds, including kids too young to know the difference between a toy gun and a real one.
Junior Shooters, a gun-industry supported magazine that aims to involve children in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semi-automatic rifle. To conclude the accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15, youngsters were urged to share their readings with a parent.
“Who knows?” it read. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”
While guns may seem appealing, kids need to be taught the dangers of real guns as opposed to the toy guns that they use in fictional play.
“I hope that most kids would know the big difference between the two and what a big impact a real gun can make, but they still need to be taught the difference. It can’t be assumed that they know,” said Samantha Phan, whose family has a tradition of playing with Nerf guns.
Although experimenting with guns is a natural part of child development, there are some important boundaries that must be drawn and gun safety needs to be encouraged. Guns could prove fatal if children don’t learn to distinguish between the real world and their play world.
“Five-year-old girl fatally shoots brother with loaded rifle left in family room.”
“Inside the mind of a 14-year-old school shooter: a plot to kill 50 or 60 students, if lucky.”
“Sixth-grade girl arrested after threatening to bring a gun to school to kill students.”
Yes, these are real stories.
Guns are becoming increasingly normalized, being widely seen in the media, games, and even our own communities.
Due to their prevalence, guns have specifically captured the attention of one of our most impressionable generations: youth. Kids are now possessing an innate attraction towards guns—a fascination that may leave children vulnerable to the real dangers of guns.
With increasingly easy access to guns, more and more stories are emerging that include children shooting themselves or others around them, as well as children being exposed to gun violence. A study in the journal Pediatrics found that an average of 1,297 children die annually from gun-related injuries, making guns the third-leading cause of death for children in America.
As part of a hidden-camera ABCNEWS experiment, reporters captured the reactions of kids who have been taught gun safety, such as 15-year-old Anthony Galella, who said if he ever came across a gun, he would "call the cops and tell them."
Yet when Galella came across the disabled and placed gun at a YMCA New York, he picked up then put back the gun nine times. Instead of calling someone, he ended up stashing the weapon out of sight, to help him resist picking it up again.
"Something in my head was just telling me to touch it and play with it," he explained, according to ABCNEWS.
This experiment also extended to kids in an elementary school, who had been taught gun safety by police just days before and had been reminded of their lessons daily through a collective chant. However, when two kids found two guns in their toy dinosaur bin, they started to look down the barrel and pretend shoot things around the classroom.
Even activities such as laser tag or paintball promote the idea that targeting other human beings is pleasurable—and the person who does this most successfully is “the winner.”
In an Offspring article, writer Michelle Woo explored the thought-processes of kids when presented with guns, specifically from the perspective of a parent.
“Kids make guns out of crackers, toast, their fingers,” said Sylvia, the director of Woo’s daughter’s preschool. “They’re a prop for dramatic play. These kids are exploring issues of power because they’re at an age when they realize they don’t have any. People tell them when to go to bed, when to get up, when to go to school. They’re trying to figure out, ‘What power do I have?’”
According to the Center for Media Education, by the time children complete elementary school, they will witness more than 100,000 acts of violence on television, including 8,000 murders. These numbers double to 200,000 acts of violence and 16,000 murders by the time they complete high school.
This violence in television, films, and video games has the potential to negatively affect some young viewers, priming them to act aggressively.
Several studies have demonstrated that teenagers who play violent video games are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior and violence than are children who play nonviolent video games.
Gun companies are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising and appealing to younger generations.
In 2013, part of the National Rifle Association’s annual convention “Youth Day” was hosted, enticing youngsters to attend by offering free six-month memberships to the NRA. The event drew hundreds, including kids too young to know the difference between a toy gun and a real one.
Junior Shooters, a gun-industry supported magazine that aims to involve children in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semi-automatic rifle. To conclude the accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15, youngsters were urged to share their readings with a parent.
“Who knows?” it read. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”
While guns may seem appealing, kids need to be taught the dangers of real guns as opposed to the toy guns that they use in fictional play.
“I hope that most kids would know the big difference between the two and what a big impact a real gun can make, but they still need to be taught the difference. It can’t be assumed that they know,” said Samantha Phan, whose family has a tradition of playing with Nerf guns.
Although experimenting with guns is a natural part of child development, there are some important boundaries that must be drawn and gun safety needs to be encouraged. Guns could prove fatal if children don’t learn to distinguish between the real world and their play world.