A new attraction where children as young as 13 fire military-grade weapons in zombie, gangster and cowboy-themed simulators has been slammed by gun control campaigners.
Although management claim their Orlando, Florida, attraction provides a safe place for the use of firearms, critics claim it is unsuitable for an area known for its child-friendly attractions.
The website for the business - named Machine Gun America - states it is Orlando's 'first automatic adrenaline attraction'.
It explains: 'Whether you're looking to unleash your inner action star or become a zombie hunter, experience the exhilarating rush of shooting real machine guns and powerful firearms for a thrill like any other.'
Live ammo? Thirteen year old kids? Should we start writing the headlines now?
You know the troubling thing is that if I were a thirteen year old and my choice was Epcot Center, Disney World, or this place I am afraid I would probably choose this place.
Part of that is due to the video games and action movies that romanticize gun violence, and part of that is because shooting real assault weapons would feed a teen's need for an adrenaline rush like almost nothing else.
However haven't we already seen the dangers of allowing youngsters access to military style weapons?
We need to start teaching our children that weapons have an important place in the military, law enforcement, and potentially home security, but they are NOT toys and accessing them should not be placed in the same category as the spinning teacups or Space Mountain.
Forget writing the headlines, Gryph: just skip right to penning the obituaries...we all know how this is gonna turn out.
ReplyDeleteYes. The thing possibly good to come out of this is that all the deaths will be future GOP voters.
Delete...unleash your inner sociopath...
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable!
The headlines write themselves and they are disastrous. . . .
ReplyDeleteWho hasn't heard a story like this one . . . . .Kind of quaint by todays standards.
My father was raised on a farm and hunted with his father. He says the last time he went hunting he was eleven years old. He loved animals and could not countenance shooting them--even though it was to put food on their plates. But when my brother was in the sixth grade---under huge pressure from him---my father bought him a BB gun. He warned him not to shoot animals and not to point the gun at anyone. So my brother shot at targets. Then trees, then imaginary spies in the back yard----then my father found a dead bird hurriedly buried in the back yard and a tear stained boy at the dinner table. But it still didn't stop my brother from pointing the gun playfully at the head of one of his friends a week later.
No more guns for him.
Of course the back yard was not a controlled environment---but
he was twelve. Thirteen is not much better. Children react in
unpredictable ways without deadly weapons. With them . . . .
I guess I'm saying---when is enough, enough? I don't know of any thirteen year old----or teenager of any age for than matter that I would trust----even in a controlled environment-- with a bb gun let alone automatic weapons. This crap is insane and there doesn't seem to be a bottom to it. My brother might have taken out someone's eye (sorry I keep thinking of A Christmas Story) but these weapons can take out a whole lot of lives in one felt swoop.
Is this the way we end? Children shooting weapons that once were only used by the military for shits, giggles and zombie re-death?
And how many adults can be counted on to handle guns properly all of the time? Guns are not a good idea. Period.
DeleteBeaglemom
Well it isn't up to you is it Beagle? And you are wrong. Period.
DeleteNo she is not wrong. How many adults die every day from guns! How many kids? Guns are for killing. For an exceptional special Bible toting Christian nation, we sure do have a lot of paranoid gun lovers.
DeleteThis is a joke, right?
ReplyDeleteRight up there with Come to our Church and We'll Give You a Gun, and ... all the hundreds of posts about gun-nuts & homeschooling mothers & pajama-clad Senators & dumb men to stand around screaming about lynching Obama...
Were these people always around (when we didn't have the internet) or are they proliferating, vying each other to be the stupidest because of the internet fame they will get?
Can kids under 18 get in without a parent?
ReplyDeleteI hope not.
I can see my teenage boys who like video games being attracted to this. However, I will not give them permission or $$ to go.
On the Jersey shore, there have always been little air gun rifles with old west saloon type targets to shoot. Last year, one in Ocean City was gone. Obsolete now I guess.
The days of air rifles and water guns which fill balloons are long gone.
I'm trying not to over react here but having a very hard time...How do they guarantee safety??
Is it me, or does it seem like 9/10 of weird and/or dumb@ss news comes out of Florida?
ReplyDeleteMore white people games. Idiots.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the knockout game enjoyed by black youth, really exemplifies their intelligence and empathy.
DeleteI would bet if a black man wanted to open a place like this, he'd never get the permits. Which means no one should do it.
DeleteIf I were Jesus, I might be just a little jealous! Guns stealing MY thunder! These kids should be at bible study, learning how my dad, God, turned women into pillars of salt!
ReplyDelete"Pillows of salt" - Sincerely, Archie Bunker
ReplyDeletePaul in Indiana
If all youngings were asstue like Palin gals and could giddy up and blow stuff up with expert aims the world would be a safe place.
ReplyDeletehttp://conservatives4palin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Piper-Post.jpg
Sounds like a pretty good time to me.
ReplyDeleteGood. You go, and take your immature teens with you. Then when someone's boyfriend or girlfriend is shot over
Deletea breakup, you be responsible and go to prison.
How anyone with half a brain thinks this is a 'good time' boggles my mind. Guns are for killing. They are not for fun and games. They are not for children. Not for teens with raging hormones. Not for the mentally incompetent. And these war weapons have no place in some 'theme park' NRA wet dream. How many more people have to be shot in this country before we wake up?
In a nearby town, a 15 year old boy took a gun and shot people in the cafeteria. His family said he was a hunter. Of course, they never thought that he'd kill cousins and fellow students.
ReplyDeleteThe problem of kids with guns is that, by definition, kids are immature. They make bad decisions, because they are immature. Are they all alike? Nope, some kids can be trusted with guns. But the problem is, there's no way to know which kids can be trusted and which can't. I'm willing to bet that Jaylen Fryberg's parents talked to him about gun safety, but he was 15. He was immature. They trusted him when they shouldn't have, and people died.
And beyond the lack of ability to trust, there's a developmental issue. Some teenagers are bigger than others; some are more coordinated than others. A kid who is emotionally mature may not be physically mature enough to use a gun: they kick and the bullet can go anywhere.
There are no good reasons for opening "Machine Gun America" other than gun nuts want to let their kids shoot because godammit, nobody's going to tell THEM what to do.
People are gonna die.
Thanks, ivyfree. I hadn't heard that one, and it sorrows but does not surprise me.
DeleteShould have called it "Stand Your Ground" or, as the Palins call it, "Eskimo Chinese Checkers ". I've been to Florida twice, Disneyland and "The Villiages" and neither of them are in the realm of reality. Scratch it off your bucket list, epic yawn.
ReplyDeleteJust fucking dumb!
ReplyDeleteI like it , thanks
ReplyDelete