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Welcome, generation snowflake

I read a story on the tabloid site Stuff.co.nz this morning that made me feel more than a little cross.

Carrying the headline Internal police emails reveal alarm over bill that reduces oversight of clubs and ranges, the story seems to be yet another example of how we are considered by some to all be irresponsible idiots who ought not be trusted by "the state" or the police.

In essence, it paints a picture that gun clubs and sports shooters can't be trusted to act responsibly and safely therefore, they must be closely monitored and scrutinised by police -- for the public's safety.

Now I agree that firearms have the potential to represent an extreme danger to the public and there are plenty of incidents to prove this. However, almost without exception, those incidents do not involve people who are deeply vested in sports shooting.

The allegations in this story are deeply insulting to those who, more than almost anyone else, appreciate the risks and responsibilities associated with firearm use.

I used to be a licensed firearms owner and I had a nice little collection of guns.

I had everything from air-rifles through regular .22LR bolt-action, .22 magnum and 30-calibre hunting rifle to a classic SKS military-styled semi-automatic.

These guns were used regularly because I lived in a rural area and they served as useful tools for pest (rabbits and possums) control as well as providing food for the table, in the form of deer, turkey and other tasty creatures.

Of course I also had a lot of fun just "plinking" down in the gulley behind the house and spent many hours honing my skills behind the sights.

Nobody was ever harmed by me or my actions during the many years I was a firearms owner and I took my responsibilities very seriously, always having my guns stored securely with the bolts and ammo in a separate room, also under lock and key.

Basically, that's how 99.9 percent of all licensed firearms owners operate.

In the Stuff story, Labour police spokesperson Ginny Anderson is quoted as saying “It’s really concerning... that young people are able to use deadly weapons”.

What, you mean like cars?

How many people die on the roads as a result of younger drivers making poor decisions?

I don't know but I can guarantee you that it's orders of magnitude more than the number that kill others with a firearm.

Also, according to the story, there have been incidents of "of children using military-style semi-automatic (MSSA) firearms at gun clubs".

What's the problem with that?

I taught my kids how to *safely* use firearms from a very early age. This was for their safety as well as for the safety of those around them.

There are far too many stories out of countries like the USA where kids end up killing themselves or others because they were "playing around" with guns but had no idea what they were doing. Knowledge is safety so I showed my kids, including my 10-year-old daughter (at the time) how to safely load, unload and use a rifle. This meant that if she ever came across a situation involving a firearm, she was far better equipped to handle that situation safely.

To simply say "we must never allow children to handle firearms" reeks of knee-jerk ignorance on the part of those who would complain about such things and is a sorry indictment on the way our society is headed. Instead of educating kids and equipping them with the knowledge and skillsets they need to safely negotiate life's hazards, we seem to be opting to try and remove all such risks from their lives. That is an approach doomed to failure.

The situation across the ditch with respects to social media access for under 16-year-olds is a perfect example of this. Pretend that these kids won't find a way around the silly road-blocks to access and you're doing nobody a service Far better to prepare them for the rough-ride that social media can present and they'll be much more capable of dealing with those issues.

Ah well, it looks as if we're preparing for a new generation. We've had "boomers", millennials, Gen-X, Gen-Z and now we're creating "Generation-Snowflake", those who melt at the slightest sign of hardship, danger or risk.

Why would those in power promote such a thing? Could it be that it makes people easier to control when they've been raised to be afraid of their own shadow? Sigh!

Carpe Diem folks!

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