[FBD]

Ha! I remember getting that Daisy BB gun as a kid.
First thing I did was take it outside, and shoot at a tractor tire...and the ricochet hit me on the cheek, right under the eye.

Of course that was back in the day before we had heard of safety glasses. Today, the line goes: "Wear your safety glasses, so you don't shoot your eye out.!"

[Rockingham]

My youngest brother had a similar experience with his Red Ryder. In his early teens, after a summer's worth of practice, he became so accomplished a shot that he could quick fire at a narrow metal pole thirty feet away and hear the satisfying ping of a direct hit almost every time. Fortunately, the ricochet that eventually hit him was not in an eye but felt as a sting on his pants leg -- and it led him to realize that the soft whacks that he thought he heard at head height on the tree next to him were also ricochets.

Despite such risks, the merits of the Red Ryder and of kids having BB guns should not be overlooked. My brother remains a crack shot. Even after a decade without regular practice, I have seen him rapid fire a clip from an M-1 Garand, peppering a target far down the firing range. Similarly, a friend of mine who did a stint in the Army used BB guns to turn his inner city misfit recruits into crack shots, amazing his superiors and competing trainers who expected most of them to fail basic marksmanship. And he used Red Ryders, of course.