Knowledge is never a bad thing.

Yesterday, I was looking for some reviews of an air rifle I want to buy when I discovered a video review on youtube.

Less than five minutes later I was convinced that firearm use and safety classes are something that should be compulsory in schools from a relatively young age.

Firstly, the kid doing the review (who looked like he was in his mid to late teens) was deliberately 'dieseling' his air rifle. In case you don't know what this is, 'dieseling' an air rifle is where you deliberately put oil into the skirt of the pellet so the oil vapor ignites when the gun is fired. This, of course, ramps up the pressure and the speed of the pellet…but it's also incredibly dangerous and can seriously damage the gun. Best case, you wreck your spring and breach seal. Worst case, the gun explodes in your face.

Secondly, he talked about how dieseling throws the accuracy off (which is hardly surprising considering the pellet was breaking the sound barrier) and then said:

"Yeah, it's not as accurate, but if you're shooting at something bigger than a coke can, like a rabbit, you're still going to hit it and it's definitely going to kill it because the pellet's traveling so fast."

This is absolutely untrue. I cannot be too clear on this. This is complete and total bullshit.

If you're shooting at any animal with any weapon, you have to be absolutely certain that you're going to hit it in the head or heart/lung area because that's the only way to guarantee a quick and humane kill. However, this is especially true with an air rifle.

For example, I've shot plenty of groundhogs and squirrels, but I've also let plenty go because I couldn't guarantee a head shot…and that's with a .22LR that delivers approximately 116 ft-lbs of energy to the target. Hitting a groundhog in the gut with a .22LR means that groundhog is going to bleed to death over the course of a few hours, and a leg shot is only going to kill the groundhog a day or so later when the wound gets infected.

Compare this to the kid's air rifle, which only delivers twelve ft-lbs of energy to the target. This is enough for a legal and humane kill on small game like rabbits, but only if you shoot them in the head.

Basically, this kid has watched far too much TV and thinks just putting a hole in something will always kill it…and worse yet he knows almost nothing about his gun and treats it with no respect whatsoever. Even though his gun was 'just' an air rifle, it's a rifle capable of sending a 12 grain projectile down range a around 1000 feet per second…enough to cause some fairly serious damage…and if he's deliberately misusing it by dieseling it and showing absolutely zero respect for what it's capable of…what's going to happen when this kid grows up some more and decides he wants a 12 gauge or a hunting rifle?

If this kid will happily diesel an air rifle, exactly how bothered do you think he'll be when he discovers a 3" shotgun shell will fit into the barrel of a 2"3/4 only shotgun? How likely is he to take his finger off the trigger because the buck's too far away and he can't guarantee a kill shot? How likely is he to maintain it and make sure it's stored properly?

The problem is we treat gun education in exactly the same way we treat sex education. We don't want little Timmy going anywhere near firearms so the last thing we want to do is to teach him how to use one.

The saddest part is that as soon as you think of that logically, we're trying to make our kids safer around firearms by making sure they know absolutely nothing about them or how to handle them safely. It's like protecting kids from car crashes by doing away with drivers ed and learners permits and just letting them get behind the wheel whenever they like.

My advice?

Buy your kid an airsoft pistol when he's old enough to ask for one, and use it to drill into him basic firearms safety and the consequences of playing with guns. Take him to the shooting range and show him what a 30.06 round can do to a watermelon, which is fun and guaranteed to get his attention…but can also give a graphic example of what hat same round can also do to a human head. If you own a firearm, let him know he can see it and handle it whenever he likes as long as it's under your direct supervision.

Basically, a kid who's grown up around firearms and knows how they work and what they're capable of will treat them with the care and respect they deserve. A kid who's taught nothing about firearms and was never allowed near them is the kid who's going to find his dad's pistol and spin it around his finger like a cowboy without checking to see if it's loaded.

Knowledge is never a bad thing.

A Little Guilty…

In my late teens and early twenties, I was seriously into playing the guitar. I've never had a lesson, but chances are if I was at home, I'd have my guitar in my lap. Almost every day I'd meet up with a bunch of friends at someone's house and we'd jam for four or five hours straight…and I absolutely loved every second of it.

