Submitted 3 weeks ago by lystopad@mbin.twink.men to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
since kids aren't usually allowed to train with guns... were they all training with their parents before? or is it not that hard, so can any person with no expirience technically just pick up a gun and start shooting people?
(asking not 4 myself obvs, just out of curiosity)
They just aren’t that hard to use.
As Thelma says, “can’t be that hard, idiots use them all of the time”.
The hardest parts of gun use are aiming at long range and proper maintenance. Neither of those are a concern for someone planning to shoot at close range and not live another day.
You aren’t American are you? Many families here teach their children to use guns. It’s considered irresponsible to keep guns in a house with children and not teach them to use them (though you should keep the guns locked up and away from them when not in use).
Also it’s really easy to shoot a gun without training if you don’t give a fuck about not wasting ammo or who or what you hit. Especially if you’re aiming at a crowd. It’s rare for school shooters to be decent marksmen, rather they just bring a gun with decent rate of fire and a ton of ammo and shoot into a crowd
You can learn how to use almost any gun in about five minutes. Have a friend or family member that lets you take some practice shots in their backyard? Now you know enough to be dangerous.
Even without practice shots, every gun has the capacity to be dangerous no matter the extent of the users knowledge.
One might even say that a firearm becomes more dangerous in a less knowledgeable person’s hands.
It’s not exactly hard to operate a firearm. They are designed to be used by the lowest common denominator of person - total morons.
Or alternatively (historically), expendable peasants that you don’t want to finance painstaking archery training on.
Yes, just historically.
It’s not like using a gun is hard.
I’ve been shooting twice. From my experience it’s shockingly easy the only kinda complicated thing is loading it. I’m sure YouTube has guides on anything that might be complicated.
The point of guns was to make warfare easier
It takes real, practiced skill and/or quality equipment to hit a bullseye at long range, or to kill an armed opponent at short range quickly and cleanly enough to not give them the chance to shoot you back. It takes no skill to hit an undefended, person-sized object at <10 meters, the distances involved in most indoor locations.
They’re not hard to use, they’re hard to use well. And really, not that hard. I’m a pretty good shot, and I’d say I spent much less time learning to shoot than I did, say, computer-related skills which took way more practice, and study.
It’s a blessing that most mass shooters are not skilled shooters. The shooters that are skilled tend to favour the rifle. They make each shot count, and typically only fire once. But, that’s more of an assassination. People using handguns tend to miss a lot — I think they’re really going for terror/fear and not a high casualty count.
The “problem” with being a good shooter is, you have certain safety tenets drilled into your head. Know where each shot is going to go, because you’re responsible for the bullet once it’s fired, and you can’t get it back; don’t point at anything you don’t intend to destroy/don’t have the right to destroy/don’t have the legal right to destroy; shoot to kill, never to warn or maim; don’t shoot if you can’t be sure you will hit your target; etc. Specifically because I think it begs the question, about warning shots: they’re dumb. The idea of shooting up to warn people. That bullet will eventually come down, at terminal velocity, and if it hits someone, it will do serious damage. If it hits the head just right, that warning shot absolutely can kill a bystander.
It's really a no brainer in how to use guns. The part that really determines how well they can use a gun is how fast they can reload like a trained marksman who spends considerable time at a shooting range. That and how well they can prevent some guns from jamming.
But taking one, knowing it is loaded and just shooting away, that's a no brainer. Anyone can do it.
Isn’t recoil a thing
Uh, yeah? Just because I didn't mention it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Have you fired a pistol before?
Yes. All it takes is squeezing the gun, aim and fire. Again, not hard to do. You're not going to hit your target all the time unless you try focusing, but my point still stands.
Shooting is like driving a car. A baby could do it. Few can do it safely.
Using a gun is really easy. And I suspect school showers aren’t particularly concerned about safety, so that’s not an issue for them
I heard they make them pretty simple now. Some are even just point and shoot /s
I am from Croatia, we have 1 rifle at home (hunting) and as a child I remember we will sometimes put plastic bottle and aim for bottle, so I guess similar is in USA? In rural places specifically. Of course it was all done with multiple of adults nearby. But I was always bad at it, and I am still scared to go near guns (intrusive thoughts)
In the US, it’s not uncommon for parents to teach their kids how to shoot. I sadly was only ever allowed to shoot a bb gun. I’d like to own a gun someday. It’s low on my list though.
