“IMHO, if the kid had healthy exposure to firearms, rather than the repressed approach of Canada—or modern America, then he’d know better than to treat the firearm so lightly, threatening like that.”
Couldn’t agree more. When I was 12 my friends and I would get our 22’s and go off in the woods hunting squirrels or rabbits. To us a firearm was just a fishing rod that had to be treated more safely, and it never occurred to us that we could brandish our 22s to make threats, be manly, or be more powerful. If one of the other boys didn’t follow proper safety rules we didn’t need parents to intercede, we just never brought him along anymore.
I have to admit, though, that most of the violent acts I see kids take so lightly these days are things that would never even cross (or come anywhere near the path of) my mind!
But one of the little-known facts of firearms is that firearm-accident rates tend to go down when the number of guns goes up. The same drop occurs after each war, too. They both indicate one effect of experience and familiarity with firearms.