Which is more disturbing?

[Beet]

One is banned, the other is flourishing, but option 2 is more disturbing. Case in point.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-ky-girl-accidentally-shot-killed-19079010#.UYEkhrWcd8E

[TNF]

Firearms marketed towards children, as the former doesn't exist in the United States outside of magazines.

[Franzl]

Well firearms being available for general purchase is disturbing enough, so marketing what should be a banned product to children makes it even worse.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Both have pretty sadistic motivations... but I'll go with firearms.  With cigarettes, they want to get the kid hooked early to a product.  With the gun lobby encouraging children to have an interest in guns, I feel like it's some sort of brainwashing that they'll pass off as early education and safety.  That, and almost every person I know that has been at the firing range from a young age views the world in a seriously [inks]ed up way, and their politics are always reprehensible.  The latter is more disturbing, in my mind.  

Take this [Mod note: Please don't use derogatory epithets on this board] for example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_-N9_tnWBo

Screw gun control... I COULD GET A SCHOLARSHIP!  

[H. Ross Peron]

Firearms marketed towards children, as the former doesn't exist in the United States outside of magazines.

[© tweed]

in polls titled as this is I usually don't find either option disturbing.

[opebo]

Well lets face it cigarettes are extremely cool, and if we really admit the truth, guns are cool too. 

[angus]

Well lets face it cigarettes are extremely cool, and if we really admit the truth, guns are cool too. 

They are.  You and I are old enough to remember when cigarettes were marketed toward children.  Did your high school allow smoking on campus?  Mine did.  No smoking was actually allowed in the building, either by faculty or students, but anywhere outside was fair game.  There were a few spots where the 2nd and 3rd floors overhung and made a little sheltered area where, on rainy days, all the "cool" kids would smoke.  Often, one of us would bring a J and pass it around.  That entailed little risk if all you brought was one rolled spliff which could be eaten if necessary.

Weapons, on the other hand, were already forbidden by the time I got to high school.  Metal detectors as yet weren't de rigueur, but a knife would be grounds for suspension.  A gun?  I can't imagine a student bringing a gun to school, even back in the 80s.

I'll have to go with option 2, but that's generational.  I suspect that my son's generation would probably find option 1 weirder because they'll grow up with violent video games which have paid for the right to realistically place certain gun products, right down to the company logo on the weapons, in their games.  Cigarettes, on the other hand, are something that started to have a legal age limit long ago.  It never affected me, and I can remember buying cartons of cigarettes for my parents when I was in elementary school, but for the kids nowadays I'd imagine that cigarettes will seem to have an exotic, forbidden quality.  Weapons will seem normal.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Well lets face it cigarettes are extremely cool, and if we really admit the truth, guns are cool too.  

They are.  You and I are old enough to remember when cigarettes were marketed toward children.  Did your high school allow smoking on campus?  Mine did. No smoking was actually allowed in the building, either by faculty or students, but anywhere outside was fair game.  There were a few spots where the 2nd and 3rd floors overhung and made a little sheltered area where, on rainy days, all the "cool" kids would smoke.  Often, one of us would bring a J and pass it around.  That entailed little risk if all you brought was one rolled spliff which could be eaten if necessary.

Weapons, on the other hand, were already forbidden by the time I got to high school.  Metal detectors as yet weren't de rigueur, but a knife would be grounds for suspension.  A gun?  I can't imagine a student bringing a gun to school, even back in the 80s.

I'll have to go with option 2, but that's generational.  I suspect that my son's generation would probably find option 1 weirder because they'll grow up with violent video games which have paid for the right to realistically place certain gun products, right down to the company logo on the weapons, in their games.  Cigarettes, on the other hand, are something that started to have a legal age limit long ago.  It never affected me, and I can remember buying cartons of cigarettes for my parents when I was in elementary school, but for the kids nowadays I'd imagine that cigarettes will seem to have an exotic, forbidden quality.  Weapons will seem normal.

Is there is specific time when this completely changed, angus (being a parent and all that)?  I remember in my high school it was completely disallowed.  Outside would mean a detention(s), because "it was illegal"... which it's not, of course.  A group of girls lit up at lunch one time and all received a 5 day out-of-school suspension.  You could beat the crap out of someone and get a 3 day!  But what would you expect from a white, suburban nanny-town with all the stupid scaredy-cat parents?  (Naturally, given such an environment, prescription drug abuse among teens is rampant... but that's a story for a different day)

And opebo, guns don't always have to be cool.  When I argue gun control and such with my gun-nut friends they always try to give me that argument.  "Oh Austin, you know guns are cool and you like them."  I will typically reply with something like... "Sorry I'm too intelligent/sophisticated to be impressed with a little instrument that goes, BANG BANG!"... NOW THAT RILES 'EM UP!  

[Mechaman]

Option 2 easily.

I know this may make me an unlikable bastard to some, but adults are freaking adults.  They've had at least 18 years worth of education to know that smoking is an unhealthy life choice decision if they decide on a whim after reading a magazine ad to try a cigarette. . . . . . it's on them.  They've had every reason in the world up to that point to not smoke and they decided to do it anyway.  Seriously, is this like a "dur" question?  The fact that some people think this is worse than Option 2 disturbs me.

Not an expert on gun advertisements, but I would imagine that advertising guns to little kids (I'm assuming actual guns, not toy guns at Wal-Mart) seems like a pretty dang dangerous tactic.  I mean, if this were Road Warrior nation I could maybe understand.  However, a lot of kids live pretty safe sheltered lives that wouldn't put them in the way of needing a gun to fight off mutated rats, raider gangs, and other end of the world sh*t.

