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Writing for the stolidly [sic] anti-gun miamiherald.com, the director of clinical psychology at the Mailman Center for Child Development at uHealth at the University of Miami Health System, Dr. Alan M. Delimiter [above] reckons childhood exposure to guns and simulated gun violence is a bad, bad thing.

Exposure to guns and violence is not good for optimal child development, nor is it good for public health. Research shows that repeated and excessive exposure to aggression and gun violence through movies, TV and video games increases the probability of children behaving aggressively toward others later.

Children witness acts of gun violence, including murders, thousands of times during their development, possibly making them numb or desensitized to killing. For example, in popular video games children can act virtually as perpetrators of gun violence. They may come to accept violence as a way to resolve conflict, imitating what they see in media and identifying with violent characters.

And yet tens of millions of American children grow-up to be law-abiding citizens. Gun owners, too! How in the world does that happen?

I reckon it’s something to do with context. You know, children learning the difference between good guys and bad guys, appreciating the difference between fantasy and reality. And, through parents, friends, teachers, religious instructors and their community, assuming a moral code. But what do I know?

From a public health perspective, children should be restricted from guns unless they are in highly supervised settings with adults, such as a target practice at summer camp or part of a competitive team. Increased efforts should be made to limit kids’ access to guns. High-powered semi-automatic guns should not be allowed for use by children under any circumstance.

As Nick recently pointed out, the real goal here is civilian disarmament. Elitists consider civilian gun ownership a scourge on humanity, or, if you will, a roadblock to utopia. They want to stop gun ownership before it begins. For the children! To that end, enter the straw man . . .

Parents should be asking how to optimize their child’s development. Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?

A 13-year-old is just beginning to understand who they are. They are making sense of biological changes as they mature, learning to function more autonomously from their parents, identifying with their peer group, making meaningful relationships and developing special skills and abilities through sports, music, dance, reading and other activities.

Rather than teach violence as a means to solve problems, parents should focus their children on cultivating restraint, good judgment, kindness, generosity and respect toward others. Limiting exposure to virtual displays of gun violence through TV, movies and video games is a good policy for effective parenting. Providing children access to combat simulators and actual shooting of machine guns is not. And guns at home is a recipe for disaster. Instead, surround your child with positive influences that will enhance their development.

All you need is love! Unless it isn’t. And guess what? That’s the world we live in. A world where criminals, crazies, terrorists and yes sometimes the government seeks to take away our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. A world where safe and effective firearms skills should be taught early and often. For the children!

The more we teach our children that creative problem-solving and kindness, rather than violence, is the answer, the better our society will become as a whole.

Either or much? Because you can be both a kind, problem-solving American and a citizen ready, willing and able to unleash ballistic violence when necessary. At least that’s what I teach my children.

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67 COMMENTS

  1. if this doesn’t show you that psychiatry and the mental health game is full of crap i dont know what will. if you ask questions, or when your young act like a boy they label you a defective and pump you full of drugs.

    • All you need know about letting the shrinks be in charge of a list to prevent American citizens from accessing their natural right to arms that our Constitution protects is to look how they were used in Stalinist Russia as a means for harming anyone that was determined by some bureaucrat to be an enemy of the party. That person suddenly found themselves found guilty of being insane by a review board that they never had a chance to even defend themselves in front of. Frightening that the Democrat party wants to use people like this or some unaccountable petty bureaucrat to damage and degrade not just the 2nd Amendment but the 1st, 4th, and the 5th.

  2. All he needs for his ‘utopia’ is for Hollywood and the music and video game companies to get with the program and ban the appearance of guns in their products.

    Oh, wait…

    • I’m afraid the cancer has spread too far, the only solution is immediate amputation of everything above the neck.

    • He is NOT a physician. He is a PhD of quackery. Please stop lumping him into the real physician category (we are MDs and DOs)

      • Doctor Tim, I have a horrible case of ‘HIaIH’, (Hillary Induced and Inflamed Hemorrhoids).

        The painful rectal itch is terrible. What can you prescribe? 🙂

  4. “High-powered semi-automatic guns should not be allowed for use by children under any circumstance.”

    As I said earlier, children are clearly better suited to operating crew served weapons where their stature is less of an issue.

    • Particularly cramped ex-Soviet T55 tanks. I understand lefties make better loaders too.

      The lack of a/c builds character…

    • When self-important pukes such as this use terms like “high powered” or “assault rifle,” we should stop them in their tracks and force them to define the words they use. Every. Single. Time.

      What caliber is “high powered?” .223 REM? What about a .30 carbine? .357 Magnum? .22LR?

      And if they can’t come up with lucid definitions of their own words, then they need to be told, respectfully, to STFU.

      • C’mon y’all. We should wait until the tykes are at least 13-14 or at least a little larger before we let them use the .300 WinMag AR with a lightening link. That is just a matter of practicality and recoil control.

