Originally Posted By avromark 11-year-old girl accidentally shot dead by 11-year-old boy in Alabama << WETUMPKA, Ala. (AP) - An 11-year-old girl was accidentally shot and killed while playing with a young relative during a Christmas party. ADVERTISEMENT The boy, also 11, shot the girl with a .22-calibre rifle after they went into a room to play on Friday, said Detective Sgt. Gary Edwards of the Wetumpka Police Department. The names of the children were not released and it was unclear how they were related. Edwards said it was unlikely the boy will be charged. "Families should make sure, especially if there are children around, to secure their guns. This was just a tragic accident," he said. >> <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/us_child_killed" target="_blank">http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cap ress/us_child_killed</a> Ouch.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<Ouch.>> Oh, butch up, avro. You Canadians don't understand. It's our RIGHT to keep loaded guns laying around the house. If tens of kids have to die each year to help us protect that right, then bless them, dammit.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> "This was just a tragic accident" << Exactly. There is no responsibility to be assumed here, especially by any of the adults. No, instead it was simply a matter of two children being left alone to play in a room with a loaded gun. One came out. Who could have foreseen such a "tragic accident"?
Originally Posted By basas <<You Canadians don't understand. It's our RIGHT to keep loaded guns laying around the house. If tens of kids have to die each year to help us protect that right, then bless them, dammit.>> More kids are killed 'accidently' in car accidents every year then guns have killed 'accidently' probably ever. It was a tragic accident. The parents/owners of the house however should also be responsible for keeping their guns secure.
Originally Posted By imadisneygal Tragic accident my bootie. It's a crime. At the least it's child endangerment - a crime. At the worst it's negligent homicide...or whatever they call it when you don't mean to kill someone but you do anyway.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> More kids are killed 'accidently' in car accidents every year then guns have killed 'accidently' probably ever. << An empty argument. Cars have the purpose of transporting people from place to place. Guns have the purpose of shooting bullets.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>An empty argument. Cars have the purpose of transporting people from place to place. Guns have the purpose of shooting bullets.<< They have the purpose of shooting bullets at something or someone, no less. I'd probably be more sympathetic, or at least understanding, of pro-gun arguments if they were limited to defending hunting rifles. I'm not a hunter and have zero understanding of why someone would want to be one, but to each his own. But a handgun has one purpose: To shoot another human being. What I've never understood is why perfectly reasonable, normal people suddenly become completely unglued and totally insane whenever you mention that maybe some guns shouldn't be legal. I nearly got punched once by a gun owner for saying I was for gun control. It was a calm, normal conversation and then all of a sudden he lost it. It sure isn't the first time or the last time I've seen a gun owner get up in arms (pun intended) at the very suggestion of restrictions. Abortion I get as an emotional issue. But gun ownership? Chill out, will ya!
Originally Posted By barboy "What I've never understood is why perfectly reasonable, normal people suddenly become completely unglued and totally insane whenever you mention that maybe some guns shouldn't be legal. I nearly got punched once by a gun owner for saying I was for gun control. It was a calm, normal conversation and then all of a sudden he lost it. It sure isn't the first time or the last time I've seen a gun owner get up in arms (pun intended) at the very suggestion of restrictions." Here is some light: paranoia Understand that gun owners/NRA people tend to live in more rural areas where there exists a very real fear of the US Government. Many of these good folk do not just distrust or question the US but they remain truly concerned about the prospects of a comprehensive tyrannical regime. (A more popularized and overplayed example is the Weaver clan on Ruby Ridge). Most will not reveal this deep fear but instead bring up the notion that (1)the Constitution gives them the right to bear arms and (2) that guns are needed to protect one's property and family from the criminal element. These pro NRAers tend to come unglued at gun controllers because guncontrollers are part of the direct assault on their liberty or way of life. Imagine being a wheat farmer in middle America, say Kansas and your world and livelihood is your vast, precious acreage of crops and some city dweller from Phily or Beantown, a Catholic democrat no less, tells you that he wants some distant authority(Wash. DC) to disarm you and let the Gov't hold all of the guns. For many NRAers paranoia rus deep.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder The second amendment and the right to bear arms rose out of a need to arm militias and colonists to defend their homes. There were not, of course, four main branches of the military, etc., so citizens by and large were left to their own devices. We had a military, but not one that could be everywhere at once. The creation of the second amendment has no relation at all to the way it is used today and should be re-visited. It is the most abused and misused amendment.
Originally Posted By basas <<An empty argument. Cars have the purpose of transporting people from place to place. Guns have the purpose of shooting bullets. >> They're NOT, however, made for the purpose of killing innocent children. Neither are cars. The gun was not being used for its purpose in the story, and neither is a car when it gets into a crash.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>They're NOT, however, made for the purpose of killing innocent children. Neither are cars. The gun was not being used for its purpose in the story, and neither is a car when it gets into a crash.<< But again, comparing car crashes, drownings, etc., to gun deaths is comparing apples to oranges. I know it's a darling argument of the NRA and gun owners, but it just doesn't fly. Cars exist to transport people from one place to another. Swimming pools for relaxation and exercise. Guns exist to shoot and kill - be it a deer or a person. It's an accident when a child like this is killed - no question about it. But the gun is only doing its designed purpose - it's launching a projectile at high velocity into someone or something. Gun owners have to hang their hats on the 2nd Amendment (and as SPP pointed out, it's the most abused and misunderstood amendment) because nothing else works. Numerous other countries have outlawed guns altogether - with no evidence of higher crime that gun owners insist would be rampant in the U.S. But they do have a remarkably low death rate due to guns in their country. While in the U.S. thousands of people are killed every year by guns, in places like the U.K. the number can be counted in the dozens. The U.S. has 14.24 deaths per 100,000 due to guns - Japan .05, U.K. 0.41. It's a huge discrepancy - and these countries have yet to descend into anarchy or uncontrollable crime.
