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I mentioned Adam Lanza & his moronic mother in a previous thread on the same topic. But too many parents want to prove their kids are "special," "different," and "superior." I think they are trying to prove their kids are "overcoming" their mental disabilities by participating in grown-up activities. Still others with normal kids can't wait to get them involved in whatever they (the parents) enjoy, whether the kids like shooting or not. Most kids will do anything to please their parents, even if they hate the activity.
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Sorry to say I agree mostly with Win231 on this. I read both threads. I can understand a parent wanting the best for their child and wanting to believe their disorder isn't that bad but still this seems like a bad idea. Some of the parents saying their kids were "high functioning", it sure doesn't seem like it.Comment
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One other contributing factor. There is a stigma with mental illness. Many people associate it with "stupidity." Not surprising; look how people use the term "Retarded" for anything or anyone they consider dumb, or any opinion they don't agree with. Mental retardation is a birth defect - a handicap caused by brain damage at birth & it is not the same as "stupid" except, of course for stupid individuals who use the term that way.
Some parents try to extinguish that stigma by having their kids who have a mental illness participate in grown-up activities.Comment
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My teenage son volunteers with all types of special needs kids, his advice is be patient use good ear protection and sub sonic 22. He said the kids love to follow rules by and large.
Keep it short , set up fun targets like water balloons.
Enjoy your time with her and to hell with the ones who try to discourage you.Comment
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My son is considered high functioning autism theres many classifications some cannot speak or understand while others can but are affected in other ways.He is also very smart in school his difficulty is understanding emotion and feelings of others he has been going to a counselor for a while and is getting better somethings that bothered him when younger he has gotten over.I also know another whos kid is affected and sadly in a way worse condition.
Like i said hes been shooting for atleast 8 years and is very good with gun safety and i dont need others to tell me how to raise my kids we already have a government trying to run our lives.Comment
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My son is on the high end of the spectrum. No one really knows he has ASD until I mention it or they work with lots of kids on the spectrum as those folks know. I volunteer for my city's adaptive sports program so I work with the whole spectrum plus Down Syndrome, paralyzed, etc. The ASD kids range from barely able to take care of themselves to so smart I would rather talk to them than most adults. Some are walking encyclopedias. None have been violent. At most they get easily frustrated simply because adults do not know how to communicate with their own kids. It drives me nuts when parent forces thier kid to play baseball when he would rather walk up and down the bleacher steps. When my boy first joined he loved ot spin around at short stop. I let him do that the entire time and after a few seasons he started playing. When they are ready to do something they do it.
My son has been shooting since he was 5. I bought him a Crickett for his birthday. He has been shooting machine guns since he was 6. I bought him a Savage 22 bolt gun when he was 10 along with a silencerco suppressor. He also started shooting a suppressed M&P22 pistol at 10. He has always had a sensitivity to noise. When he was young we could not go see fireworks. I had to cover his ears in restrroms when he dried his hands and he even complained about the noise from the fluorescent lights. Over the years he has built a tolerance or maybe outgrew the noise issues. He still sits in the car when I run my machine guns unsuppressed but i don't care for noise either. I think it has ot do with our love of music. While I enjoy all forms my son can actually memorize songs and melody's just by hearing a song once. He has perfect pitch according to his music teachers and has played drums, piano, alto and tenor sax. I can't play anything. He also has a memory that an elephant would envy. He tells me stories about when he was a year old. Imagine having your kid tell at age 10 how he was upset about not getting a specific toy when oyu turned him down in a store back when he was 2 years old. My wife and I nicknamed him The Grudge.
I teach a lot of new shooters from kids to adults. I've been around shooters that allegedly know the safety rules. I trust my son far more than anyone else because he knows the rules and lives by them. One of the tough parts of being on the spectrum is most kids are the policeman of the playground. Kids with ASD will freak out if another kid is breaking a rule. I've had to tell my son many times to stop telling strangers smoking is bad or alcohol is bad. Even not covering a mouth when sneezing or coughing gets him all worked up because he knows the right way to do things.
When my son is at gun shows he carry's my business cards. He knows more about guns than I do and he has been talking to vendors since he was 7. They all love his spirit and are impressed that he can pick out AK variants or talk to them about the specs of a gun.
Comparing a kid on the spectrum to Adam Lanza is simply asinine. He was a spoiled brat with no parental supervision. Just like the Columbine kids and the Batman shooter. They did not shoot people because they were mental. They shot people because they were immature and lacked discipline. Lanza did not even speak to his mom and his dad was out of the picture. I see a lot of brats every where. They are not mentally ill. They are just brats.