Then, somewhere along the line (probably moving and getting married was a huge part of it) playing the guitar kinda fell by the wayside, and over time I chose different things to do with my leisure time. I still play the guitar, but I'll probably only pick it up maybe once a week for half an hour.

Reading fellow blogger Evan08's latest post about playing the guitar actually make me feel a little guilty, because when I read Evan's posts about playing the guitar, it's like I'm reading something I would have written myself ten years ago, posts written by someone who is passionate about what they're doing and enjoying every minute of it…and since I stopped playing every day I've changed from someone who could play the guitar and play it well, to someone who can kinda play the guitar…and that's not a good feeling.

The hard part is I don't know whether I want to start playing seriously again because I actually want to start playing again…or just because it'll mean all that time I spent learning is a waste if I don't.

A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Early yesterday morning it started raining here in upstate South Carolina and it's been raining ever since.

Last night, as I was lying in bed listening to the rain thundering on the roof, I figured that I wouldn't be getting up and going out for my usual two mile walk in the morning.

This morning, I got out of bed and was incredibly happy to see that the rain had all but stopped and there was just a very light drizzle. As a British guy, from a country where it rains all the effing time, I wasn't going to let a bit of drizzle stop me, so I put on my jacket, slipped my ipod into my pocke and headed out.

Unfortunate Event the First: About half a mile into my walk I suddenly realized that I was wearing socks that were far too thin for the boots I was wearing, meaning every time I took a step, the back was rubbing against my heels. Since returning home, I can confirm that my feet are now the proud parents to twin blisters.

Unfortunate Event the Second: In the space of roughly 2.4 seconds the rain changed from a light drizzle to a torrential downpour.

Unfortunate Event the Third: Discovering approximately 6.7 seconds later that my jacket isn't waterproof and the pocket my iPod is currently residing in is rapidly filling with water.

Unfortunate Event the Fourth: Discovering the only way to keep my iPod dry is to unzip my jacket, so I can hold the iPod in my hand underneath so it won't be pressed against wet fabric.

Unfortunate Even the Fifth: Deciding to break into a run and almost instantly going over on my ankle thanks to an unfortunately place piece of rock

Unfortunate Event the Sixth: Arriving back at the house to find the driveway to waterlogged and muddy that Sunny's having real difficulty getting the car up the hill.

Unfortunate Event the Seventh: Helping Sunny get the car out the drive, her blowing me a kiss…and me returning it without realizing that getting the car out has left my right hand covered in mud.

Opinions, please?

Back in the early 90's, after much persuading (and agreeing to get a second phone line installed and to pay for everything myself) I finally convinced my parents to let me get internet service.

Now, while home computers had been around for around 20 years or so, they were still the domain of geeks and hobbyists. You usually had one geek per household who understood the mysteries of the strange beige box, and everyone else barely knew what a computer was or did and couldn't think of a single scenario where they'd ever want to use one.

Then, the internet came along. Of course, what the internet was in 1995 would be barely recognizable by a teenager today. It was basically nothing more than text and pictures. There were a few videos but these tended to make video taken on a cell phone look like iMax footage and it took literally hours to download even a short, five minute film. There where no web apps or facebook or youtube…just lots of text and small, highly compressed images.

Then, an amazing discovery was made: To the delight of teenage boys everywhere (and to the abject horror of their parents) it turned out that there were pictures of naked ladies on the internet.

Of course, this was quickly followed by programs like Net Nanny and other early attempts to give parents some control over what their kids could and couldn't see online.

These programs just didn't work.

Don't get me wrong, they technically worked, but the average parent at the time didn't even know what 'double click' meant. Parents all over the world who had never so much as touched a computer before were expected to get on the computer, log onto the internet, find the correct website, download some software, install it and set it up… despite the fact that they didn't really know what a website was or what 'downloading' meant. Realistically, the only way the average parent could have installed Net Nanny or something similar would have been by asking their kids to install in themselves

You might as well have asked a cat burglar to install an alarm system on your house to keep himself out.

Basically, this was a generation of parents who just didn't know anything about computers. It's not surprising, they hadn't been around them, used them or had any reason to believe they'd ever need to. Computers and the internet were simply toys for geeks… there was as much reason to learn about your kids computer as there was to learn about his chemistry set.