Originally Posted By barboy "Guns exist to shoot and kill - be it a deer or a person." People also use guns for inanimate target or sport shooting and collecting. Since guns have a very colorful (and violent) history some pusue guns for display, novelty, art or trade.
Originally Posted By barboy " in places like the U.K. the number(of gun deaths) can be counted in the dozens. The U.S. has 14.24 deaths per 100,000 due to guns - Japan .05, U.K." This argument is just as weak as the NRAers' invocation of the 2nd Amend. to try and justify the availability of private gun ownership. The U.K. and especially Japan have very different cultures than the U.S.. Now, if you have stats. from the likes of NH and VT or AZ and NM then your argument would be far more compelling.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>People also use guns for inanimate target or sport shooting and collecting. Since guns have a very colorful (and violent) history some pursue guns for display, novelty, art or trade.<< And honestly, I think this is a fair response. I have no problem with target shooting, gun collecting, etc. But the reality is, people aren't gunned down by muskets too often. There are plenty of reasonable ways to approach the gun issue, but the NRA and most gun owners aren't interested in it. Any restriction is seen as a slippery slope to banning pellet guns. Instead we get ridiculous, paranoid, childish responses like "from my cold, dead, hands." >>The U.K. and especially Japan have very different cultures than the U.S.. Now, if you have stats. from the likes of NH and VT or AZ and NM then your argument would be far more compelling.<< I disagree. I think the U.K. and Australia would be fairly comparable cultures. There's plenty of differences, but none significant enough to somehow justify why the U.S. must have guns when these countries do just fine without them. And examining individual states who may have significant restrictions on guns is virtually worthless when anyone can go one state over and buy virtually anything.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 We don't need to compare the US to cultures as exotic as England or Japan. We can compare it to Canada. I live on the border. Our two crossing points in this area are insufficient for accomodating all our cross-country daily travel. We go back and forth freely, to shop, to visit casinos, to work, to eat, to go to bars, to see museum exhibits. It's very, very fluid. When you sit at a restaurant in Windsor, you don't know if the people at the next table are from the US or Canada. When you visit your optometrist in Detroit, you don't know if she lives in The Land Of The Free or The Great White North. Our cultures are, for the most part, indistinguishable. Ontarians don't litter like we do. They do say "eh" just as stereotyped. (Okay, okay, many of us border-living Americans say it, too.) They get a little more stupid over hockey than we do. Some of them like Celine Dion. But for the most part... There's no discernible contrast between the cultures. Except... the HUGE difference between us and them? The murder rates. Why? Because they don't have guns. We do. Period. It's amazing. We have shootings EVERY DAY here. Just part of life. They get sincerely upset if they have a couple a YEAR. Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.
Originally Posted By jonvn "don't know if the people at the next table are from the US or Canada." The Americans are the ones who are armed.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Remember that this was a .22 caliber rifle. You'd have an awfully hard time making the case for banning such a weapon here in the U.S. Even most anti-gun people would start at banning the much more powerful assault rifles and such preferred by criminals. This is a yet another tragic reminder that gun owners cannot ever, ever take a laid-back approach with any weapon, regardless of the caliber. >>There are plenty of reasonable ways to approach the gun issue, but the NRA and most gun owners aren't interested in it. Any restriction is seen as a slippery slope to banning pellet guns. Instead we get ridiculous, paranoid, childish responses like "from my cold, dead, hands."<< Exactly. And, conversely, there are people that hate any and all guns who get hysterical and paranoid, too.
Originally Posted By Mr X >>>The second amendment and the right to bear arms rose out of a need to arm militias and colonists to defend their homes. There were not, of course, four main branches of the military, etc., so citizens by and large were left to their own devices. We had a military, but not one that could be everywhere at once. The creation of the second amendment has no relation at all to the way it is used today and should be re-visited. It is the most abused and misused amendment.<<< Actually, SinglePark, it has more importance now than it did back then. I recently realized that I was, just like you, reading the amendment completely wrong. It's not writen to FORM militias, it's writen for us to take up arms AGAINST militias (for example, the British...or, under the right circumstances another example could be the United States Army). Read it again with that in mind, and pay careful attention to the exact wording. Or, if that doesn't do it, check out the Penn and Teller episode...it's pretty informative. Gun control...bad. Punishing negligent gun owners...good. It was no "tragic accident", whoever owned the gun should be jailed for negligent homocide. But I still have the right to own a gun (actually I don't and probably never will, but that's not the point).