Kids know computers and just like guns it is a point and click interface
Most learn at home. Firing a firearm accurately does require some practice and skill. Shotguns are the easiest, pistols are by far the hardest. In an enclosed space though it isn’t that hard to hit a human sized target. Most people who shoot guns probably know how they work. They aren’t all that complicated. Usually just safety, and mekanism to cock it, a trigger, and a magazine release. It doesn’t take that much training to learn how to shoot something a few feet away from you. It does take a bit to hit targets further away than say 25 feet. This is often why cops end up smoking gangsters. Many gangsters don’t practice with their firearms and cops do, so in a ranged fight, cops usually win.
Hitting a moving target is difficult. Most people don’t realize how easy it is to actually take down an armed person who isn’t skilled and practices things like the 30 ft rule which most cops will practice. (If you get within 30 ft, they will assume you can disarm them before they can land their first shot) Aiming usually takes a few seconds if you want to land your hits, even with a stationary target 25ft away. Some people practice a lot and john wick it, but real shooting is more like an entire body composure, carefully leveling the sights, squeezing, not pulling the trigger (rookie mistake) because if you pull the trigger to fast you will miss unless someone is very close to you.
I’m just a regular nonbinary person, I learned to shoot skeets out of the air before I hit puberty. I can throw up a soda can and shoot it with a shotgun. I practiced a lot and hunted a lot. (Not into hunting these days because I’m a different person, and love animals) I might if I were hungry enough.
I shot my first guns in kindergarten. My uncle’s handgun and my grandpa’s shotgun. Lived on the farm, it was just normal. But it was just in the farm, supervised of course. The moment my cousin and I were old enough we were in a firearms safety course so we could go hunting. Hell we used to help make ammo (just reloading shells).
Guns are really simple to use. Reloading for most guns people will ever encounter outside the military is simple. You got the safety switch and the trigger and it’s really point and click at that point. I tell you the hardest part is learning how to hold it correctly. We’ve all seen videos of people holding a gun wrong and shenanigans ensues when they lose control of it. imgur.com/gallery/shotgun-fail-odC6s
I learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp when I was about 13. We shot .22 long rifle and 20 gauge shotguns. Many of my friends hunted (never appealed to me) and learned even earlier.
Not to blame video games but genuinely having never even held a real gun I could definitely work out how to operate one from the thousands of hours I have interacted with them digitally lol. They ultimately are designed ground up to be user friendly and simple. Yes I would be a terrible aim etc but still not the point, an idiot can still cause chaos.
This is the US we’re talking about, so there’s no shortage of guns or people willing to teach other people to use guns. Sure, I doubt an eight year old could rock up to the local range and lease a weapon, but… there’s always a crazy uncle. Besides that, there’s no shortage of instructional material to be found online and elsewhere. Guns are not particularly complicated devices. Fill magazine with ammunition, insert magazine, pull and release charging handle (or slide), disengage safety (if any), point and pull the trigger. It’s not particularly difficult. Hitting something is a different matter though.
I mean, I’m Danish, and guns are not exactly commonplace here, but I used to shoot pistols for sport in the indoor range beneath a local school starting when I was eleven.
Taught my kids the basics at 9 and 11. They need to understand the lethality of guns, what is safe and not safe, and maybe most importantly, how to recognize someone who is not being safe and get the hell away from them.
Plus, took the mystery out of the whole thing. Now they just don’t care much.
Frankly, had I been a parent and living in the US, I would have done the same. One can debate whether the circumstances that necessitate it are ideal, but as the matter stands it’s only sensible.
Denmark is, as you might expect, very different. Here, people can - and in the vast majority of cases, will - live their entire lives without ever encountering a real weapon. Certainly, it’s possible to own a gun, but obtaining a license / required insurance and meeting mandatory storage requirements is non-trivial, so only hunters, collectors and sports shooters ever bother. Collectors aside, the type of weapons favored here are also distinctly different. Shotguns used for hunting or skeet shooting are typically break-action side-by-side or over/under respectively, and hunting rifles are, well, hunting rifles - scoped bolt action. People don’t hunt with AR-15’s around here. As for sports shooters owning their own pistols, most use high quality .22LR Walther GSP’s and similar. I’ve seen a few people shoot the occasional 9mm/.45 ACP something or other and an infrequent revolver, but that’s very rare.
Practical personal defense weapons are pretty much non-existent.
The most successful gun designs are those that could be put in the hands of teenagers to turn them into killing machines
I mean, my dad took me hunting when I was young...
I knew how to operate a hunting rifle by the time I was 12, and I’m not even American.
And if you can operate a hunting rifle, you can operate an assault rifle to a reasonable degree. Not much training needed.
