Depends entirely on how you store them, and how capable your kids are around weapons, et cetera. There are too many variables to allow a general rule (or law) more specific than “don’t let your kids have unrestricted access to things they cannot yet handle safely”.
Example: If you have a 1911 Colt automatic with a trigger lock, an empty magazine, and a snap-cap under the hammer laying around on the floor, that’s far less dangerous to a child than a razor sharp tachi sitting on the mantelpiece with the temper-line showing.
Example: If you have an AK47 loaded with the safety off in a glass-fronted cabinet, that’s far more dangerous to a child than an unsharpened battle-axe laying on the floor.
Example: If your child has received proper training in basic life skills, they will not pick up a gun and shoot somebody by accident. However, they may lose control of a sharp knife while trying to make a sandwich, even if they are reasonably well trained in handling knives. It happens.
There’s just far too many variables. I could go on for hours. You’d have to call in Miss Sweetie Poo.
Yeah, I really wasn’t trying to imply that there was some kind of universal rule here. Sharp things and explodey things can both be dangerous, especially when one has a wild disregard for safety.
Am I the only one thinking about how awkward it could be to carry the spear around inside and wondering how this guy could use the spear inside? Unless it is a short spear or is in a big room?
Kids do really stupid things. As @Glitch points out above, it’s way easier to kill someone with a gun when you aren’t putting any effort into killing someone - when you are just messing around. Swinging an axe at someone is exceedingly dangerous, but even quite young children would understand that swinging an axe at someone is exceedingly dangerous.
Obviously the circumstances determine a lot, but other things being equal, things you have to hit or stab someone with are just not as dangerous as guns, and unlike guns, they can be easily improvised (a chair, for example, is a considerably better sword substitute than gun substitute) so the threat they add to a situation is less.
Oh yeah, what a weird nerd he is. Me, I keep a guisarme under my bed, but purely for practical reasons - you never know when you’ll need to dismount a rampaging horseman. Also, it’s French, so it classes up the place.
I strongly suggest watching this interview with Jimmy Morgan, Jr., which features a re-enactment of the event and some sweet katana moves, and is hilarious.
It does depict a little dried blood, so maybe don’t watch it if you’re squeamish.
That statement is a bit broad too. At best we can say “if your child has received proper training in basic life skills they will be less likely to pick up a gun and shoot someone by accident.”
Kids don’t always do as they are told/trained. Even adults don’t always do as they are told/trained. People who have been instructed in gun safety shoot themselves or others by accident all the time.
Well, you and Glitch are quite right, as far as that goes, but there’s still too many variables.
I’m big enough to take several shots from a small caliber gun, and I already know I can function while pretty severely wounded. People have survived being shot directly in the head. My friend John’s been shot twice, both times by adults with intent to kill, both times at extremely short range - once with a handgun, and once with a shotgun. So clearly guns don’t always kill, even when the intention exists. There are other variables like the type of gun and the type of person (John’s a humongeous, nearly unkillable mutant beast) that defy simple formulations.
And on the non-firearms side of the house there’s variables too; any conceivable chain of events that could lead to a truly sharp or very heavy weapon being dropped any distance could easily result in death. A really sharp blade can cut you so cleanly as to retard the clotting reaction - that’s why many bow-hunters super-sharpen broadheads (they want prey to bleed out quickly with less pain) and that’s why early methods of medical testing for coagulation relied on very specific cutting techniques (and still weren’t very accurate). Blade sharpness is a huge variable. There are a number of hand weapons owned by friends of mine that could kill me merely by being knocked off a table while I was sitting on the floor, and I know a girl who was hospitalized after she walked over a sharp hatchet laying flat on the floor (she skimmed the whole sole of her foot off in one go).
In the end you can get killed by anything, but I think we can agree a wise parent keeps all weapons and tools well away from anyone (and especially children) who has not been trained in their use.
Well, OK, you’re absolutely right too. It was just an example. And frankly what I consider proper training is probably unacceptably pavlovian for most people in this forum. Given past history, we probably shouldn’t go there…
“Guy is currently being held on capital murder charges in connection with Dinwiddie’s death, even though it’s unclear how Guy was supposed to know that the men crawling in through the window were police officers since they hadn’t identified themselves.”
Having been on film sets with guns and spears, I am more afraid around the spears. They tend to be left out in the open, ready to fall over whereas guns are always properly secured.
Last Wednesday, Saratoga Springs police claim they were called to investigate a “suspicious” man walking near businesses while carrying a “samurai-type sword.” Once they arrived at the scene, they say 22 year old Darrien Hunt attacked them, ultimately resulting in his death.
Randall Edwards, an attorney for the family of Darrien Hunt, adamantly disputes the bizarre claims. According to Edwards, an independent autopsy requested by the family shows Hunt was actually shot “numerous times, all from the rear”.
It is perfectly legal to walk around with a real sword in Utah – this was a decorative sword.
I wanted to ask it? Seems to me that a short spear is a pretty effective home defensive weapon, I’m wondering if folks ought to just carry them around instead of assault rifles.
