Authorities in southern Kentucky say a 2-year-old girl has been accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother, who was playing with a .22-caliber rifle he received as a gift.
I’ve written before that one of the fixtures of growing up in a rural state was regular newspaper stories about some kid who killed another kid or himself in a gun accident. And nobody wrote about the many other close calls. For example, I remember that a brother of a high-school friend accidentally blew a hole in his parents’ car roof with a shotgun, from the inside, an event that was literally inches from becoming yet another bloody newspaper story. (It was tragedy enough that he was able to procreate – his parents didn’t need make it worse by handing him a shotgun. But I digress.)
If it didn’t involve the death of children, it would be almost comical to hear gun owners rush to explain away this event with “no true Scotsman” logic (no responsible gun owner would do that, why are you picking on us?) The reason that we want gun safety legislation isn’t because we want to fuck with “responsible gun owners”, it’s because any shithead can get a gun, and a lot of those irresponsible shitheads do stupid things with them. Maybe if “responsible gun owners” had decided to put their pride in their pockets and realize that a lot of law is designed to rein in the shitheads that surround us, and that it isn’t personal, we might have fewer kids blowing each others’ brains out in backyards all over our fair country.
Linnaeus
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t imagine that any 5 year old is mature enough to handle a firearm safely and responsibly. Even with on the spot adult supervision.
ranchandsyrup
If this happened in AZ, Jan Brewer would have made damn sure that the rifle would be placed in a good home already.
Mino
Well, you could say they are de-selecting themselves and their progeny.
p.a.
@Linnaeus: why do you hate Amur’ca?
Senyordave
Assuming there are no hidden facts (e.g. older sibling removed gun from gun safe, etc.), child should be removed from th ehome and parents should be subject to at the very least negligent homicide charges.
Ben Franklin
Giving a 5 year-old a weapon is more than irresponsible.
He said the gun was kept in a corner and the family didn’t realize a shell was left inside it.
Basic safety; Always be clearing your weapon.
Calouste
Ah, the fucked-up-ness of America. Having loaded guns lying around in the house when you have young kids, all okey-dokey. Smoking pot around your kids or giving a few beers to your 17 year old and you’re lucky if you escape jail and your kids aren’t taken away from you.
patrick II
In a group large enough, the average IQ is 100. That means half of the gun owners have IQ’s in the 80’s or 90’s or even below. A bar argument about how good a quarterback Tim Tebow is changes complexion when one person is armed, intoxicated, stupid and covered by a stand your ground law.
I lost a high school friend in just about that way. A bar argument, a gun murder, followed by suicide.
Amir Khalid
It’s horrible that the authorities don’t seem to be even considering charges of criminal negligence or child endangerment against the parents, who are plainly guilty of both.
Eric S
We have a deer hunter in our office. He takes a week off every deer season to hunt. A while back, maybe 4 years ago now, he took his son out for his first hunting season. I want to say his son was about 12 years old at the time.
The story he told was while walking to their blind his son tripped and his shotgun discharged when he fell. I was livid. Why wasn’t the safety engaged? Why was he walking with his finger in the trigger guard?
My coworker laughed it off. He said it happens to everyone. When I was adamant that, “No! No it doesn’t” he dismissed my opinion. What could I possibly know being a urban, non-hunting, non-gun owner?
Capt. Seaweed
Another day, another young life accidentally snuffed out.
http://www.kgw.com/news/Funeral-planned-for-Oregon-City-girl-accidentally-shot-203496401.html
SiubhanDuinne
My pedantic inner pedant wishes to observe (pedantically) that the word is rein, not reign.
This is among my pettest of peeves, and my noirest of bêtes.
