BB guns are too dangerous to explain how dangerous they are
Anti-BB Gun Project Deemed Too Dangerous
Eighth graders Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw were disqualified from the state middle school science fair because their project was deemed too dangerous. Their project sought to show that BB guns are dangerous.
Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said fair rules prohibit hazardous substances and devices.
“The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students,” Degon said.
Middle school kids all over the States use BB guns. It’s perfectly legal as they are not (despite quips from executives of Science Fair Incorporated) firearms. These two conjectured that BB guns, though legal, were not safe. They conducted experiments with ballistic gelatin at considerable cost to try to prove their theory. Ironically they were dismissed out of hand for trying to prove what a fair organizer decided arbitrarily.
This is how science is taught today? It seems remarkably like the science taught in 1633.
And yet it does move. - Galileo
(Tip credit to Opinion Journal, Tim Wise)
um…cool.
the students, not the science fair people.
I would love to take a look at the boy’s project. I’m sure it would have been interesting.
I had to have a BB removed from just below my eye, and one surgically removed from my knee, so I already know that BB guns, if used to shoot people, are dangerous. On the other hand, when I have kids, they are getting BB guns.
I used BB guns at summer camp when I was around 9 or so. The older kids (around 11 or 12) got to use .22’s on the rifle range.
Yes, they can be dangerous if not handled properly. But that can be said about just about anything.
I’m not certain BB guns belong at a school science fair, but I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand without first checking out the kids and their exhibit.
Thrown out of a Science Fair - what hoodlums! BB guns are too dangerous to explain, in a reserach setting, how dangerous they really are - Sort makes the point of the project for them.
I hope that the school told these kids that their science fair project was inappropriate. It was. Science is not about how something is used. It is about how things work. “Safety” is a man-made concept — not a concrete scientific concept. The project, in short, was not science. It was “social science”, which is not based on the scientific method.
I have judged science fairs and letting a project in like this one would be a counter-productive act. One thing that science fairs do is teach what is science to young kids. Allowing this project in would counteract that.
By the way — most science fair projects are copies of other people’s science fair projects. There are even sites on the Internet that tell kids how to do certain projects. Real science is experimentation to test a hypothesis — not repetition of other people’s work.
barry
Analyzing burst patterns and penetration, hypothesising damage and internal effects based on observed phenomenon. Sounds like science to me.
all my kids (6) had a BB gun AND instruction on how to use safely. Never had a problem. We continue to expect the state schools to do the job that parents are supposed to do. We sacrifice our scared liberty to a false sense of security.
> We sacrifice our scared liberty to a
> false sense of security.
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin>
As Jim pointed out, those kids DID do a real science project; And it’s a pretty original one, as kids projects go, I can’t remember ever seeing one done on ballistics before. Or should we believe as Barry does, that the FBI ballistics lab is an entirely unscientific undertaking? =P
I agree wholly with the points raised by Jim and Bergman, but i think there is more to this. Barry, whilst I appreciate your concern that non-scientific dross can sneak into a science fair and dilute the ethos, i think that there is more to schooling than academic excellence within strictly defined parameters of given disciplines. Based on no evidence whatsoever I’d be willing to bet my left testicle that that science stand would have been by far the most popular with students and parents alike. I’m British - I have no idea how many students attend your schools - but I think it would be reasonable to suggest that many hundreds of people missed out on the opportunity of an insight into the potential consequences of irresponsibly using what much of the population perceive to be toys.
Bicker about the definition of ‘BB gun’ all day if it makes you happy, but they undebateably look, feel and act like firearms. The school was faced with two choices: draw on experience, appreciate that children learn through seeing for themselves and then support what would no doubt have been an exceedingly interesting and informative project; or to decisively say - in not as many words - that ‘these children are too young to be subject to this danger.’ I’ve noticed many people on this board mention that they have (or know someone who) used BB guns at an age at which they were probably unfamiliar with the concepts of accidents, injuring other people and permanent disfigurement.
It sickens me with disbelief that in a country where firearms are a constitutional right and where both homicide and accident related firearms deaths are rife, an educational authority can deny their duty and subsequently pass up on the opportunity - no, the obligation - to show the next generation what can happen to your friend’s face when you pull the trigger of a BB gun you dont think is cocked.
I’d still like to know just what their exhibit would have entailed. I think we can safely assume that they weren’t going to be firing the BB gun at the exhibit, instead relying on data (and maybe photos/videos) gathered during their experiments.] So, worst case, couldn’t they have the exhibit without actually bringing a BB gun to the science fair?
I have a son-in law, 20 yrs young that just yesterday shot a bb gun in the living room at a chair than went into my grandauther’s bedroom where she was, and pointed it at her. Her mother told him to leave her alone. Then after my daughter left he shot one of our grandauthers stuffed aniamals. In front of her. Needless to say my husband is very upset. and is talking to him today. Any one have any ideal how to handle this. upset grandmother!!!!!!!!!!!
Take away his alcohol and the BB gun. Then you should seriously consider tossing him out of your house.
I’m sorry he and my daughter are not living at our home. they have a home of there own. and he doesn’t drink. thanks for the feed back.
He’s terrorizing his own daughter with a gun? That is not normal. He needs help and your daughter needs help with him. Get him to a professional.
hey i have a question for the two guys if they get this message i am doing a project with bb guns and im not sure wat to really do so if you have any ideas of penetration to a target by a bb gun then please send me an email thank you very much.
Can ballistics testing show that a BB recovered from an animal was fired from a specific BB gun?
No. A BB gun doesn’t have precision turned barrel so does not consistently score projectiles that pass through it. Additionally, BBs are round and motile while fired (they do not present the same aspect throughout their passage through the barrel).
iwant someinfomation on BB gun for my b tec project
where im from bb guns are like the only thing protecting you and your homies out on the street yes there dangrous but it stops people getting mugged and beaten up
I have to wonder what type of Science Fairs Barry has judged. These kids project was an excellant example of Applied Physics. Let’s see, ballistics, kinetic energy, elastic and inelastic collisions…………..yep seems like Physics to me. Probably a couple of future Engineers there, if their interest hasn’t been destroyed.