Words
A bit back, Junior was playing with a water gun. I asked her where she got the water gun and she says we don’t call it a water gun we call it a water shooter because gun is a bad word.
I asked why that was. and where she learned that. She said she didn’t know. I explained to her that gun is not a bad word. And no to believe every thing everyone tells her.
This sort of left me scratching my head, honestly.
July 6th, 2010 at 9:42 am
She probably picked it up at school without realizing it. Maybe because of one of those zero
-tolerance-intelligence policies that keep popping up.Actually, you better make sure she knows not to say it at school, so they don’t call the cops, force you to get court-ordered psych evaluations for your entire family, and have child-protective-services examining every facet of your life, just because she said the word “gun” in school. I mean, that is a terrorist threat, you know.~
July 6th, 2010 at 9:45 am
+1
July 6th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Sounds like you need to get her a water assault rifle!!
July 6th, 2010 at 9:58 am
We always used the term “squirt pistol.”
July 6th, 2010 at 10:38 am
She needs a water CANNON.
July 6th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Cartoon?
July 6th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
A friend of mine had a cigar the other night (the only one he’s had in forever) and his daughter cried herself to sleep because she thought he was going to die of cancer.
Scare tactics.
July 6th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
My 5 year old son said the same thing about our dart guns. “They’re shooters, Not guns!”
GTFO with that BS, you can call the longshot a Dart Rifle, but if you call it a dart shooter I’m sending you to your room 🙂
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3938356&CAWELAID=447150921
July 6th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
In paintball they call their guns “Markers” likely because of the same bullshit.
Also +1 to Blake, I’m young enough to remember seeing elders I knew light up a cig and think they were doing something horrible, and akin to stomping on bags of kittens.
Then again for all good it did me, I had a pack of smokes in my pocket for the better part of 5 years, and now still occasionally have a cigar.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Actually, I think not calling it a gun is a good idea, because if it’s a gun, then you’re modelling poor gun safety with it.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
e.g. Rule #2 is never to point a gun at another person. Well what do you do with water squirters? Pretty much nothing but break rule #2.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
paintball originated not as a sport. They used them to mark anything from cattle to trees. It’s temporary, non-toxic, and easily visible, all while leaving no damage.
So paintball marker is the appropriate term.
July 6th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Now this sounds like a fun sport
July 6th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
>> Now this sounds like a fun sport
Not for the cattle.
July 6th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Welcome to the world of everyone else trying to raise your kids, undercutting the actual parents. This is of course all for “The Children”. It gets much worse from here, so be prepared.
July 6th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
So. Where did she get the water “shooter,” then?
(See what she did there?–the kid’s good).
The way it was taught to me, shooters are way more dangerous than guns. Because guns don’t, you know.
July 6th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
As I understand it, there was a movement at one point to revert to the original terminology due to anti-gunners working very hard to demonize the sport and it’s adherents. It was more of an effort to save the sport from bans by local governments than anything else. Rather than fight the anti-gunners at a time when they likely would have lost, they decided to try to remove themselves from the debate altogether, and I can’t really blame them. That movement seems to have stuck with many players today.
July 6th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Like today a kid said to me that “Fireworks are bad because they pollute the environment”. Handing your kids over to government agents for 6 hours a day will not lead to good results.
I remember having a long, 45 minute or so discussion about guns with a lefty. Finally she sighed and said “Look, maybe you think guns are a necessary evil, but aren’t they still bad?” The thought that tools cannot be blamed for the actions of those who use them never occurs to people like that.
July 6th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
How is “Shooter” better than “Gun”? WTF?!?
July 6th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Dirt a shooter is someone who does the shooting. A gun is the device being shot. This is more of that anti gun bs about how guns cause violence. No gun can perform violence in and of itself. And the gun is not a person so it cannot therefore be construed as a shooter seeing it is powerless to shoot in its own right.
July 6th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Give her the water hose, and stand back. She will suprize you. My daughter can shoot circles around me.