Otherwise, spot on.
kindness
Couldn’t some of these kids go ‘play’ with Republicans in Congress instead of their poor brothers & sisters?
johnny aquitard
Last fall I was at the range and some guy was there with his wife and his two sons were watching, guessing their ages about 8 and 10. He and his wife were going through a pistol instruction course. The instructor noticed the kids off to the side, fooling around with their ipods, and says something like, You need to keep this gun where they can’t get a hold of it. Guy says, Don’t worry, they know better than that. He turns to his kids and says ‘Right boys? You know better than that.’ The boys glance at him for a sec and nod then go back to playing on their ipods.
Apparently the guy lives in a place unlike any else on earth, a place where kids know better.
The whole assumption built in to being a minor is that the child does not in fact know better. If children were consistently capable of that we’d treat them as legal adults.
It’s a big enough problem with adults like this guy not knowing any better.
rb
@Eric S: What the fuck. I hope his ‘laughing it off’ was just a defense mechanism, like it scared him so bad he *had* to make a joke out of it. I’m pretty nonconfrontational, but I would have had to restrain myself from punching that dude in the throat.
Tonal Crow
You libtards don’t understand nuthin’. That kid could’a just as easy blew away his sister with a hubcap, so takin’ my guns wouldn’ta made a lick ‘a diff’rence. Gawd, you libtards don’t have ta brains Gawd gave a toad.
/NRA
Chet
That’s certainly true, but what in the standard liberal gun control package was going to stop this? Toomey-Manchin didn’t make it illegal to own a .22-caliber rifle – indeed, these are by definition the “hunting rifles”/”varmint guns” that such legislation always excludes; didn’t make it illegal to buy one and give it to a family member; didn’t make it illegal for a child to have unsupervised access to a firearm; and wouldn’t have instituted a background check that would have blocked either of these parents from purchasing a .22 caliber rifle.
Allow guns – of any type – to be manufactured and sold to any US citizens and this is the kind of thing that is going to happen. It’s a tragic accident caused by parental negligence, and I agree with prosecuting the parents who let it happen, but I don’t see how it’s an argument for any of the standard gun control platform, since absolutely none of it would have reigned in these shitheads. It’s exactly the sort of “won’t somebody think of the children; now, vote my way on this other thing” misdirection that you’d reject in any other context.
Hill Dweller
A wingnut NH State Rep. at Sen. Ayotte’s town hall:
Said wingnut elaborated on his remarks after the town hall:
For the record, Anthony Foxx is African-American.
Eric S
@rb: I was pretty harsh. We haven’t spoken since then except when professional responsibilities require it.
Not that it mitigates anything but I should mention in addition that fortunately no one was injured by the gun shot. I assume there were some scrapes and bruises from the trip and fall.
rollSound
@Mino:
That’s mostly not true, unless they’re shooting themselves. More often it’s innocent bystanders that get killed by this recklessness, family relations or no.
NCSteve
The horror is that there is actually a company that makes guns specifically sized and intended for use by kids this age. They made the gun that killed this little girl and permanently blighted the lives of everyone else in the family.
Yes, that’s right. Here’s the website of the very special company that made the very special rifle in question.
http://www.crickett.com/
See, it can’t be child endangerment: the Invisible Hand of the Free Market says its a good thing, and it’s moral judgments are never wrong!
Davis X. Machina
This is just the way our Moloch rolls…..
rikyrah
who the fuck gives a 5 year old CHILD A FUCKING GUN?
Don’t wanna hear it….
this is your RESPONSIBLE gun ownership staring at you
Comrade Dread
I honestly don’t understand people.
I have a two year old and a 3 year old. I can’t imagine either of them being mature enough to own a gun (read: “thing designed to kill people and animals”) in two years time.
I also can’t imagine just leaving the God damned thing sitting around in a corner. Especially without checking to see if said God damned thing is loaded.
Now that kid will have to carry the burden of killing his brother for the rest of his life and the parents will have to deal with the guilt and sorrow for the rest of theirs.