    • I guess my pre-teenage son will have to give up his 300BLK hunting rifle then, because some moron that knows nothing about guns says so. It’s inconceivable that you might use a 5 round magazine, or even (gasp) only load one round in the chamber with an empty magazine for deer hunting. Besides, if something goes bump in the night, I trust my son to have my back with that rifle (with a 30 round mag) more than I would my wife. She’s responsible for the 911 call anyways so that we aren’t distracted by the operator. As I said in a previous article, unless these liberals will take a bullet for my kids, they have no say-so in how I teach my kids about guns.

      About the only common caliber lower power than 300BLK is a 22. The reason he chose that caliber was specifically because it was LOW power.

      • I was born in 1931. I learned to shoot at 9 years old and was allowed to hunt by myself with a single shot .22 rifle at 10 years of age. I was taught that a .22 could carry a mile and also knew that any misuse of the rifle would result in immediate and painful discipline.

  7. How is teaching kids to shoot = teaching them to goto violence to resolve a conflict? That’s a pretty large jump in thought and I am surprised it was not called out.

    • If I were elected President I would give this guy a commendation and perhaps a metal of some sort and maybe a Nobel prize and a grant for his university and a ticket to Erbil so he can teach those folks the same wonderful truths .
      If only I were president . aaaahh .

  8. “Parents should be asking how to optimize their child’s development. Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?”

    Derp what? I’ve never met a person who couldn’t follow rules and did well as a soldier. Not one. The military is structured and chock full of rules and regs.

    Also, what about those people who used the GI bill to go to college? Does prior service in the military generally have negatively affect their academic abilities or does it give them the discipline to get their work done before partying?

    This guy is a retard. He knows nothing about what he’s saying.

    • Same here. The world could use more soldiers. Disciplined adults who see beyond their own selfish needs and have a propensity for doing rather than talking. People with self control, honesty and character.

      We need more of these type of people so teach everyone to shoot. Apparently it builds character.

  10. I don’t know if the pic of the guy having his arms cropped off was intentional, but it’s still funny.

    • Yeah, he’s taken the whole “civilian disarmament” thing way too far.

      Next, he’ll publish an article on “rape culture.” I just hope that he doesn’t go off half-cocked.

  11. “Parents should be asking how to optimize their child’s development. Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?”

    my 3 sons were all taught gun safety at 6, and began shooting at 8, 10, and 8 respectively. they were all gifted “assault weaponry” several christmases ago, and played a reasonable amount of first person shooter video games. somehow, all 3 were named scholar-athletes, 2 were their senior class presidents, and all 3 accepted into one of the best Universities in the world.

    how the hell did that happen, given what a bad parent I evidently am?

  12. “Parents should be asking how to optimize their child’s development. Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?”

    I don’t see a conflict between these development goals, so the answer is Yes!

  13. It doesn’t take much to espouse a theory these days. Mine would be that delaying children from growing up, giving everyone a trophy and increasingly limited economic options due primarily to strangling government debt and over-regulation of business sometimes … just occasionally … “makes Jack a dull boy”.

    Like in “The Shining”.

  14. “Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?”

    So basically he’s calling pretty much anyone who’s served in the military an idiot. I’m not sure he’s ever met a vet, but in my experience if there’s anyone proficient in following rules, it’s someone who’s done time in the military.

  15. Bubbles. We need to raise more children in bubbles. Rainbow bubbles, made from pretty clouds, glued to flying unicorns, covered in cinnamon and sugar.

    Maybe, we need to bring back real parenting, putting effort into raising your children, and stay involved in your children’s lives and not have them raised by media and strangers?

  16. If you want to know how to raise children properly, read Dr. Spock and Dr. Venus De Milo Delimiter, take their word for what to do, and end up with a passel of bratty girls and beta male sons.

    What? Do you think that Pajama Boy and other Millennial misfits just sprung from the head of Zeus? Nope, they were made that way, not born that way.

    OTOH, you can do nothing that they say to do and you might end up with good kids if the state run public indoctrination system doesn’t ruin them.

  18. Teaching kids about guns is not the same as teaching them violent behavior with guns.

    That comes down to the individual. Someone who uses guns to intimidate and abuse others is certainly going to pass that along to their children.

    I was taught respect for other and respect for the power of a firearm. Guess that one is lost on our namby-pamby culture of today.

    I was also taught to use a knife and chainsaw. Our culture now fears tools that once were regarded as useful and essential. Guess tomorrow’s children wont need teeth since someone will chew their food for them. Can’t have the potential for getting bit or biting yourself.

