Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Once again, a gun owner too lazy or overconfident fails to take even the most basic gun safety precautions, and two children pay the price. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/us/missouri-boy-shoots-baby-brother/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/...dex.html</a> Which leads to this article, debunking the myth that a gun in the home makes one safer. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/01/good_guy_with_a_gun_myth_guns_increase_the_risk_of_homicide_accidents_suicide.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/...ide.html</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I would really like to see people (including parents) held responsible for deaths like this. If a kid drowns in a swimming pool when you were supposed to supervising him/her, you can be held criminally responsible. If you're driving a car and you run over a kid (or an adult for that matter) because you couldn't stop texting while you were driving, you can be held criminally responsible. I think if you don't store guns safely and a kid kills himself or someone else... sorry, you should be held responsible. Yes, it's a tragedy that you just lost your kid (if indeed it was yours), but in the above examples it's also a tragedy and people are still held responsible. But the NRA has made it so that no one is ever prosecuted in these cases. In cases where it wasn't even the kid of the gun owner in question (e.g. the kid of the gun owner finds the gun while playing and kills his friend from down the street, a visitor in that home), it rarely results in anyone being held responsible. If that changed, and people started actually going to jail for it, word would get around, like it has for, say, making sure your swimming pool is secure. Safe storage of guns in houses with children as residents or visitors should be MANDATORY, and violations should be penalized. The NRA loves to talk about "responsible gun owners," but never likes to hold them responsible for anything.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "But the NRA has made it so that no one is ever prosecuted in these cases." That is shocking, appalling, and horrible. Recently I've friended some co-workers on Facebook. A couple of them regularly post pictres of their young children (10 and under) holding guns to hunt etc. It's so upsetting to me and horrifying seeing a young child actually allowed to hold and operate a gun, I've considered unfriending them. I'm trying to imagine one of my kids holding a gun that's real and loaded, it's enough to literally make me puke.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <Recently I've friended some co-workers on Facebook. A couple of them regularly post pictres of their young children (10 and under) holding guns to hunt etc. It's so upsetting to me and horrifying seeing a young child actually allowed to hold and operate a gun, I've considered unfriending them.> While I agree that parents should be held responsible if their child dies by a loose, loaded gun in the house...I disagree with this. A responsible gun owner keeps the guns locked away. But when they are out, they teach gun safety to children and anyone who may be around them. And it's okay to let a child mature enough to handle a small gun at a range. <I'm trying to imagine one of my kids holding a gun that's real and loaded, it's enough to literally make me puke.> How old are your kids? If you did hunt, at what age would you bring them along? If you enjoyed shooting at a gun range, what age is appropriate in your mind?
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "And it's okay to let a child mature enough to handle a small gun at a range." What child is mature enough to handle a gun? If you ask me. None. "How old are your kids? If you did hunt, at what age would you bring them along? If you enjoyed shooting at a gun range, what age is appropriate in your mind?" I would never hunt, but if I did, I would think 16 at the minimum would be the age I would be willing to allow it. If the child, really, really, really wanted to hunt. If not, I'd keep them far, far away from guns. If you ask me, 18 would be the best age. I'm sorry, but no 4-10 year old needs to be holding or operating any weapon. Period. No matter what the circumstances. (4 was the age of one of the pictures that was posted.) I was horrified. Totally made me rethink my opinion of this person.
Originally Posted By ecdc Again, it's also just the fetishization of guns in this country. Josh, I know a lot of people who grew up in hunting families who earned their hunter's safety certificates and whose parents took gun safety really seriously and all that. If you're in that family and your parents take you hunting at age...I don't know, fourteen. That's fine by me. I'm sure living where we do, we both know a lot of people like that. But that's not what we're talking about here. I've seen the same kinds of pictures Constance is talking about. People putting up photos of their ten year olds holding handguns. People not using their guns to hunt, but using them as some kind of a way to show off or a way to say how cool they are. These people post photos of their kids with their guns the way I post photos of my kids in Disneyland or at a soccer game. It's gross and bizarre. I'll keep saying it: it's all part of this attitude that says guns are always ok and they're always fun and they're always appropriate no matter freakin' what. Not just, guns are for when we go hunting or skeet shooting, but guns are to have out and about the house and oh hey, here's our kid holding one while she lounges on the couch! Nifty! Yup, gross and bizarre.
Originally Posted By ecdc Here's the thing, I don't doubt that the majority of gun owners are responsible. I don't doubt that they do care about safety, and they aren't the ones posting pics of their kids with handguns to Facebook. But then these responsible gun owners should be screaming bloody murder when a kid accidentally gets shot or when some idiot gun owner does something stupid. They should be the most outraged because they're the ones that supposedly care so much about gun safety. They should be advocating for laws that gets the people locked up. But instead, they close ranks. Instead, they join the NRA, the organization that makes collecting stats and prosecuting people next to impossible, even though it would lead to more gun safety. Instead of being outraged that a two year old is dead, they save their outrage for people who have the temerity to say, like I do, that hey, maybe a five year old shouldn't be playing with a gun. So even the most responsible gun owners show their true colors: they're far more interested in whining that people say bad things about guns than they are in actually preventing the tens of thousands of gun deaths we have every year in this country.