When I was in the army, ...
Consider, too, that the military needs every sack of meat to be able to shoot straight, load mags, clear malfunctions, clean and maintain. By extension, the light arms they use are designed to be as dead simple as possible.
As someone on reddit once pointed at, the AR-15 platform is designed such that the dumbest 18-yo recruit can use it.
Learning the manual of arms (procedure of loading, firing, unloading a type of firearm) is a YouTube video away and isn’t hard. If you can use a drill or a stapler you can make a gun go bang.
The difficult part is technique that makes the bullets go where you want them to. Shooting fast is easy, just mag dump in a general direction and you’ll eventually hit something. Shooting slowly and accurately is way more effective. Basic marksmanship takes a bit of time to hone but anyone can do it, including you reading this.
But shooting fast AND accurate is a skill that takes consistent practice to hone. That’s what makes competitons like USPSA so challenging and the acting in movies like John Wick so impressive
It takes a bit to initially learn how to load, chamber a round, and disable a safety. Every new gun you handle will require relearning those things for the most part. Also, the first time you handle a gun you’ll probably be a bit intimidated by the whole experience and want someone to show you. I agree most kids would have been taught by an adult if they got so far as to shoot up a school. That said, if a loaded gun is lying around the house, someone can easily pick it up and do some damage with it without any training— at least until it is time to reload.
my friends and i played with guns as kids in a completely unsafe manner with no experience or instruction. chamber a round and pull the trigger. they’re designed to be simple
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What?
I went to a rural school, and everyone had a “hunters education” class in like 7th grade. We never touched a gun but we could legally go hunting.
A shit ton of kids hunt, and most ranges are fine with kids if an adult is with them too.
Like, it varies state to state, but in lots of areas it’s weird for someone to graduate highschool before shooting a gun.
But besides all that, guns aren’t difficult.
So yeah, pretty much.
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s crazy. I had no idea anyone had a class like that. We’re basically training kids to be school shooters… at school?
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 weeks ago
You can’t expect parents to do everything.
Fermion@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Hunter’s ed is basically the opposite of what you stated. It’s not part of the state curriculum. It’s similar to drivers ed courses for people to be able to get a learners permit before they turn 18. Similarly below a certain ages, most states require completion of a hunter’s education course to be able to purchase a hunting license and legally hunt.
The courses go over topics like property rights, how to carry a weapon making sure it’s not pointing at anyone, what high vis clothing is required, always knowing what is behind an animal before even aiming, rules about how a weapon must be unloaded when in a vehicle, and they strongly urge keeping an interference lock in the action of any firearm in storage.
Hunter’s ed doesn’t teach kids how to shoot, they teach kids how to not be idiots when hunting.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sounds like an elective class. My ex-wife’s niece was in an after-school shotgun club. I gather it was more target practice than hunting.
I’m of the opinion that familiarity with actually shooting is more of a deterrent to the school shooter mentality than fetishizing guns. I’m basing that mostly on the idea that these school shooters can’t seem to handle a weapon, given that kills are the goal.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
As they said, you really dont need to know much to operate a semi automatic weapon. Everything you need to know is public knowledge that can be found on wikipedia, youtube, etc.
You dont need to be a very good shot if you shoot at 5m distance…
floo@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
I learned how to shoot a shotgun when I was 13 at school. We were in the shooting club. It was just shotguns and skeet shooting, but still.
Ziggurat@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
For the non American, how old is it supposed to be, please tell me it’s the last year of high school with 18 yo, and you were in a vocational school not a generic one
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Americans graduate from 12th at 17/18
So I think I’d have been 12, and it was a public generic school
And if that sounds too early, hunting season started like a week earlier than the class and another 12 year old in my class already had his license (lots did) but that kid climbed a fence with a loaded shotgun while hunting and blew off a couple of his toes.
So like, it’s hard to argue it was “too early” because the kids were already running around unsupervised with guns.
Before Columbine people would go hunting before school and if they didn’t get anything they’d come straight to school with their gun in the back window of their truck. After they just stopped leaving them clearly visible.
orbitz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Even without much education, I was a geek in a rural location, one time a friend’s dad put a cigarette (half 3/4 done or so) on a fence cause we were having a competition and we hit them all. Mean the cigarette was only say 15 - 20 feet away but I I split it in half with a BB gun (yes no kick of course), probably luck but I was hitting the targets too and the dad figured no one would hit that one. It wasn’t a long range but I figure someone with access to a rifle should shoot fine enough if they practice even a bit if I can without access. I only shot a gun maybe a dozen times in total.