Weaponized children are our future?

Typically, children's fairytales are magical venues of whimsy, fantasy and life-lessons; much-needed places for kids to escape the drab reality of chores, homework, and occasional bore of being a single-digit age.

But … what if those fairytales were less about magic, and more about deadly firearms?

Well, we can now find out, because an NRA member and children's author named Amelia Hamilton has re-imagined two classic fairytales to include big, honkin' guns in the hands of children.

The stories, which have been re-named as "Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)" and "Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns)", are posted up on the NRA Family website, where the author herself makes a brief attempt to explain the premise of the gun narrative before launching into the stories.

Pointing out the grim and unsettling nature of many classic children's stories, she ponders whether the plots would have been different if the characters were equipped with a knowledge of firearms and sick AR-15s.

"Have you ever wondered what those same fairy tales might sound like if the hapless Red Riding Hoods, Hansels and Gretels had been taught about gun safety and how to use firearms?" she asks. In other words, if Little Red Riding hood was packin', would the Big Bad Wolf have stalked her against her will?

Hamilton answers that question pretty confidently with the following paragraph:

The wolf followed along, staying in the shelter of the trees, trying to get Red to respond. As she grew increasingly uncomfortable, she shifted her rifle so that it was in her hands and at the ready. The wolf became frightened and ran away.

Wow, okay. Apparently pointing a gun at the source of a threat is the universal problem solver?

We're sure she totally wouldn't have misfired the gun and blown a nearby stork to smithereens because she's a child and has no idea how to safely and responsibly operate a deadly weapon. Nope nope nope.

Both alternate tellings of the fairytales include their child protagonists being taught about gun safety and armed with their own firearms at a young age. Little Red Riding Hood sets off to her grandmother's house with a rifle over her shoulder, and Gretel skillfully takes down a 10-point buck with a single shot.

In neither story do the armed children actually use their weapons against their threats; instead the sheer presence of a gun seems to be enough to keep them alive until the end of the tale.

Um … we guess this means weaponized children are our future? If only they made a little baby rifle our future sons and daughters could use to murder bees, gluten allergies, and other threats to adolescent life …