So yeah, gun advertising towards little kids.

[angus]

Is there is specific time when this completely changed? 

Usually when I leave the country it is for a short time, but three times I left the country for an extended period.  The first was when I was about 7.  My father's company sent him to Indonesia for a few months, then to Germany for about a year.  I spent all of the second and part of the third grade out of the country.  When I returned everything was different.  The president had apparently resigned in disgrace, a new president had pardoned him, and that new president would run for re-election against a peanut farmer who talked very slowly and very weirdly.

Second time was when I took a semester off college.  It was the second semester of my sophomore year.  Long story short, when I got back I stopped in a convenience store to buy a package of Camel non-filtered cigarettes.  The woman at the counter asked me for ID.  I thought that was very bizarre.  I'd been buying cigarettes since I was five years old and had never been asked for an ID.  She explained to me that a new law had been passed and that customers had to prove that they were at least 18 years old to buy cigarettes.  I also noted that the drinking age was about to increase to 21 as well, but that those who were already legal would be "grandfathered" so it wouldn't affect people my age.

Third time was less relevant so I won't go into any detail other than to say that when I left the news on television was All Gary Condit, All The Time.  I had six 24-hour news stations and it seemed that the only news story in the known universe pertained to the whereabouts of Chandra Levy.  When I returned all the news was all about Al Quaeda.  The one good thing about 9/11 was that the talking heads had new stuff to talk about other than how much trouble Gary Condit was going to have.

I suppose that when the cigarette age was established, they had to stop letting the kids smoke in school.  I will note that during that same period there was a big debate in colleges and universities across the country regarding cigarettes.  One by one, institutions starting have stricter smoking policies.  At first there was no smoking indoors.  That was offensive.  Smoker's Rights unions started springing up demanding smoke lounges so they wouldn't have to smoke out in the rain.  Then, it got stricter and stricter.  Many campus now are smoke-free.  Not in Pennsylvania, of course.  Here you can smoke all you want near the exit of the building and all students can enjoy the second-hand smoke, but in most of the other places I've lived the university campus is a completely smoke-free environment.  Signs posted all over state schools in Iowa, for example, cite the policy clearly in large font.

Times do change.  We are certainly a far less tolerant society than we were three decades ago.  It's not altogether a bad thing.  If you're in an interracial marriage, for example, you're probably less likely to be the victim of abuse because of society's intolerance of certain forms of bigotry.  Also, if you have children you appreciate the fact society's intolerance means that they will not have to suffer second-hand smoke, and are less likely to be molested with impunity by their priests and teachers, but for the most part the intolerance is a real buzzkill.

[opebo]

We are certainly a far less tolerant society than we were three decades ago.

Precisely!  Things have done nothing but get worse in every aspect of life in my living memory.  In most aspects MUCH worse.

I can't remember of course though about the smoking in the high school.  I was the sort of kid who wouldn't' have even been aware of such things had they existed.

[TDAS04]

Option 2, by far.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Since I personally have never smoked, I never worried about it too much, but when I was in high school, there was a designated smoking area, but you had to be 18 or have a note from your parents to make use of it.  Of course, it wasn't too difficult to sneak a smoke elsewhere as this was back in the days before they turned schools into fortresses.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Option 2, obviously

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Both have pretty sadistic motivations... but I'll go with firearms.  With cigarettes, they want to get the kid hooked early to a product.  With the gun lobby encouraging children to have an interest in guns, I feel like it's some sort of brainwashing that they'll pass off as early education and safety.  That, and almost every person I know that has been at the firing range from a young age views the world in a seriously [inks]ed up way, and their politics are always reprehensible.  The latter is more disturbing, in my mind.  

Take this vile little * for example

that's a pretty reprehensible thing to call a 15 year old girl who's just expressing her opinion.  you learn that at the firing range?

[Vosem]

Clearly the first. Cigarettes have a negative health impact on every single person who uses them. With proper supervision and monitoring in a controlled environment (like a shooting range), there's no reason children shouldn't be able to use guns (I know I did, though admittedly not at the age of 5).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Clearly the first. Cigarettes have a negative health impact on every single person who uses them. With proper supervision and monitoring in a controlled environment (like a shooting range), there's no reason children shouldn't be able to use guns (I know I did, though admittedly not at the age of 5).

You are insane.

[Vosem]

Clearly the first. Cigarettes have a negative health impact on every single person who uses them. With proper supervision and monitoring in a controlled environment (like a shooting range), there's no reason children shouldn't be able to use guns (I know I did, though admittedly not at the age of 5).

You are insane.

Why? In contrast to guns, no truly legitimate use of cigarettes exists. There's a lot wrong with poisoning yourself, but there's a strong argument to be made to start teaching how to safely handle and use guns at an early age.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I actually agrer with Vosem oddly. Everyone who smokes cigarettes harms themself, not everyone who uses a gun does.

[MadmanMotley]

I actually agrer with Vosem oddly. Everyone who smokes cigarettes harms themself, not everyone who uses a gun does.

This.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Considering that thirteen times more people die from tobacco use each year in the United States than from gun use.  I'm not surprised that some here are so rabidly anti-gun as to ignore the numbers.   I am surprised at how many are.

[RI]

Definitely cigarettes.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Clearly option 2.

[Goldwater]

Both are pretty disturbing, but seeing a kid using a gun responsibly is less disturbing than seeing a kid smoking.