Kids n Guns

The NRA is drawing some ire (what else is new?) for hosting an event in which children were allowed to shoot guns:

“They shouldn’t be teaching kids how to use guns. What happens when they get older? They might become like that Connecticut killer,” said Cal Castille, 24, of Houston, referring to Newtown gunman Adam Lanza.

Anti-gun protesters, reading names of gun-violence victims across the street from the convention center, said the NRA event was akin to “brainwashing these kids to love guns..."

“This is indoctrination,” said Jose Sequeiros, 67, of Houston. “These kids are too young to see that guns are wrong.”

Heather Ross, 27, said organizers of the event were tone deaf, given the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.

“It agitates me that these people don’t think it could happen to their children,” said Ross of Austin. “This is just beyond words.”

This is all perfect nonsense. First of all, I'm hard-pressed to see why "guns are wrong," or why we should be teaching kids that guns are wrong. Guns are objects, not concepts. And while I see the holes in the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument, that doesn't mean that guns are wrong. That's silly.

More to the point, I'm not sure if any of the NRA's detractors could point to a scientific study that proves that kids who learn how to shoot guns are more likely to do a mass shooting when they grow up. I'm just totally unaware if any such study has been conducted. Maybe one has, but it seems like it would have made the media rounds by this point. Readers are welcome to send in any papers that take a look at this.

The only reason people could object to children learning how to shoot guns is if it would lead to something bad, such as a mass shooting. If they have no proof of such, then there's really no reason to complain about what the NRA is doing, unless its critics have an intrinsic, irrational hatred towards guns and wish to prevent as many people as possible from getting there hands on firearms. But what are the chances of that?