From here.
SIDNEY, Neb., Dec. 5 — For Christmas, 10-year-old Jack Arterburn wants something many parents would never consider giving their child. He wants a gun.
SIDNEY, Neb., Dec. 5 — For Christmas, 10-year-old Jack Arterburn wants something many parents would never consider giving their child. He wants a gun.
The companies that sell guns for children, and the parents who buy them, realize that much of society doesn’t approve. Some customers have complained about outdoor-goods retailer Orvis Co. showing a photograph in a recent catalog of a child holding a gun — albeit a cap gun. The holiday catalog of Ducks Unlimited, a wetlands conservation group, features a gun-toting child on its cover, but only because the publication goes strictly to hunters and sportsmen. “I’m not sure the general public is that comfortable with guns,” says Tildy LaFarge, a spokeswoman for Ducks Unlimited.
Gun proponents point out, however, that in some high-profile school shootings — such as the one at Columbine High School, where 12 students and a teacher were killed — the kids firing the shots didn’t get their weapons from parents.
To the contrary, they say, children who grow up in hunting families develop a deep respect for guns and their dangers. When such a child receives his own gun, the weapon itself delivers only half the thrill; the other half comes from the trust it conveys. “It’s a deposit of trust: ‘I trust you to carry this deadly weapon and not shoot me, the dog or the neighbor,’ ” says Chris Draffen, a gun salesman in Cedar Falls, Iowa.