"A .22 For Christmas"

The gun lobby works to portray guns as a marker of maturity, a character-building catalyst that helps mold children into responsible adults. A full-page "I'm the NRA" advertisement featuring actor Tom Selleck that appeared in the March 8, 1999, issue of Time magazine promised, "Shooting teaches young people good things. Because all good rules for shooting are good rules for life."²⁰ Yet real-life examples show that the combination of kids and guns teaches other lessons as well:

• Eleven-year-old Andrew Golden was taught combat shooting by his father.²¹ In March 1998, Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson ambushed their classmates at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, killing four students and a teacher while wounding 10 others.²²
  
  
• 15-year-old Kip Kinkel was given a Glock 9mm pistol and a Ruger .22 rifle by his father in an attempt to give the aimless youth a measure of direction and maturity, the very qualities that the gun lobby promises flow from firearm ownership. In May 1998, Kinkel killed his parents, drove to school and opened fire, killing two and wounding 25 others.²³
  
  
• On February 15, 1998, two-year-old Cynthia Conrad was unintentionally shot by her nine-year-old cousin in Lemay, Missouri. Cynthia's father Daniel was showing the girls his hunting firearms when he handed a loaded .22 handgun to the nine-year-old. The girl began to drop the handgun and in an attempt to hold onto it, pulled the trigger, firing a shot that struck Cynthia in the forehead.²⁴
  
  
• On December 3, 2000, an eleven-year-old boy died in Carroll County, Kentucky when his nine-year-old brother fell and accidently discharged a shotgun while the two were hunting with their father.²⁵ During the 2001 hunting season in Wisconsin, a 14-year-old shot his 21-year-old brother during a deer drive, a 15-year-old died when he stood up in a blind to see a deer and was shot in the head by his father, and a 13-year-old shot himself in the head when he rested his shotgun on the ground and it fired unexpectedly.²⁶
  
  
• Exposure to lead at shooting ranges is a less known, but all too real threat to children's health. Officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, learned of lead contamination at six high school shooting ranges only after one student had a routine blood test unrelated to the shooting program and was found to have elevated lead levels.^d When blood tests were given to other students in the program, they were also found to have elevated blood lead levels. As a result, the rifle ranges were closed.²⁷

Taurus advertisement, Shooting Sports Retailer, November/December 2001.

d) Lead is a highly potent toxic element that attacks many different human body organs and systems. A number of studies have shown conclusively that children's IQ scores are inversely related to lead exposure. Other effects of lead poisoning include: damage to the brain and central nervous system, kidney disease, high blood pressure, anemia, and damage to the reproductive system. For more information on the dangers of shooting ranges see Tom Diaz, Poisonous Pastime: The Health Risks of Shooting Ranges to Children, Families, and the Environment (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2001)

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