- SIDNEY - For Christmas,
10-year-old
Jack Arterburn wants something many parents would never consider giving
their child. He wants a gun.
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- School shootings have darkened the popular image of a
boy with a gun. But in rural towns such as Sidney, guns on children's
holiday
wish lists evoke nostalgia. Guns are what boys wanted for Christmas a
hundred
years ago, both for hunting and as a rite of passage. A gun is what Jack's
father, 44-year-old Joe Arterburn, remembers receiving when he was 10.
"A .22-caliber bolt-action Remington," recalls Arterburn
fondly.
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- So on Christmas morning, young Jack Arterburn will find
a Remington 20-gauge shotgun under the Christmas tree. Then he will no
longer feel like the odd kid out. Five of his friends already have their
own guns, says Jack. "That's why I want one."
-
- The gun his father bought him, which Jack doesn't know
about, is youth-sized, meaning that it's shorter than a shotgun for adults.
Of the 200,000 guns expected to be given as gifts this Christmas, more
than 100,000 will be youth-sized rifles and shotguns - also known as long
guns, says the Professional Gun Retailers Association. (Handguns, for the
most part, aren't given to children, experts say).
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- The long-gun market is so popular that the number of
gun makers offering youth models has doubled in the past decade to about
20 companies, says Robin Sharpless, a gun marketing executive who is a
member of the National Rifle Association's Youth Programs Committee.
"One
has to recruit the next generation of participants," says Sharpless.
"If golf did not have short clubs, you're not going to have as many
kids getting into golfing."
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- This Christmas, gun sales for children and adults could
get an added boost from the self-defense fever inspired by the events of
Sept. 11. "Hopefully, America realizes now, more than ever, how
important
it is for each citizen to have the right to bear arms," says Ferris
Bavousett, a 51-year-old middle-school teacher in Flower Mound,
Texas.
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- For Christmas, Bavousett has bought his 12-year-old son
a $350 20-gauge Remington shotgun and his 16-year-old daughter a $600
Winchester
.25-06 rifle. It will be his son's first gun, his daughter's second.
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- The companies that sell guns for children, and the
parents
who buy them, realize that much of society doesn't approve. Some customers
have complained about outdoor-goods retailer Orvis Co. showing a photograph
in a recent catalog of a child holding a gun - albeit a cap gun. The
holiday
catalog of Ducks Unlimited, a wetlands conservation group, features a
gun-toting
child on its cover, but only because the publication goes strictly to
hunters
and sportsmen. "I'm not sure the general public is that comfortable
with guns," says Tildy LaFarge, a spokeswoman for Ducks
Unlimited.
-
- Gun proponents point out, however, that in some
high-profile
school shootings - such as the one at Columbine High School, where 12
students
and a teacher were killed - the kids firing the shots didn't get their
weapons from parents.
-
- To the contrary, they say, children who grow up in
hunting
families develop a deep respect for guns and their dangers. When such a
child receives his own gun, the weapon itself delivers only half the
thrill;
the other half comes from the trust it conveys. "It's a deposit of
trust: 'I trust you to carry this deadly weapon and not shoot me, the dog
or the neighbor,' " says Chris Draffen, a gun salesman in Cedar Falls,
Iowa.
-
- The age when that trust is granted differs widely. Under
federal law, a youth must be 18 years old to purchase a long gun - that
is, a shotgun or rifle - and 21 years old to buy a handgun. But it's legal
by federal law to buy a gun for someone else as long as he or she is not
legally prohibited from owning a firearm, as convicted felons are. Many
parents first subject children to hours of official safety training,
typically
conducted by state wildlife agencies; about half of the 750,000 people
who take such training annually are under age 18, according to the
International
Hunter Education Association. In most states, any child old enough to
understand
the training is welcome to take it and then hunt, although there are some
age restrictions on hunting big game.
-
- Some adults say the best way to determine a child's
readiness
is to take him hunting. When Ken Babcock, a 58-year-old wildlife biologist
in Jackson, Miss., took his 10-year-old grandson squirrel hunting two
months
ago, the 10-year-old boy showed extraordinary restraint, firing his gun
only twice in several hours. Concluding that the boy, Dalton Sochinski,
"showed he had an appreciation for what hunting was about,"
Babcock
has decided to give Dalton a Browning .22-caliber rifle for Christmas.
Babcock won the rifle in a raffle five years ago, and has been waiting
for the right moment to hand it down.
-
- Will Dalton be pleased to find it under the Christmas
tree? His mother, Jennifer Sochinski, herself a hunter, says he has only
three items on his Christmas list: a portable CD player, a Nintendo video
game and a gun.
-
- Here in the west Nebraska plains, there are few
diversions
other than hunting. The town of Sidney, located a couple hundred miles
from the nearest big city, is famous mainly for serving as the headquarters
of Cabela's, a private chain of hunting and fishing stores. As
communications
manager for Cabela's, Arterburn - father of 10-year-old Jack - is a
college-educated
former journalist. He is also an avid hunter. When he hunts, his three
sons love to tag along.
-
- The oldest son, named Hunter, received his first gun
two years ago at Christmas, when he was 10. His second son is Jack, who
this fall took a state-sponsored 10-hour hunter-safety course, complete
with an exam, in the hopes of receiving his own gun this Christmas.
Although
Jack suspects he may get his wish, he thinks it will be a hand-me-down
from his older brother - not the gleaming new Remington 870 his father
has bought for him.
-
- Joe Arterburn's wife, Cathy, says guns worry her no more
than any other potential peril. However, Arterburn's 76-year-old mother,
Alyce Arterburn, says, "Of course you worry about guns because they
are lethal. I guess I just put the trust in Joe to see that everything
will be all right."
-
- To promote safety, Arterburn keeps all guns in the house
in a vault and the ammunition in a separate locked cabinet. He also keeps
the keys to his kids' trigger locks. Still, Arterburn concedes he can
protect
his kids only so much. "It's like driving," he says. "You
give them all the tools and education and throw them into the world. You
just hope everything you taught them sees them through."
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