Not going to end well..

So, a few weeks ago I bought a Crosman Storm XT air rifle.

I can honestly say that I was surprised at just how powerful it was. I was expecting a decent amount of power, but while it's not quite up there with my .22LR, I quickly discovered it that it could easily put a pellet all the way through the Greenville phonebook and a foot thick Drew Foam archery target at 10 yards.

As the packaging says, it is not a toy. It's no .50cal sniper rifle, but it's certainly powerful enough to do some damage. If it can put a pellet through a phonebook and a foot of Drew Foam…it can certainly injure, if not kill someone. From a gun safety standpoint, you might as well be shooting a .22LR

So I was absolutely horrified when I started to read some user reviews and discovered that most of them were written by kids who might as well have been talking about airsoft guns. For example:

"Way to heivy to play army man with the bb alwas fall out of the stock and you can't store bbs its 1 - by one by 1 it also looks like a real gun so don't just think that your gonna run around the neiborhood with this your going to get alot of nasty lookes like I did I'd shoot for not buying this gun and get one of those daisy brand ones. If your just out to kill some roadents like what it's made for BUY IT!! Ive killed two birds"

Is anyone else really disturbed by the fact that this kid is running around his neighborhood with a 1000fps air rifle playing 'army man'…and is also firing BB's from a lead pellet-only barrel and shooting 'birds' (Not sparrows or starlings or anything else classed as vermin, just 'birds')?

Now here's the thing: I know for a fact that Walmart will not sell this rifle to anyone under the age of 16. I'm 29 years old and they asked to see my ID when I bought it.

What does this mean?

It means that some idiot parent bought this for his kid, then just let him loose with it.

The worst part is this parent bought his pre-teen kid a fucking gun without so much as glancing at the box (I know this because the front is plastered with nice big pictures explaining the gun shoots up to 1200 feet per second and is suitable for large pest control and small game hunting)…and this type of parent is exactly the type of person who's going to sue Crosman when their kid shoots his little sister to see what will happen.

Let me run through a scenario:

Let's say I knew absolutely nothing about guns and my ten year old kid pointed at an air-rifle on a shelf and said "Can I have one of those please?"

Now, this is just me, but I'd read the box or maybe ask the shop assistant if the gun was suitable for a ten year old. Then, I'd look at the others on the shelf and tell him that, no, he couldn't have the powerful hunting rifle, but he could have one of the far less powerful BB guns as long as he agreed he could only shoot it under my direct supervision and it would be taken from him the first time I saw him point it at a person or other living thing…but if he showed me he could be responsible with it, I might get him the more powerful gun when he's older and proved he's mature enough.

Now, is that fucking rocket science? Exactly how dumb do you have to be to buy a ten year old a gun without even bothering to check how powerful it is? I mean, you don't have to be too bright to realize that if your kid is young enough to play 'army man', he's probably too young to be given unsupervised access to a small-game hunting rifle.

It just appears to be the same with everything these days. Parent's buy things that are totally inappropriate for their kids, then get sue happy when their kid gets hurt thanks to their shitty parenting.