Even if those pink guns had existed when I was a kid, I'd have never been able to even look at it without my dad getting it out of the gun cabinet for me, clearing it, handing it to me and expecting me to clear it again. What difference does it make whether it's marketed for kids? Only adults can buy and possess them. I got my first .22 when I was 12, but I had been shooting rifles and pistols since I was about five. I knew how to field strip a 1911 before I was strong enough to pull the slide back on my own. This is ALL about parenting and has nothing to do with guns.

Parents are far more important than government - parental responsibility is paramount, and sadly a big problem in this country.

Because we have very poor parents, absent parents, addict parents, we have generations of children that pay the price. It isn't the kids fault that their parents are irresponsible, but they pay the price. We as a society have decided that occasionally we will step in and protect those children, help negate some of that extremely high price.

I want to know how a 4 year old is buying the guns & where they are getting the money..

As to the blame game, B**l S**t, if the parents are so weak that they do what ever a child tells them too, then what will stop them from buying the kids smokes, booze, drugs ect, and if the parents are so stupid & weak minded that they believe any advertisement they see (well, the last election was proof of that) then this country is doomed, because certain people don't take or are held responsible for their actions. Of course, the fact that public schools teach kids that the 2nd Amendment is evil, and keep trying to dumb down kids more each year:mad:

To give you an idea of the stupidity in public schools, a Music teacher was just punished for showing the Bugs Bunny cartoon below to the class.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/60Htv1t6sUU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So I guess that's a "no", there isn't anything you wouldn't legislate...

Is there anything that you just accept as part of life, and there's nothing you'll ever be able to do about it? Many of your posts include the phrase "We, as a society have decided...", which leads me to believe that your answer for every problem we have lies in legislation, and the fact that the majority of the people (who are inevitably affected by the legislation) are not usually involved in the problem just doesn't matter to you.

Oh heck, there is plenty of stuff I wouldn't even come close to legislating - I am a liberal to the core zoa. It just the stuff that you would love to legislate.

You might be surprised.

Lots of stuff is just life - we have lots of problems that will never be solved by legislation.

However, heck, a majority of people don't do anything that we have created law to protect us. Most people aren't murders, thieves, rapists, child abusers. Yet we have lots and lots of legislation (laws) that deal with a very small segment of society. Most people don't cheat others, but the laws on the books that deal with those types of 'crime' would fill your house and most of the houses on your block. Yet, if you were screwed by a cheat - you would be fairly happy that in your neighbor's downstairs bathroom was a law that would help you for that once in a lifetime problem.

I am immediately affected by the laws that allow the state to remove children from homes where the caregivers (parents or others) are abusive. I am not involved in the problem, as you stated, but the result of the law does affect a majority of people. Is that bad legislation, by your definition it appears you would think it was.

Our state is really gun friendly. My kids and their friends (5 and 7) were playing cops and robbers shooting at the bad guys with a drinking bottle and the principal put a stop to that. I don't own guns beside an old Ruger 10-22 from way back and have not shot it for a very time. So I am on the fence with guns. You are armed to the teeth, that's great. If you don't, I m ok with that too.

It doesn't matter what color they paint the guns, parents will buy it for their little kids if they feel that's the right thing to do with or without marketing. I don't know how many 5 year old are reading Guns and Ammo and say, gotta have that pink 22? The parents are. hell, I didn't shoot a gun until I was 16.

Moses --- What if 5 yr old kids are free to drive a car w/o licence or testing for their safety skills? How many more kids would they kill?

How are you affected?

I would say that the uproar over a 5 year-old shooting his younger sibling creates precisely the kind of hysteric call for legislation that I suppose you would support, yet it would directly affect the law abiding father who wants to teach his five year old about guns, who otherwise would be free to do so, and make the world a safer place, IMO. How many infringements on our rights "for the greater good" actually create a more dangerous world?

Also, you're mixing up laws that punish bad behavior with laws that prevent lawful behavior "because something bad might happen".

Five yr. olds are no more legally free to drive cars than they are to handle guns without adult supervision. I guess it's ok to let your kid drive offroad in the middle of nowhere if you're in the passenger seat. But I couldn't reach the pedals until I was around 10. I was able to shoot long before then.

A law that restricts marketing guns to 5-year-olds affects law abiding fathers (or moms) teaching their kids about guns? How?

so who is going to decide which parents are "marginal"?

you think with some magical penstroke of some politician will make all the boo boos go away?

who is responsible for raising children anyway?

MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry » All Your Kids Belong To Us - YouTube

We still have shooting teams in High School down here although the anti gun people are pushing to get it stopped.

I am disappointed. Whats with the negative attitude toward guns?! Guns are good. They are made for killing. More children should have supervised access to them. But that pink little kid-gun is just useless. It should carry a mag with at least 40 rounds so the little ones can learn how to handle an even more deadly tool.

You are just to liberal! :D

Is the problem that we've marketed guns that look like toys to children, or that we accept marketing toys that look like guns to children? Should society accept one and not the other? Should parents who condition their children to understand that gun violence is fun, through first person shooter games and access to toy guns, be treated like parents who allow access to real firearms? At what age does society allow exposure to real firearms?

I don't disagree with this at all. Heck I get disgusted when I see ads for various junk toys on tv too. But I think an earlier point made is important; kids aren't reading guns and ammo. Parents walk into a store and see an opportunity to bring their kids along in their footsteps and the marketing is most effective there.

As has been said this was a parenting issue, not a gun issue.

A lot of the mistakes I see myself and other parents making are born of the parent forgetting that kids think differently and have not yet matured.

As long as there are no consequences to being a bad parent, we will keep making more of them. We don't need restrictions, we need accountability.

You buy you 4 year old a working rifle, you should be accountable for its use and management. Simple.

I agree with the it is a parenting not gun issue - but I do also add it is a marketing issue. The Crickett has a little cartoon character they use in marketing, they make the guns appealing to children (pink stocks, multicolor stocks), if you watch their videos they have little children bugging their parents - "I want a Crickett - Johnny has one, why can't I have one?" parent gives in. Those marketing ploys aren't aimed at adults.

Just like eventually we caught on that Camel was using marketing to attract younger and younger smokers, fostering the idea that smoking 'cool' to youth (everyone here says well, 4-year-olds can't buy guns, well 9-year-olds can't buy cigarettes, but it didn't stop RJ Reynolds from marketing to them), marketing firearms to children by Keystone is just as wrong.

http://www.keystonesportingarmsllc.c...s/Crickett.gif

So are all cartoon characters with firearms bad, or just those from Keystone?