Stories like these make me honestly consider thinking we should work to repeal the 2nd amendment and ban the things.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: It’s in the state that elected Rand Paul to the US Senate. What do you expect?
mistermix
@SiubhanDuinne: Noted and fixed.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: We share a peeve.
ranchandsyrup
My dad and his hunting buddies used the “you can shoot the gun after you hike up that mountain and scare/funnel prey toward us while we sit here and drink whiskey” ruse. Then wouldn’t let us shoot. It was a good plan. Cured me of wanting to hunt.
Comrade Dread
Also how the bloody hell do you have to be 16 to drive a car and work, 14 to drive a tractor, 18 to smoke, and 21 to drink, but you can give a toddler a Glock and send him on his way?
vtr
A couple of summers ago at a gun show along the CT/MA line, a father took his 8-year-old son to the Uzi booth. The booth was being supervised by a 12-year-old. With his father looking on, the 8-year-old fired the Uzi. Being inexperienced, he wasn’t expecting any recoil. He shot himself in the head and died. The organizer of the show was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Trollhattan
My thought last night when a commenter posted this sad, sad story is the CPS needs to get the 5YO and any other kids away from those parents, pronto. Given where this occurred I presume it’s not possible and the parents will be declared to have “already suffered enough.”
No, and they’re clearly not fit to be parents. Shit.
We had a recent local case where kid A shot and killed kid B (different family) with a .177 pellet rifle. Just a “toy.”
Gin & Tonic
@Chet: How about tripling the cost of your homeowner’s liability insurance if you keep firearms in the home?
ranchandsyrup
@SiubhanDuinne: I appreciate you detailing your peeves. Peeve away. :)
scav
Maybe if you’ve got a quiverfull, wastage due to ammofull isn’t important. Clears up space for more licit sexytime.
torpid bunny
AMEN.
But the gun people want us to accept that they not only have a right to guns, but that literally any statute that in the least impinges on the total libertarian freedom of sale and carrying of any size calibar weapon, is tantamount to unmitigated tyranny. In other words, they firmly believe that the absolute and total right to guns is vastly greater than any other right which a democratic society could seek to protect. This then becomes a fairy tale about how gun ownership “secures” all our other rights.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Gin & Tonic: Or better yet.
Forget it Jake, it’s Kentucky(cue up the theme for the TV series, Justified)
Trollhattan
@Chet:
Aaaand, lookie who shows up when a gun-themed thread appears. No, you “don’t see” because you’re incapable of seeing. You’re only capable of arguing against all new gun laws because they fail to fit your conception of perfect. Which happens to perfectly fit your perfectly circular argument.
Amen
StringOnAStick
Until this story broke, I had no idea that there was a gun manufacturer who made kid-sized guns for the kindergarten set. Who knew? Reminds me of a photo I saw in National Geographic years ago about the abuse of the desert east of LA, showing a mom being flung to the side as she helped her 6 year old get that full-sized ATV in motion. Of course, now there are kid-sized ATV’s.
BGinCHI
Forget about it, Jake, it’s Kentucky.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: And you keep the gun away from 5 year olds. They are too young to be shooting a BB-gun, much less a 22, even if it is their size.
Ben Franklin
@Trollhattan:
The pellet can travel up to 1200 fps (single shot)
Why do we need .22s? It’s like overkill.
joes527
@Ben Franklin:
Basic safety; guns are always handled as if they were loaded.
Jebediah
@SiubhanDuinne:
I am glad to see I am not the only one bugged by the erroneous reign of “reign.”
I also cringe when I see “diffuse” and “defuse” confused.
rb
@Eric S: Yeah, I assumed no one was hurt or he wouldn’t have been laughing. Maybe even that was giving him too much credit.
I’ve only been shooting a few times in my life, and contrary to my initial expectation it was A LOT of fun. But I haven’t been in a long time, primarily because of the safety issues. People like your co-worker … I’m pissed just thinking about it.
scav
@Jebediah: in the tricky circumstances where that distinction is most important, you will be diffuse if you fail to defuse correctly.
eta. spelling really matters here. . .
dan
Ha ha ha. No.
rb
@Jebediah: Oh lord, let’s not get started. My favorite is “should of,” as in “I should of known better.” I mean seriously.