Long story short, most parents barely knew how to turn on a computer…so it's completely understandable that parents would get annoyed and complain when they walked in on their kid looking at porn on 'that internet thing'. It was like buying their kids a textbook and finding a couple of issues of Cum Guzzling Crack Whores hidden inside.

But here's the thing:

It's not 1992 any more. It's 2010. Computers and the internet aren't obscure geek toys any more. They're literally central to our whole existence…and twenty years on idiot parents are still complaining about inappropriate content like the world is deliberately sneaking it past them.

As I mentioned in my previous post, parents have more tools to censor what their kids can and can't see today more than at any other time in history. From ISP's offering filtering software (and complete step by step instructions, with pictures, on how to install and use them) to the V-chip in your TV and parental controls in cable boxes and games consoles.

Let's just say that when I was a teen, there was no way to automatically block a magazine or VHS tape from entering the house, and I could watch anything I liked on TV as long as I had the sound way down. My parents certainly couldn't check my 'browsing history', instantly search my room for anything with the word 'sex' in it…and they absolutely couldn't track my movements by the GPS in my phone.

The biggest problem I have with all this is that parents have had almost twenty years to get used to this stuff, and they're still talking like computers are magical boxes far beyond their comprehension. It's not new, mysterious technology any more. It's something just about everyone uses every day…and they've been doing this for almost twenty years.

Here's my question:

At what point do we turn around to these people and point out that if they don't know how to set a parental lock on a TV after twenty years, they probably shouldn't be parenting in the first place?

In my opinion, in 2010, complaining that your kid is playing a violent game or watching porn on the internet is the rough equivalent of blaming the manufacturer of your liquor cabinet for your kids stealing your booze because this whole 'lock and key' technology is beyond you.

When does it end?

So today I saw some more of the usual local news channel bullshit about some kids using Xbox Live to swap 'inappropriate pictures'.

Of course, this is all Microsoft's fault, because they don't care about the pedophiles, murderers and other various ne'er-do-wells who use their service… as long as those pedophiles and murderers are willing to pay the subscription fee.

Well, I'd like to point something out here. If your kid has an Xbox, before you decide to go nuts and burn the devil machine before it turns Little Timmy into a homosexual rapist, go turn it on and press the big button in the middle of the controller. This will bring up a menu, scroll right, then scroll down to 'Family Settings'.

In that menu you'll find an absolute fuck ton of options that control what your kid can and can't do on that console.

I mean, seriously.

All the tools are right there laid out in a way that you'd have to be clinically retarded not to understand. It appears that Microsoft, instead of being this evil empire who don't care what kids are exposed to as long as they can keep taking your money, are actually a company that created a console that can be specifically tailored to what you find acceptable.

It takes less than 30 seconds to set up a console to only allow 'family-friendly' content and to restrict what your kids can and can't do on Xbox Live. Hell, you can even set it up to only allow your kid to play for a set amount of time per day. If you can read, and have the use of your thumbs, this is also very, very easy to do.

The part of this that really pisses me off is these self righteous parents who find out that their fifteen year old son has been sending the girl from his math class pictures of his dong, and blame the console.

What these parents are really saying is "I care so little about my child that I'm not willing to spend the fifteen minutes it would take to read a 'quick-start' guide and set up a few parental locks."

Here's the deal: It's 2010 people. The internet, computers and games consoles have been in most homes for at least ten years. All those excuses about 'computer stuff' being too complicated or difficult to understand are starting to sound pretty hollow. Computers and consoles were easy to use 15 years ago, and they've only been getting simpler.

It's not that you're incapable of setting parental controls on an Xbox, it's just that doing so might mean reading a couple of pages of a manual, and you can't be bothered. Even worse, if you actually brave setting up some parental controls, that means you then have to accept responsibility for your own kids.

No. It's far easier to remain willfully ignorant, claim something that's as simple as putting a round peg in a round hole to be beyond you…and when you suddenly realize that your fifteen year old kid who you've barely spoken to for the past six months has some porno pictures on his computer, you can blow your top and blame someone else…hopefully a big corporation with bags of cash who will pay you to go away because it's cheaper than a court case.

Here's the real truth: Parents today have more control over what their kids can and can't see than parents at any other point in history. The fact you're too lazy and ignorant to use the tools you've been provided with are no-one's problem but your own.