I got my first shotgun when I was 9 and my first handgun when I was 13.
When I was 7 or 8 my grandfather taught me how to make a homemade canon.
At age 10, I scrounged dumpsters at local building sites and collected enough material to make my own treehouse. I designed and built it myself without any adult supervision. It wasn't pretty but it lasted for a good 15 years.
As soon as I was tall enough to reach the pedals, I was my grandmother's chauffeur. I would drive her to the post office and the grocery store. I still don't know why a cop never pulled us over. I could barely see over the steering wheel.
I bought a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook at a gun and knife show when I was 11. My Mom used to take me and my friends to the show and drop us off for the day. lol Good times. I don't think they would let kids in the door unsupervised these days. That's how I learned how to make napalm. My friends and I used to play a game we liked to call "flaming night hockey." Coat a puck in Napalm, light it on fire, get one of your buddies to stand in front of the net and enjoy
In middle school, my friends and I would buyout the saltpeter and sulfur at the local pharmacy and make huge batches of black powder. I wonder what the pharmacist thought we were doing? Pipe bombs? Of course not.
I guess the point is that from the age of about 9, my playtime consisted of running around the woods with my friends, shooting things, blowing stuff up, building things, and setting stuff on fire. I still have all my fingers and toes and I think I developed some important life skills. Who knows, I might NEED to make a canon someday. The key is that my parents also instilled a strong sense of responsibility in me. I always knew what the line was, and I took great delight in getting as close as possible without actually crossing it.