  19. It’s a bunch of bogus bull s***. Our brains simply don’t work that way. Playing violent video games doesn’t translate to people that are violent in the same way that listening to a tape of someone reading a book won’t teach a child to read. We are only capable of learning certain behaviors and tasks by one on one interaction. I have friends who are combat hardened door kicking Marines and they will all tell you the same thing. No amount of playing Black Ops or Counter Strike will prepare you for what will happen to your mind after you play the REAL black ops and counter strike.

    • If this idiot was right, that violent video games leads teens to become inured to violence, then we would not have the level of PTSD, depression and suicide we are seeing now (in epidemic proportions) that we do now in soldiers returning from combat in the Middle East.

  20. Lord help us…when I was a lad (50’s & 60&s)we all played with guns-real and UNreal. We all knew the difference. This BS is the road taken to turn your little fella’ into a little filly…

  21. Super lame nonsense. Children know the difference between a video game and real life. But does Alan know the difference between parents instilling morals and values in their children and not?

  22. I grew up with everything these people believed to be evil : Cartoons, Video Games, Movies, TV and yes guns killing my first bunny at 14 and yet, did not grow up to be the monster these people kept telling me I would become.

    It is not the make believe stuff these people should worry about, it is the real stuff that happens in the streets of urban areas they should worry about.

  23. Arsenal of toy weaponry? Yup. Collection of M rated video games? Yup. Watched Robocop, Commando, and just about every Clint Eastwood movie with dad before the age of 13? Yup. Only stains on my record are two speeding tickets from high school, but by the standards of this prog in doc’s clothing, I should be positively genocidal. Sorry to disappoint.

    • Pretty much the same for me. Although my parents were anti-gun, I had a few toy guns and would play “Armies” with my friends. I would also borrow books from the libraries on WW2 aviation, armour, and small arms. I also bought many books on those topics which I still have today. I also remember watching war movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on TV, as well as Sci-Fi, pirates, knights and castles, etc. I remember watching the Dirty Harry movies on TV in the 1980s.

      I have played strategy games on the C64, Amiga, and PC since the mid 1980s. I have played every major FPS game on the PC since “Wolftenstein 3D” (and then DOOM, Quake, Quake II, Half-Life, Half-Life Opposing Force, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Call of Duty 1 & 2, Battlefield 1942, etc). My son has been playing some of these games, under my supervision, and lately together as a team on two old PCs. What has he learned? A lot about PCs, networking, and understands the concept and operation of servers. For a 8 year old!

      I have been competitively target shooting since the late 1980s. First in UIT 10m air rifle. This is the hardest competitive discipline I’ve known. The match is 40 scoring shots (60 for A & B grade) plus sighters. Free standing. No slings or rests. The 9-ring is 5mm across. The 10 DOT is 1.5mm. By best ever score was 328/400.

      Then I discovered service rifle which I have been doing for over 25 years. At first I was using a SKS and an AR-15. But some unfortunate events resulted in their loss. So I’ve been using bolt-action rifles ever since. The attraction is the variety. Every week is a different distance and a difference course. My son has been my assistant since the age of 3. He teaches other children the range safety rules, and their parents tell me the kids listen because it comes from someone their own age.

      My son knows the games are not real. But they are fun. He knows that guns used safely and responsibly do not cause any harm. With these influences, he is growing up to be a healthy and responsible young man who is making his dad proud. My son likes to look through my library and play PC games with his dad. And being a good role model for my son keeps me focused as well.

  24. Wooh! Where to start? Soldiers = killers, combat simulators – whatever those are, optimal child development = the removal of all violence, etc, etc, etc… Childhood exposure to firearms. under non-azzhole parents, can teach discipline, patience, and grow a healthy respect for what being an American citizen is all about, and teach how much the other side of the political divide wants to take ever more from you.

    Bemoaning childhood exposure to gun violence is funny considering most childhood programming is overflowing with violence, but this tool isn’t talking about that because it is socially acceptable to the left who uses such programming as free nanny services whilst they go smoke a bowl instead of actually raising their own children properly. The irony here disgusts me. Because bums like this don’t know the first thing about being American or how to raise a child properly that doesn’t revolve around minimizing time with their kid, we get pissed in the ear about how the rest of us need to raise our own.

    I hope that if the Right wins the presidency, we can start a national campaign to promote the 2nd Amendment, of course there I go dreaming my big pie in the sky dreams again, but a guy can hope, while he teaches his family the worth of our founding fathers belief in being armed.

  25. At least he isn’t solely blaming guns, but thinks violent movies and video games also contribute. But his argument should be that exposure to violence makes children violent, not exposure to guns.

    • Regardless, the argument is fallacious because there exists no properly-controlled study supporting his desired conclusion.

  26. Who the Hell gives a child a semi-auto gun or any gun to play with. Another Highly educated Idiot.

    • You need to go back to school, they didn’t knock you around nearly hard or long enough.

