Kids and Guns

I had numerous opportunities to be an introductory firearms instructor a couple of weeks ago and it was quite the experience. First a bit of background.As a member of the Denver Mad Scientists Club, I sometimes get invited to show off stuff that I've made by way of encouraging kids to take an interest in STEM topics. My observation is that if the demo is sufficiently interesting and hands on, you can subvert the youth into fields like engineering and physics.

So we got invited to bring our stuff to the Natural History Museum and let the kiddies have a look.
I brought several items including the (in)famous Pedal Air Gun.

The expo was set up in a long, wide hall, nice but nowhere near enough room for the gun with heavy projectiles so I made some "nerf" type foam darts for the occasion. We were set up on one side of the hall, and I pointed the gun across the hall at an unused door to use as a target. Amazingly, people walking down the hall immediately recognized the apparatus and were careful to check the status before crossing in front of it.

Putting a kid on the seat, I carefully explained how the gun worked, and what they were going to be doing. With the barrel pointed upward at about 45 degrees at an unused balcony, they would pedal until the pressure gage read 20 lbs and NO MORE.

We would then warn anyone near the projectile path to stand aside, and when the path was clear, lower the barrel to point at the door, and push the small valve release switch down to fire the gun. All in that order. No doing anything until all previous steps had been done. This worked fine and everybody loved it.

Then along came Daddy with his twins, a boy and a girl, who gave off the vibe of Wednesday Addams on espresso. Would the boy like to try the gun? Of course, and his sister as well. Swell. Hop on and I'll give both of you the lecture, which I did. The boy was ready to pedal at 90 mph right now and hear the rest of the instructions later. I made him stop and listen. His sister who will someday doubtless outshine Lucreza Borgia, watched and listened like a Russian spy in an American Nuclear sub. They got the part about pedaling to 20 PSI, and the part about the trigger.

The boy took off and had 20 psi in a matter of seconds. I told him to stop as he had enough pressure and his sister immediately reached up and pressed the trigger sending the dart upwards to bounce off the balcony and fall back harmlessly into the exhibitor next to us. Daddy immediately pulled Little Sister back and read her the riot act about taking turns and following directions. He allowed that the boy should get another try so I reloaded the dart, went back over the instructions and set him to pedaling. This time when he got to 20 psi and I told him to stop, he did and immediately reached up and pressed the trigger, sending the dart again up to the balcony and back to the floor.

At this point Daddy pulled Sonny off the machine and informed both kids that they were done here and they would "talk about this when they got home". Having heard this line once or twice from my own father, I imagine this didn't end well for the kids. I don't envy Daddy. Riding herd on those two is obviously a full time job.

When trying to teach kids about firearms, I suppose one could do worse than to start out with a Nerf gun although the Nerf people start you out at a disadvantage by using bad gun handling as a selling point. Still, you gotta start somewhere and the less potentially lethal the better.