I had to go to school one day because my boy got in trouble on the playground for fighting. I asked him what happened and he told me a boy was hitting a girl so he stepped in the middle and took the blows until he had to fight back. He is a black belt in TKD but back then he was a low belt. I told the the principal that I was taking him for ice cream and he should be ashamed for even thinking he would intentionally hurt anyone. The teacher defended him to the principal but the school rules are cut and dry. My son has always stood up for other kids. It is not like he looks for trouble either. He is like Andy Dufraine in Shawshank. He lives in his own world at peace with himself and others. He is very laid back like me.
When he was 8ish he was a was a higher belt rank. We were at my cousins house by the pool. It was the first time my son met his year younger cousin because they just moved here. The kid was a brat and was scratching my son in the pool. I was sitting next to his dad. I told my son to tell him not to scratch him and he did but the little brat did it again. I told my cousin to take care of his boy. My cousin told his son not to scratch my son and he lied saying he was not doing it. I saw the scratches. He did it again. My son knows not to fight unless I allow him or if he is alone. I turned to my cousin and told him "I am going to tell my son that he has my permission ot use his TKD to beat him until I say to stop and if you get in the way I will beat you." My son was about 40 lbs and a foot bigger. My cousin pulled his kid out of the water just as he was about to go near my son and talked to him in the house. He never touched my son again. Neither of us had to get into a fight and the only one injured was my son. ASSuming every kid on the spectrum is a ticking time bomb is plain stupid. They do not like violence and I can say that because I have worked with a few hundred in the city.
If a kid on the high end of the spectrum decided to go nuts it would be bigger than anything in history. Just judging from my sons ability to follow rules, plan, and shoot he would make Charles Whitman look like Ray Charles. My kid runs his .22 out to 225 yards like it is nothing. He can clear a gun better than many adults. He counts his shots better than a pro can count cards. In fact, I started teaching him to count cards when he was 3.
Is he the exception? Not at all. Spend time in Silicon Valley and you can see all the engineers on the spectrum. Poor social skills, introverted, and damn smart. Even the non verbal kids can be very smart. Autism is not the same as retardation. Unless you actually spend time with a person on the spectrum you have no idea about the IQ. Looking at them won't tell oyu anything.sigpic
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You are (unknowingly) illustrating what your main motivation is for encouraging your kids to have access to firearms. You have an "all, or nothing" mindset, i.e. "If I don't make my kids shoot, I'm anti-gun & I'm letting the government "run my life." The "Everyone should have guns" attitude is what's destroying our gun rights.Comment
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You don't know me or my son and what is best. Attitudes like yours there would be less shooters. If I felt my son couldn't handle or take interest in firearms I wouldn't push it and leave it at that.
i ain't forcing him to shoot he's taken interest In it.Comment
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Phil, my experience has been similar to yours. My son lives by rules, doesn't understand why others don't follow them, and he'll often hide his aunt's cigarettes from her when she's visiting. My son has twice been deemed to not need an IEP for his education. He is very social and well-liked in school.
You bring up a good point about Adam Lanza. A detailed study by the Office of the Child Advocate had this to say in conclusion:
"Authors conclude that there was not one thing that was necessarily the tipping point driving AL to commit the Sandy Hook shooting. Rather there was a cascade of events, many self-imposed, that included: loss of school; absence of work; disruption of the relationship with his one friend; virtually no personal contact with family; virtually total and increasing isolation; fear of losing his home and of a change in his relationship with Mrs. Lanza, his only caretaker and connection; worsening OCD, depression and anxiety; profound and possibly worsening anorexia; and an increasing obsession with mass murder occurring in the total absence of any engagement with the outside world. AL increasingly lived in an alternate universe in which ruminations about mass shootings were his central preoccupation.
The attack on Sandy Hook Elementary appears to have been a purposefully thought-out and planned attack—AL did not just “snap.”
He visited the school’s website on numerous occasions. He had looked at the student handbook and viewed security procedures at the school."
There were plenty of warning signs that were not addressed, if you take the time to look at the details of his story.All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. -George Orwell, Animal Farm
If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable, what then? -George Orwell, 1984
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. -George Orwell
You're off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters. -Captain BarbossaComment
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None of the psychobabble from mental health "Experts" (who get it wrong more often than they get it right) can cancel the unpredictable nature of mental illness.Comment
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114 pages of fiction.Comment
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My son has Aspergers. I have taken him shooting since he was 10. He is now 25, a professional engineer and married. He has lost jobs but never a day of work. All the things I feared and watched for in his behaviour have not come to pass so I gave him my Sharps rifle.Comment
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Wait so we can let ASD kids run our lives, but giving one a gun under the supervision of a parent is bad? By that logic giving a child ANY CHILD a gun at all is just a terrible idea, and they should fear and never lay a finger on them until they are at least 18 years old if not 25.Comment
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