Five year-old American boy shoots 445lb bear dead?

Question

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1296708,00.html

Am I the only one who finds this disturbing? This boy started hunting with guns at two and a half years-old!

Answer 1

Surely the parents or gran parents be arrested for allowing a five year old to handle a gun?
Americans and their guns, and they are shocked when some teenage nut goes shooting through malls?

Answer 2

No, this is not disturbing. There is nothing wrong with hunting. This is the USA. I will preserve my right to hunt. I taught my kids proper gun handling at a young age and they are allowed to hunt. They know the difference between right and wrong. This does not make them killers or murderers, nor does it make me one. This is also the way I was raised. Hunting is a very practical and humane means of dealing with the problem of animal overpopulation.(as opposed to letting the animal starve or get mauled in a car accident on the highway.) Most of the people that I know hunt. Most hunters are well educated, ethical, law abiding citizens that choose to hunt not only for the sport, but also to put meat on the table(just as our ancesters did.)

Answer 3

He'll no doubt receive praise, but why the glory of being made in to a news story (not blaming you, but the journalists). Sickening; how can you live in a rural area and view nature as the enenmy?

Toy guns should not be banned, making any form of gun inherently unattainable would only heighten the cult around this weapon. All that needs banning in America are actual firearms but that's too grandiose an act of responsibility from that buffoon nation, so we can rule that out. And in the UK, the focus should be shifted away from cracking down on things that pose no threat i.e. menial drug use and on to things that do pose a threat i.e. gun trafficking.

Answer 4

Well, that's the Culture over there isn't it.

How old do you think Prince William was when he first picked up and fired a gun? Pretty little I can tell you.

Also, Kamran sweetie... go to a Market in London , called "Church Street - Edgware Road" see how many under 8 yr old Arabic children (it is a predominently Islamic area) are running up and down the market with TOY guns , firing caps off in the air. Any saturday you like.
This is where it all starts. Toy guns should be outlawed. They are not toys, or playthings, they are symbols of destruction.

Answer 5

And how about the 11 yr old girl in Montana.
Home alone, upstairs, two illegal immigrants broke into the house. When she heard them, she got her fathers shotgun.
Killed the first one coming up the stairs. Got the second one starting up the stairs.
He carried a gun from another burglery.
Both dead from buckshot. She was a marksman at the age of 9.

Answer 6

What is the point in shooting a bear?!! Fair enough if he shot a deer which they then ate and used the skin, but shooting a bear is pointless and cruel. So the kid was 5, big deal... he had a gun!! Any idiot with a gun can kill something, all you have to do is aim and pull the trigger... hardly something to be proud of.

I wouldn't even mind if he was just shooting an air rifle at some cans for sport, a bit of father and son bonding, just like playing golf or something, but teaching a kid to kill animals for sport is just sick.

EDIT - for all of you who think that this kid is going to turn out to be a tearaway teenage killer, I think this is a bit of an over-reaction!! He might grow up being a proud bloodsport killer, which is wrong, but out of the millions of kids in America who grow up around guns, how many of them actually kill people? Learning to shoot does not equal becoming a murderer, just like smoking your first *** at the age of 10 doesn't mean you will become a junkie. Just being realistic.

YA! has censored the word f.ag!!! Dear oh dear....

Answer 7

It is disgusting. I wouldn't even let my 3year old son play with a toy gun, never mind train him to kill things with a real gun! I can't believe that some people on here are trying to defend it, saying its OK!. I guess this extremely lax attitude towards gun, by the Americans, goes towards explaining why so many young Americans are shooting up anything they can in schools, shopping center's etc.....

Answer 8

This scares me to death..a child of that age knowing how to use a gun. I think the parents should question themselves as to how he wil behave later on in life. He will probably be a very responsible adult, but at the minute he should be enjoying being a child, not going round shooting innocent animals.

Answer 9

Although I do agree with you, I am more concerned about gun culture generally....its bad enough here in London and the UK has strict guns laws but its the US 2nd amendment which I find more disturbing. Especially the way in which the US gun lobby hide behind it and tries to justify the right to bare arms...guns should only be used by trained soldiers during wartime...and never by civilians

...jc turtle proves my point...surely you dont really think shooting is cool....its dangerous and people get killed...its just plain dangerous and stupid...I find you answer more distubing than the question itself....its not COOL to kill

Answer 10

No, don't worry, you're not.

I'm Canadian. I passed through the Edmonton airport recently, and both times I saw numerous Americans specifically traveling to Edmonton so they could go hunting in the Rockies.

It totally disgusts me.

I don't understand why my country would allow people who aren't even Canadian to come up and do that.

You would see these fat Americans with these big rifle cases, some of the guys wearing camoflauge, all talking like elementary school children.

Of course this kid is going to be praised by his family, but maybe one day when he's older he might realize that it's a pretty stupid way to live life by killing animals like that.

If he's already handling guns now, you're almost assured he's going to get up to no good while a teenager. Teenagers always do crazy stuff, but this guy has a gun to help him. Not good.