New Iowa Law Would Allow Children of Any Age to Use a Hand Gun

Supervised children in Iowa would be able to fire handguns under proposal

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/25/politics/iowa-handgun-children-under-14-proposal/index.html

(CNN)—Children of all ages in Iowa would be allowed to use handguns with adult supervision under a measure approved this week by legislators in the state's Republican-controlled House.

The measure, approved 62-36 on Tuesday with both Republican and Democratic support, would change the current law that forbids anyone under age 14 from using handguns.

Can you see a Father supervising his 2 year old firing Dad's Colt 45?

Is it safer for a child under 14 to handle a handgun than it is an assault weapon? Is there any historical evidence  for this? This video from 2014 shows a 9 year old being taught to fire an automatic Uzi assault weapon, and Darwin smote the adult supervising the shooter:

Can you see a Father supervising his 2 year old firing Dad's Colt 45?


I was five years old when I began shooting a .22 rifle and pistol. My father belonged to a gun club. My mother, brother and I would go to Church while my dad sat at home reading the newspaper( he worked until 2am on Saturdays) When we returned from church, he would take us to dinner, and then to his gun club. This was a ritual until he died when I was ten. He was a strict safety instructor, and supervised my shooting. I later in Boy Scouts won NRA sharpshooting awards as I had been shooting for a decade. We also would shoot at the YMCA .22 rifle at nine to fourteen years of age on Saturday mornings on an inside range with rigid safety instruction.

I have no recollection of my father having any weapons loaded or out of the locked gun case. I never remember him putting a loaded gun in the car, or being frightened at home where he needed the same. We were very active in the NRA as kids and the organization was all about sport, hunting, and safety. My father, and his father before him were avid sportsman. I think a restriction on kids under 14 shooting a handgun with adult supervision is counter productive. However, any kid with a weapon without adult supervision is in my opinion a mistake. I was hunting pheasant at eight, and the kick off a shotgun at eight is a wake up call. There was no gangsta in my training. It should be that way.

I was shooting guns from about five years old. Constant instruction and supervision. Bird and squirrel hunting by eight... again highly structured. I got my first .22 at ten... and was allowed to use it unsupervised by eleven or twelve.

Granted this was in rural areas... not to mention a different age. But I was carefully trained and no danger to anyone.

I never took a risk when using a gun. If properly trained kids learn early the range of their weapon and how to transport and use a weapon. I am much more frightened by the absence of training.

My cousin was shot at the age of 8 when she and her stepbrother were at a friend's house and the guns were unsecured.  An automatic with the clip removed, but one in the chamber.  She has suffered her entire life...dialysis...losing one of her twins...and I guess she was lucky not to have been killed.  I grew up in a household and a part of the country where guns were commonplace and many people hunted for food, and I have no problem with that.  The problem is people who don't secure their guns, or who are so gun-crazy that they think it's OK to arm their kids.  My kids learned to shoot...first with pellet guns...then with the real thing...when they were old enough to handle it.  So I have no problem with hunters, unless they're drunk and stupid, but I have a problem with people who don't have the sense to keep guns out of the hands of kids without proper supervision.