A video of an angry American father pumping nine slugs from a handgun into his daughter's laptop has gone viral on YouTube and sparked an impassioned online debate over his parenting skills.

Tommy Jordan, of North Carolina, explains in the video, which he titled “Facebook Parenting: for the troubled teen,” that he was upset by a Facebook post by his 15-year-old daughter in which she complained about her parents.

“This is for my daughter, Hannah, and more importantly for all her friends on Facebook who thought her little rebellious post was cute,” Jordan says, speaking into a video camera apparently set up on a tripod.

Wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigarette, the video opens with Jordan sitting in a chair and reading with unconcealed outrage from the Facebook post, in which his daughter complains about having to do chores around the house.

“Pay you for chores? Are you out of your mind?” he says. “You don't have that hard a life but you're about too.”

Jordan describes the Facebook post as “disrespectful” and says he's “going to put a stop to it.”

He then picks up the camera and points it at a laptop lying on the ground.

“That right there is your laptop,” he says. “This right here is my .45.”

Jordan then begins to pepper the laptop with bullets.

Pausing at one point, he addresses his daughter: “You have to pay me back for these too because these are about a dollar apiece.”

After plugging the laptop full of holes Jordan tells his daughter “you can have a new laptop when you buy a new laptop.

“Hope you've enjoyed your little fiasco on Facebook,” he concludes.

The video, which was posted to YouTube Wednesday, has attracted amost 10-million views in just three days, been “liked” around 62 000 times and “disliked” around 4800 times.

It has also spawned a debate about Jordan's parenting style, gathering more than 36 000 comments on YouTube and thousands more on his Facebook page.

Most approve of his actions although by no means all.

“You are one very twisted dude. I hope you get some help with your anger problem before you use that gun on someone, like your daughter,” wrote Jim Freedom on Facebook.

Another Facebook poster, Rachelle Tolbert, told Jordan “Great job.”

“Anyone who thinks you're an awful parent is either a teen (no explanation needed there), or a parent who lets their kids walk all over them. I think your vid was effective and reasonable,” Tolbert said.

“As a father of now grown children, there is very little that will get the attention of a teenage girl... I bet this has, Good job!” said Edward Harrison. -Sapa-AFP

Click here to see the video