The kids are of an age to teach about guns. At their age I was already shooting several boxes of .22’s daily. Here they cannot do that.
So I got out various weapons and showed them the proper way to point them, when to consider them loaded (all the time), showed them how any one of them could easily kill a person.
Moved on to the “sound” portion. I racked the Mossberg 500 – you know that formidable sound it makes. I said “Kids when you hear that sound what do you do?”
“Run away” was one answer. Another was “Hide in such-and-such location”. I told them “No, what you do when you hear that sound is hit the floor. “Let’s see how fast you can hit the floor when I rack this gun”
And so we made a game out of a very serious thing, which is get the kids out of the equation. “How long do you stay there?” “Until you say we can get up.” They were slamming themselves into the floor to see who could be quickest.
It was a great start. And I made it clear to them that if I ever have to choose between their safety and the safety of an intruder in our home we will not hesitate to send the intruder to his maker in the most expedient way possible. I disabused them of the silly notion of “aiming for the leg” that so many liberals would love – if you mean to aim a gun at someone you should only have done so thinking that you or yours were in terrible danger, and if your situation is that extreme then the idea of only trying to wound someone is ludicrous.
****
Given the latest round of testing done to look at Lemurita and where she falls on the ASD continuum, they reversed her diagnosis to a lesser but still real diagnosis and then said “She tests just under 140 on her IQ. Get her into robotics or something.” Well, I KNOW she’s bright… why did y’all think I have been throwing latin and classics and music at her all this time?
She and I are so alike that the worst disservice we could give her is to not give her free reign to run as far as she can go in any field of learning. With the right mentor, vast swathes of my childhood would have been infinitely more interesting.
So last night Lemurita and I built a galvanic response circuit you can use as a VERY simplified lie-detector circuit if you have appropriate leads. She swears she does not sweat when she lies so now we must prove the point one way or another. I’ll also take the opportunity to teach her how to flip the emotional switch off and see if that makes a difference. Doing scientific projects with Lemurita is fun – a vast huge amazing amount of fun.
Wait until Lemurita and I make thermite and put it on a remote ignition. Oh this will be such fun.
When you finally get your kids some real target practice, don’t forget to buy a couple of 2.5 lb. tannerite exploding targets! Midway had ’em on sale a month ago and I stocked up for the Summer. Can’t have too many!
Also, see if they still make those “one hundred and one electronics kits” where you build each circuit on the pegboard with the “Fahnestock” or “springy” push-in terminal clips.
I played with mine when I was a kid (just after the last Ice Age) until half the component leads had frayed off from use!
Built a little radio, a wireless mike, a logic gate, etc, and learned a buttload and developed fine motor skills using those little clips.
Oh, yeah. I learned how to de-bug circuits too! And I let the smoke out of a couple of wet-slug electrolytics! That + and – symbol on them MEANS something!
EXCELLENT idea.
This electronic kit will work for now but I think she’ll get interested in a protoboard one if I can keep the momentum.
Letting the smoke out of slugs sounds fun. 🙂
Just sprinkle a little salt on the slugs, they just melt away…
😛
I’ve owned protoboards for decades! You can breadboard a hobby circuit quick as you can conceive it!
And the useable bandwidth on them is not bad either if you measure or note the stray coupling capacitance between rows when assembling fast timing circuits or resonant L-C circuits.
I walked into the lab one day after someone popped an electrolytic cap, paused, sniffed the distinctive odor carefully, then said, ” ….Sangamo…..(sniffed again)….Pacific Rim….(sniffed)….1989 vintage …..(sniffed)…. 470 microFarad.”. Had ’em all in stitches.
That door a criminal breaks down? Yeah, that was there to protect him from my Beretta.
I bet Lemurita will have LOTS of fun 😀
Oooh, good work, Aggie… put the responsibility back on the criminal’s plate. Nicely put.
I live to serve 😀
If only Cruel Wife were so reasonable… that “living to serve” part sounds pretty good.
Uh, good luck with that!!! 😆
Luckily she doesn’t read this crapblog.
Good luck thinking that, too 😀
[…] all right-thinking people!!!!!! Recall that his murderous subjects attacked a child, and he writes a light-hearted post about his […]
That door a criminal breaks down? Yeah, that was there to protect him from my Beretta.
That’s great.
I’m stealing it.
Sorry.
As for the post, it figures LK gets it bass ackwards.
You start with BB guns, everyone knows that.
You give your kids a 10 second head start and start shooting.
.
That way they learn that guns hurt if you’re on the wrong end, so make sure you’re always on the right end and make sure you point it somewhere safe. Like not at me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying when you shoot your kid with a BB gun you do it unsafely, you don’t pump your Crosman 760 more than 12 or 15 times and you always make sure you’re wearing eye protection when you shoot.
This also teaches your kids about running and evasive action, which are good skills to have.
The kids are already “teaching” each other by shooting each other with Nerf bullets and discs. No need to work up to BB’s to get the point across.
Skip BB guns, go straight to paintball guns. With frozen paintballs.
I concur. Worked with mine 😀
I saw on the TV some law enforcement types that were using paintballs filled with powder treated with capsaicin. Pepper spray, now with added sting.
Steal away, my friend.
[…] Next we have our own LC Aggie Sith! with a beaut. […]
[ I built a galvanic response circuit you can use as a VERY simplified lie-detector circuit ]
these can be used to train yourself to not respond as well.