This post is for anyone that has never had a gun safety class, and I know there are a heck of a lot of you. If you have had a gun safety class you should know all this already and please remind anyone when you read as I did earlier today, someone saying a BB gun is a toy, it's not. A BB gun is not a toy.
A BB gun does not have an orange plastic tip. A BB gun is a gun, I don't care if it's the most underpowered Daisy Red Ryder or one of the newer more powerful guns that have the same ballistics as a 22lr.
The only wolf to escape from Isle Royale last winter was killed with one shot by some teenager with a CO2 rifle, which for our purposes falls into that same "non firearm expanding gas" type category. Numerous people have been killed recently because police officers mistook people holding a BB gun for a person holding a firearm. A BB gun is not a toy.
Below the fold for quotes from NRA, Manufacturer, and oldest hook and bullet rag in the US.
Daisy is the most recognised manufacturer of air rifles in the US and probably the world. Go ahead and take the quiz at the link.
http://www.daisy.com/...
Ten Shooting Safety Rules
Airguns are real guns, not toys. You or others can be killed or seriously injured if these rules are not followed.
1. Always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.
NEVER ALLOW THE MUZZLE TO POINT IN THE DIRECTION OF A PERSON.
2.Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
The other ten are important too, especially if you are actually going to get and use a BB gun but those first two apply to every type of gun, and you should know them whether or not you ever intend on shooting a gun.
When I or probably most other gun owners see someone handling a gun we immediately notice. Does this person have muzzle control? Meaning are they always aware of where the end of the gun is pointing? You can tell in a half a second if that is the case or not. When I see a lack of safe gun handling I get worried, if I get "swept" by the end of the gun I get pissed and in somebody's face.
NRA BB gun rules
A BB gun or air gun is not a toy and must always be treated with the
same respect and caution you would in handling any gun.
http://compete.nra.org/...
It continues on for 43 pages of rules for BB gun competitions. The NRA is the recognised organiser of all types of shooting competitions with firearms and air rifles in the USA. They make the rules and it's well worth taking a glance at. Safety is mentioned again and again. Lack of safety can get you kicked off the range but pronto.
Owning a BB gun can teach children good safety habits or bad ones. Kids of my generation roamed the woods with Red Ryders and no parental supervision. There's a better way. Give a child a BB gun a year or so before he or she is ready to start shooting .22s and 20-gauges. Store it with your guns and make a point of treating it like a real gun—which it is. Let your young hunter bring it along, unloaded, on short hunts with you. Insist that he carry it with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/...
That's it for now, I have to go take my kid to the rec center, it's swim night for the kids group he belongs to. As usual I'm sure to get trolled. I read lots of dumb things, this is after all DK, this one took the cake.