Have you seen the 1957 Disney film Old Yeller?

[AlongCameJones]

But what about that un-padlocked and loaded gun above the door in Old Yeller? There weren't mass shootings and school shootings committed by American youth in 1885, were there? Such goings-on were never covered in any of my American history textbooks in high school. My thread is more about guns and kids than Disney films, per se. Why are guns and kids such a big deal in the media nowadays?

Let me ask folks here, if you had children in your household, would you fear nothing bad if you were to hang a loaded shotgun or rifle above your front door without any gun lock? Historically, it seems this was common practice.

 

[CC379]

There were two young boys in a late 1800's homestead with an unlocked gun kept over the door loaded at all times. Neither of the Coates brothers went on a killing spree. Of course, there were no shoot-em-up arcade games back in the Old West to corrupt young innocent minds.

Is it just that modern American culture is "not safe" to have children and guns mixing? What has changed since the Old West? There is a lot of criticism from the Left about getting minors involved with guns and shooting sports. Some think that long guns "are OK" for minors but not handguns.

there were millions of killings prior to video games, deacon jim miller supposedly killed his grandparents I suspect the biggest change is due to a larger population that means more crazy people who want to kill and more people available to kill?

 

[O4L]

I like the part where Old Yeller hiked his leg on the Red Fern.

 

[AlongCameJones]

there were millions of killings prior to video games, deacon jim miller supposedly killed his grandparents I suspect the biggest change is due to a larger population that means more crazy people who want to kill and more people available to kill?

Could it be that more people are born with "criminal brain-wiring" these days? After all, pregnant women in 1885 probably did not put chemical cosmetics on their bodies, eat junk food, smoke, use tobacco, drink or do dope to screw up the brains and the DNA of the unborn inside the womb. Genetically-engineered foods and pesticides on foods might be screwing up human behavior too. Could it also be that spankings are not as common as they used to be? Children are a product of their environment.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'

-Bob Dylan

 

[rickm]

Part of it is the .gov fault and part of it is the parents fault by not teaching their kids right from wrong and punishing them when they did do something wrong, but no the .gov says you have to put them in timeout like that really teaches a kid anything.

 

[AlongCameJones]

Part of it is the .gov fault and part of it is the parents fault by not teaching their kids right from wrong and punishing them when they did do something wrong, but no the .gov says you have to put them in timeout like that really teaches a kid anything.

My mother opened that kitchen drawer with the wooden spoon in it in no time at all. Boy, how I dreaded the sound of that kitchen drawer slamming open from the other room. I could just feel the thousands of beestings all over my body as soon as the drawer slammed wide open.

 

[Tanis143]

I've read and seen both Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows. Another classic both in book and movie is To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

[AlongCameJones]

I really regret using the rhetorical question about Old Yeller in my heading. I really don't care if people have actually seen that film or not. I'm more interested in what people, both pro-gunner and anti-gunner, think about our attitude and culture regarding firearms and youth in modern times. I used Old Yeller as a classic example of children around guns without Fort Knox-like security measures and "helicopter" parenting. I figured most here are of an age that probably saw the film and was familiar with the gun-related scenes in that particular Hollywood picture. The 12-year-old boy's mother is not constantly guarding him like a Doberman while he is handling that rifle. It seems that modern kids live in a bubble or may need to be kept there. Big-city life and the demonic global culture that many unsavory foreigners have drug onto American soil in recent times might be rubbing wrong onto our youth. Our youth might be confused. There doesn't seem to be much in the news about kids from Oklahoma who are troubled and are involved in these gun-related incidents that make national TV. I don't figure parents in Middle America hover over their children so much giving them sheltered lives.

 

[1911Sooner]

Old Yeller was the first movie that made me cry.

 

[Bocephus123]

Part of it is the .gov fault and part of it is the parents fault by not teaching their kids right from wrong and punishing them when they did do something wrong, but no the .gov says you have to put them in timeout like that really teaches a kid anything.

what i was thinking exactly