Originally Posted By utahjosh I agree with you on much of that, ecdc. I don't have a problem with guns at all. (Well, maybe with the militarized guns in the public's hands)... But I do have a problem with those who do not use them safely or wisely. And those who love them more than they love anything else. It's not most good responsible gun owners that "close ranks." It's the idiots who love their guns too much that do. And it's sad the NRA caters to that group now.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip A post I made at the conservative Branson Board... <<Guess I must be the luckiest guy in the United States... I've lived within the city limits of two pretty large cities... Minneapolis and St. Paul. I've also lived in suburbs of both of them, as well as a couple of small cities in SW Missouri (Branson and Nixa). I go to a "scary" part of Springfield (Commercial Street) fairly regularly to listen to music, and that sometimes means walking to a parking lot after midnight. I've never felt threatened to the point I would have wanted a gun, much less to where I would have used one. I have no problem with the Constitutional right to own a gun. I also have no problem with people who just happen to get their ya-yas out by shooting the crap out of a target with a high powered rifle. Personal protection? I just don't see the need. I think a lot of people use personal protection as an "excuse" to own one when basically they just like having them. Have any of you EVER used one to defend yourself (outside of time in the Armed Forces)? Just curious.>>
Originally Posted By oc_dean The American public will continue to pay the price, as hundreds will continue to die every year .. with this "wild west" mentality of 'it's my RIGHT, so therefore, I'll own one.' As though, it's not as if I need one or want one ... It's my RIGHT ... so I can go out tomorrow and get one, and just have it, because 'its MY RIGHT!'
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I think a lot of people use personal protection as an "excuse" to own one when basically they just like having them. Have any of you EVER used one to defend yourself (outside of time in the Armed Forces)?<< Spot on. But I will guess that some of the responses you'll get to that question will be from people who get tangled in some unusual altercation or circumstance, and then say "Thank God I had my gun with me or I don't know what would have happened." What likely would have happened is that the person wouldn't have gotten deep into an altercation beyond their depth, knowing they had a gun on them. (See also: Zimmerman, George)
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Apparently we as a nation are okay with these stories because we really don't want to do anything about it.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "What likely would have happened is that the person wouldn't have gotten deep into an altercation beyond their depth, knowing they had a gun on them. (See also: Zimmerman, George)" That brings to mind something interesting I read about football helmets. You see the helmets they used to wear back in the 50s, and you think, "Wow, wonder how any of them ever survived?" When in reality there were less head injuries then than we that happens nowadays. The reason is back then they knew they didn't have heavy duty helmets that would "protect" their heads, so they were more careful. Now people get the false sense of "security and protection" since helmets are more advanced. So they don't think twice about taking someone out with their head. Annnnnnnnd voila! More head injuries now than when players wore leather helmets. That's the false security I bet people that carry around a gun have, they're probably much more likey to have unpleasant things happen to them since they feel all protected and secure.
Originally Posted By ecdc Kar2oonMan has always said it best: it's the old saying, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Gun owners talk about these "close calls" they've had and how glad they were they had a gun. Like RoadTrip, I've lived in a few places, including some nasty areas, and I've visited a lot of different places and, funny enough, I've never once felt like "Wish I had a gun!" Weird how those of us without guns manage to go through life without needing them.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>That's the false security I bet people that carry around a gun have, they're probably much more likey to have unpleasant things happen to them since they feel all protected and secure.<< Here's a related study about that: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/03/someone-holding-gun-more-likely-think-others-are-armed-new-study-says-yes">http://www.minnpost.com/second...says-yes</a> >>When people have a gun in their hand, they’re more likely to believe an object held by someone else is also a gun. They’re also more likely to raise the gun to shoot. Those are the key findings from a new study that will be published later this spring in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. “The familiar saying goes that when you hold a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” write the two psychologists who authored the study, James Brockmole of the University of Notre Dame and Jessica Witt of Purdue University. “The apparent harmlessness of this expression fades when one considers what happens when a person holds a gun.”<<
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance After all, if you spend money and effort to own a gun, you need to look for uses to make it feel worth it.
Originally Posted By andyll Woman accidentally kills self adjusting bra holster <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.9news.com/story/news/2015/02/18/woman-kills-self-adjusting-bra-holster/23640143/">http://www.9news.com/story/new...3640143/</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Road Trip, I'd love to hear some of the responses you get.>> Most were of the "better safe than sorry" category. This guy, a friend of mine who lives in the St. Louis area, had this to say... <<Trav, when I was attacked with a knife it was in a very nice area of South St. Louis County. Luckily the guy missed while swinging out a car window as the three of them were fleeing when I caught them breaking into my car. In a very well lit, and busy shopping center parking lot by the way! He was on the passenger side as the driver missed me with the car as he backed up fast trying to hit me. He slammed into the car next to mine, then sped forward as his Bro in the front seat swiped his knife at my belly as they went past. That was around 1970 or so, and that sort of crime was not common in South County. Of course when a license plate that a witness took down turned up the owner from North St. Louis, she claimed the car must have been stolen because it was parked in a different place the next morning, and her son had nothing to do with it. I got that from a detective that was called to my theft scene because they stole over $500 in property from my car. Bottom line, it can happen anywhere, and when seconds count in saving your life, the police are only minutes away.>>
