Carey Hart, motocross competitor and husband to pop singer Pink, recently decided to “poke the bear” on social media by sharing a controversial post in which he revealed that he is teaching his young children to use firearms. Hart and Pink (Alecia Moore) share two children, who are 3 and 9 years old.
In the post on Instagram, Hart proudly shares that he loves hearing the sound of his children shooting guns.
“No better sound than the bullet of your kids gun plucking a steel target at 30 yards,” he captioned the series of photos and video.
Hart boasts that his eldest child, Willow, is really starting to grasp shooting techniques and that 3-year-old Jameson “absolutely loves shooting!”
“And the rate that he is processing the handling of them, he makes me proud,” Hart continued in the caption. “I’m a firm believer in teaching my kids to shoot, but more importantly, handle a fire arm.”
Unsurprisingly, his post caused quite a bit of controversy, from both sides of the political spectrum. One Instagram commenter complained that Hart’s passion for firearms contradicts his voting record.
“Interesting how you’re for guns and teaching your kids how to shoot but will also vote for the career politicians looking to abolish guns,” they wrote.
On the other side of the spectrum, some commenters wrote that guns and kids just don’t mix. One commenter took Hart to task for having firearms around such young children.
“This doesn’t strike me as a kids activity…not at all,” they wrote. “Yr son is 3 or 4 at most and learning to shoot a gun?”
But Hart was unperturbed by the intense reaction he got from some of his followers. He even predicted the storm he was about to ignite with the photos of firearms and the video of Willow shooting her rifle. He tagged the post with the hashtags #PokeTheBear and #IfYouDontLikeItScrollOn. So, the angry commenters probably haven’t bothered the proud father too much.
Do you think Hart teaching his young children to use firearms is a good idea?