since kids aren’t usually allowed to train with guns… were they all training with their parents before? or is it not that hard, so can any person with no expirience technically just pick up a gun and start shooting people?
(asking not 4 myself obvs, just out of curiosity)
Point 'n Shoot
or, in a Christian state, Spray 'n Pray
It takes a bit to initially learn how to load, chamber a round, and disable a safety. Every new gun you handle will require relearning those things for the most part. Also, the first time you handle a gun you’ll probably be a bit intimidated by the whole experience and want someone to show you. I agree most kids would have been taught by an adult if they got so far as to shoot up a school. That said, if a loaded gun is lying around the house, someone can easily pick it up and do some damage with it without any training— at least until it is time to reload.
It’s really a no brainer in how to use guns. The part that really determines how well they can use a gun is how fast they can reload like a trained marksman who spends considerable time at a shooting range. That and how well they can prevent some guns from jamming.
But taking one, knowing it is loaded and just shooting away, that’s a no brainer. Anyone can do it.
Have you fired a pistol before?
Yes. All it takes is squeezing the gun, aim and fire. Again, not hard to do. You’re not going to hit your target all the time unless you try focusing, but my point still stands.
And in the context of the question, the ‘target’ is fairly large doesn’t take that much to hit it
They’re not hard to use, they’re hard to use well. And really, not that hard. I’m a pretty good shot, and I’d say I spent much less time learning to shoot than I did, say, computer-related skills which took way more practice, and study.
It’s a blessing that most mass shooters are not skilled shooters. The shooters that are skilled tend to favour the rifle. They make each shot count, and typically only fire once. But, that’s more of an assassination. People using handguns tend to miss a lot — I think they’re really going for terror/fear and not a high casualty count.
The “problem” with being a good shooter is, you have certain safety tenets drilled into your head. Know where each shot is going to go, because you’re responsible for the bullet once it’s fired, and you can’t get it back; don’t point at anything you don’t intend to destroy/don’t have the right to destroy/don’t have the legal right to destroy; shoot to kill, never to warn or maim; don’t shoot if you can’t be sure you will hit your target; etc. Specifically because I think it begs the question, about warning shots: they’re dumb. The idea of shooting up to warn people. That bullet will eventually come down, at terminal velocity, and if it hits someone, it will do serious damage. If it hits the head just right, that warning shot absolutely can kill a bystander.
In the US, it’s not uncommon for parents to teach their kids how to shoot. I sadly was only ever allowed to shoot a bb gun. I’d like to own a gun someday. It’s low on my list though.
I shot my first guns in kindergarten. My uncle’s handgun and my grandpa’s shotgun. Lived on the farm, it was just normal. But it was just in the farm, supervised of course. The moment my cousin and I were old enough we were in a firearms safety course so we could go hunting. Hell we used to help make ammo (just reloading shells).
Guns are really simple to use. Reloading for most guns people will ever encounter outside the military is simple. You got the safety switch and the trigger and it’s really point and click at that point. I tell you the hardest part is learning how to hold it correctly. We’ve all seen videos of people holding a gun wrong and shenanigans ensues when they lose control of it. https://imgur.com/gallery/shotgun-fail-odC6s
It’s not exactly hard to operate a firearm. They are designed to be used by the lowest common denominator of person - total morons.
Or alternatively (historically), expendable peasants that you don’t want to finance painstaking archery training on.
The most successful gun designs are those that could be put in the hands of teenagers to turn them into killing machines
my friends and i played with guns as kids in a completely unsafe manner with no experience or instruction. chamber a round and pull the trigger. they’re designed to be simple
Shooting is like driving a car. A baby could do it. Few can do it safely.
Using a gun is really easy. And I suspect school showers aren’t particularly concerned about safety, so that’s not an issue for them
It takes real, practiced skill and/or quality equipment to hit a bullseye at long range, or to kill an armed opponent at short range quickly and cleanly enough to not give them the chance to shoot you back. It takes no skill to hit an undefended, person-sized object at <10 meters, the distances involved in most indoor locations.
I learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp when I was about 13. We shot .22 long rifle and 20 gauge shotguns. Many of my friends hunted (never appealed to me) and learned even earlier.
The point of guns was to make warfare easier
They just aren’t that hard to use.
As Thelma says, “can’t be that hard, idiots use them all of the time”.
