Danger of Air pistol

[conradin]

Hello,

I was in the hospital for the past few days so I did not have the chance to reply or clarify.

I was the one who offered his mother to teach him air pistol, but as it turned out, he KNEW I did firearms and air pistol and had been nagging his mother of asking me to teach him.

I only gave him ONE lesson. It was this one lesson that alarmed me. The kid has extremely high IQ, but never talks. During the lesson he has no emotions whatsoever, and would only talk when I asked him questions (how did you feel, how was your hold), and only gave "yes sir no sir" answers. He did understand and practiced safety alright.

I emphatically told his mother about his behavior and told her that I regrettably will not be teaching him anymore. I repeatedly told her about his behavior, only to be stone walled again and again. She told me that she and her son has "open communication", and that his behavior will change "he will get over it, teen angst". Notice that the mother has mental illness herself, as does the father of her child (they have divorced long time ago). Her mother has asked several times since about teaching again, and I brushed off the subject or find excuses to ignore the request. When pressed, I told her that her son, aged 14, should take up air rifle, knowing full well that they cannot afford to purchase one.

Other than she being "proud" of his pyrotechnic behavior, she also had him enrolled in marital arts and archery. He has a habit of skipping martial art classes to the point that the Sensei has to have long talks with the mom. Meanwhile the mom was "proud" of the fact that he practiced his archery at home. The problem is there is no backyard, that means he shot inside the house. Obviously the mom has no sense of safety.

There is no way I can get in touch of his therapist since her mother refused to disclose, and always said "he did fine with the therapist" and took the right medications. This is contradictory with his guardian, who told me that he frequently has fights, or ignore the therapist during sessions.

The kid spent ALL HIS SPARE TIME playing "first person shooter" video game. He also repeatedly told his mom that he will join the army. Despite having high IQ, his grades are terrible...he is bored.

Anyway, this is WAY off topic at this point. All I like to point out is, if someone wants to be taught firearms, sometimes you will have that gut feeling that the person should not use the firearm even though *everyone* else guarantees that the kid is fine. Also, pellet guns CAN kill, so treat it as a real firearm when teaching.

[toddinjax]

Hi Conradin,

Glad you're out of hospital and hopefully well again.

Fair enough; you tried to do a nice thing for someone, recognised a problem, and removed yourself from the situation to avoid adding to the problem. You did what I think and hope everyone else on this forum would have done in your situation. You have (I think) no LEGAL obligation to do anything else, but I sincerely think that you will
1) be doing your whole community a favor to report to authorities (Child/family services, police) what you know about this mother and son and 2) sleep better at night knowing that you did what you could to prevent a possible Newtown / Columbine like tragedy.
This child sounds like a potential powder keg and his mother is the worst kind of enabler. This kid needs a guitar, a fishing rod, marathon running shoes or a caligraphy set, but certainly not any kind of weapon.

[bpscCheney]

Actually this kid sounds exactly like me as a kid in high school. I hated every minute of it and before you all jump to conclusions I'd ask the kid if anything is bugging him or if someone is bothering him. Honestly I really only wanted to have a single friend in high school but no one ever seemed to click with my own interests so I basically drifted through as a loner who loved guns, first person shooters, and said very little to others. Just my very humble opinion. :)

[Hemmers]

Yes, you can kill with an air pistol. PCP and CO2 guns have enough force to penetrate a human skull.

Frankly, the way you describe the kid, he sounds like the textbook example of a potential mass shooter. Smart, but no social skills, and poor impulse control. Sounds like he's got his parents fooled too. I'd stay *FAR* away. Wouldn't want to enable him, nor be part of the body count.

Sounds like a standard kid mid way along the autistic spectrum. Functioning whilst still having severe social problems. Prevalence in the US is about 1%, so a 2000-student high school will have about 20 students at various points along the scale (well, arguably everyone is on the scale somewhere, but they'll average about 20 who are far enough along to have diagnosable symptoms). There's probably at least one autistic person on each street. They're not all "spree shooter" material.

Spree shooters tend to be more the paranoid delusional types than straight up autistic types. If the kid's taught himself to build rockets at age 14 then he's obviously pretty bright when he finds something he's able to focus on. Sounds like he needs something to direct his focus into productive endeavours.

Meanwhile the mom was "proud" of the fact that he practiced his archery at home. The problem is there is no backyard, that means he shot inside the house. Obviously the mom has no sense of safety.

Obviously I don't know the kid, but it occurs to me that in the absence of a yard, indoors is pretty safe. If it's just the two of them, and she knows he's shooting along the upstairs corridor or some such, then it's a pretty contained environment. If you're happy to put up with the odd mark in the decor...