      If you’re gonna troll here, son, at least *try* to have the common decency to put some thought and effort into it…

  27. Jack Thompson was disbarred for repeatedly pushing so-called “studies” that correlated childhood exposure to simulated violence with actual violent behavior.

    There is no properly-controlled study that has ever shown such a correlation.

    I offer FBI UCR Table 1A as supporting evidence.

  28. William Aprill has something to say on this topic and it is FAR different than what this guy is saying. Search youtube and you will see.

  29. Guess we need to ban Looney Tunes! Going to miss Wiley Coyote and Road Runner. Or Bugs and Taz way to violent.

    • Larry, apparently you haven’t seen what “they” have done to Loony Toons recently. They have been so edited of anything remotely “unacceptable” that they don’t even have continuity any more.

  31. I teach Boy Scouts (age 14-17) basic pistol 2 days a week. We call it the “Special Shooting Sports Program” so the moms don’t freak out. They seem pretty well adjusted to me; just sayin’.

  32. If “toy” guns cause violence I MUST be “defective”. Here I am at age 53 having owned toy Tommy guns, an M-16 with full-auto sound, a pair of cowboy Colt .45’s, a Luger, a few snub-nosed .38 cap gun revolvers, a lever-action Winchester and spent years around rifles in the Cub & Boy Scouts and I’ve NEVER engaged in “gun violence” and/or shot anybody. My parents should get their money their money back because according to the academics and so-called “medical/mental health professionals” there’s something “wrong” with me.

  33. Please correct the name of the idiot who wrote the article being cited. His name is Alan Delamater, not Delimiter. He claims to be an expert in psychological issues of childhood diabetes. Highly qualified to pontificate on guns and violence. Meanwhile, I read elsewhere (e.g. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/19/lgbt-history-california-first-to-teach/ and plenty of MSM outlets) that the CA Board of Indoctrination, in response to legislation passed and signed by cal.gov, is now required to develop a curriculum for elementary school (!) students that specifically normalizes (I could say, sanctifies) homosexuality, fatherless homes, gay marriage, and God knows what else as all just variations on a theme. The (D) agenda is crystal clear.

  34. Hell, teaching a child how to shoot might just be the BEST way to teach responsibility and personal accountability. If you are holding a gun, YOU and you alone are responsible for EVERY. SINGLE. BULLET. that leaves that gun, and once a bullet has left it, that action CANNOT be taken back.

    Of course, the left hates responsibility and accountability, so of course they choose not to understand this.

  35. What does he know? I mean, he keeps referring to “gun violence”, exposure to “gun violence”, and growing up around “gun violence”, and then he does comment on gun ownership and practice? Didn’t he get the memo that gun owners are not the ones that count for “gun violence”?

    I mean, if your kid grows around gangs, criminals and people shooting to each other, there’s no need to be a shrink to understand how he/she will turn out. But it has nothing to do with a kid that grow in a gun owners family, that learn about gun, gun safety, gun practice, etc… And the whole “semi-automatic weapon of war because of the smell of sulfur and destruction”, it’s just pure crap, as usual. It just proves this guy didn’t even really study guns… how could he make this statement otherwise? Based on what facts? How a semi-auto rifles could be more more traumatising than other firearms?

    Kids that grow and learn about guns, know to treat any guns with the same caution and safety from a .22LR bolt action rifle to an evil “assault” rifle. So, this is just another attempt to push for the civilian disarmament agenda… nothing else!

  36. I played extensively with cap guns as a kid. At age seventy, I have yet to shoot anyone. I learned that only bad guys do that and everybody wants to be the good guy, not the bad guy. (Well, maybe not in the ghetto.)

    Has it not occurred to these nitwits that westerns are morality plays? The good guy wins. The bad guy gets his just desserts at the hands of the good guy. At the end, the good guy gets the good girl. If there was a bad girl, she gets killed even if she reformed.

    It disgusts me how they think someone coming at you with the opportunity, ability and intent to commit murder is a “problem” to be solved with kindness and ingenuity rather than an existential threat that requires all the tools at your disposal to defeat if you expect to survive.

  37. We have record armed crime in the UK always going up, however the last 40-30 years toy guns have been harder to get hold of, give children Lego,, oh they make their own guns with it.
    So his reasoning is wrong how can it be true when there is less access to imitation firearms [toys] available?

  38. Too late. I already had the opportunity to live in a country with no 2nd amendment and restrictions on violence in media. It was probably the most violent country I have ever lived. So, I call BS on his study.

  39. “Do you want to help them be successful soldiers, effective killers? Or do you want to help them gain academic skills, become socialized, learn to follow rules, have fun and make and keep friends?”

    Why not both? Go to talk to some American soldiers / sailors / airmen sometime. They are socialized, follow rules, and have friends. Many if not most are also pursuing academic careers. Believing it’s either / or says more about you than them.

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