Replies

Truthfully, while I like guns, I’m not a big fan of giving them as Christmas presents, any more than I’d give a gift wrapped monkey wrench, and for much the same reasons.

A gun and a monkey wrench are tools, and tools are not something you have a great emotional attachment to, which is a big part of Christmas presents. Christmas gifts are all about emotion and affection and memories. Practicality is pretty low on the totem pole.

A gun is a gift you might give a week before or a week after, or about any time of the year.

In this particular case, it also sounds like the father is giving a gift of a gun as sort of a passive-aggressive dig at his ex-wife. This makes it worse. Christmas is not a good excuse for pay back.

I’m really not trying to “dig” at her. That’s not my style, and in fact it is more of her style to dig at me every chance she gets. I simply am acknowledging the fact that his (2 year younger) cousin received a pistol for an early Christmas present and that’s all my son talks about. Since I KNOW he will be around that gun, and all the other guns his cousin has, I would like him to learn about gun safety. The only way he’ll learn about gun safety where it will “stick” is if he has a gun of his own to learn with and practice with. I fully understand that his mother may not like it, and as I’ve stated, I was completely ready to accept “don’t buy him a gun” as advice from those on this thread. What I wasn’t prepared for was to have a blowhard question my fathering skills simply because I’m trying to do something nice for my son that will benefit him for the rest of his life.

For the record - I’ve never missed or even been late on a child support payment, I was an active Cub Scout leader and Cubmaster, I’m teaching him to drive, I taught him to swim, and I’m constantly teaching him about how to be respectful of other people, IN PARTICULAR his mother, who gets much more consideration from me than I’ve ever gotten from her. For instance, I take him out to buy birthday and Christmas presents for her, and every time that she’s ever come over to pick him up from me, I’ve made sure he was cleaned up and ready to go when she arrived. She’s never done any of that for me. He’s always in the middle of something when I get there (at my regularly scheduled time) and has to go around collecting his things before he even comes to the door to greet me. But somehow that makes me a “father” instead of a father. Up yours, yldstrk.

A gun and a monkey wrench are tools, and tools are not something you have a great emotional attachment to,

This statement is nuts.

If we didn't get attached to our tools why would we have so many variants in saws and drills as well as guns?

I bought my wife a Marlin 45-70 lever action for Christmas. Not the most practical rifle and the rounds are really expensive and won't be plentiful if the zombies rise but it is a fun gun. Just like my Henry repeating rifle which is a gorgeous rifle too. Another nice thing about the Henry even shooting .45 Long Colt it has all of the recoil of a .22 Long.

If SHTF then we can resort back to our more practical AR's but until then we will get attached to and have loads of fun with as well.

Two years ago she gave me a Mosin for Christmas and it tickled my pink. So did the Kerig coffee maker she gave e last year.

Here is a picture of two of them laid out with tender loving care and a ping to a few people who have shot the Henry.