Jib Halyard
I have firearms in my home. They’re the last thing that keep me up at night when I worry about all the scenarios that spell danger for the four-year-old. Things like the balcony, the big tall bookcase, the cars on the road, you name it. But not my guns.
That’s because they are LOCKED THE FUCK UP, and kept separate from any ammunition I may have.
Should also mention that I am in Canada, where this is required by law…
NotMax
Obviously a direct effect of hour upon hour playing Grand Theft Barney.
/gun lobby spokesbot
gene108
The more I think about this story, the one thing strikes me: WHO THE HELL MAKES A GUN SMALL ENOUGH TO BE USED BY A FIVE YEAR OLD!
The gun was not a standard .22 rifle, but a kid-sized version.
WTF?
joes527
@Chet: The “strip gun manufacturer’s immunity to lawsuit” approach is the only one that I know of that would deal with this situation.
That _would_ close down the traffic in guns targeted at tots pretty quick.
belieber
What kind of fukstick would give a 5yo a gun as a present?
scav
@gene108: The Wisdom of the Market! is not to be questioned!
Ben Franklin
@rb:
Mine’s ‘I don’t got no’ guns, which means you have guns.
Schlemizel
@NCSteve:
In their defense those rifles are all single shot bolt action. The sort of stupidity on display in this story could not have happened assuming dear old mom and dad didn’t also leave the bullets out.
IF you wanted to introduce a child to firearms these would be a much better choice because the size makes them much safer to handle and the single shot bolt action eliminates a lot of shit that can go wrong.
I used to hunt & still own a few long guns. I have no particular problem with teaching kids to shoot but there is a risk associated with that and it needs to be addressed completely. This situation sounds like someone not doing their job as a parent.
mike with a mic
I own a gun and I’m for gun safety. I learned to shoot as a kid, around high school. It was with .22s at summer camp. Simple bolt action things, not really high powered at all. Good for killing squirrels that attack your bird feeders, or cats people won’t keep inside that kill the birds your trying to feed. Raccoons that shred your trash cans and make a mess of things are also prime targets. Outside of that, couldn’t do much with it.
I own a gun now because… well I bought it while I was in the military. I wanted to own to brush up on target practice on my own. Funny thing though, the military won’t give you a weapon until you’ve proven you can use one without blowing your own foot off and is crazy strict about gun safety. I don’t own any ammunition for the damn thing, it’s locked in a safe, and well… I have no intention on getting any ammunition for it.
I’m all for gun safety courses and having to take and pass them to use a weapon. You have to keep current in the military, police, FBI, because well… shit happens. People are people, and people make mistakes, even the best of us. A lot of us, I’d even wager the majority of us, are also grade A idiots when sober, and even worse when drunk. And because people are people and shit happens, we need to keep that in mind and not go handing out guns to grade A idiots because then shit will happen.
So as a gun owner, I really have no issues with gun legislation at all. I also know responsible gun owners (ex service buddies), and I know some jackasses that I wouldn’t trust with a spoon who have guns.
Jebediah
@scav:
That’s why no bomb-squad duty for me!
Schlemizel
@gene108:
The story I read said it was a Ruger 10/22. Not a large gun but hardly designed for a kid, particularly a 5 YO.
Cassidy
Hopefully, the grief will overwhelm the parents and they’ll do the “honorable” thing. Then the damaged child who was put in such a shitty predicament and will live the rest of their life knowing he killed his sister can hopefully be adopted by a kind, loving family of progressive bent.
scav
@NotMax:
Ben Franklin
@Schlemizel:
That’s a semi-automatic, I believe. That’s when you have issues with a round in the chamber.
Jebediah
@rb:
Yeah, it can quickly become a very long list.
It also bugs me a bit that if a word or phrase is misused long enough, by enough people, the misuse becomes accepted use. Living language got no self-respect!
johnny aquitard
@Eric S: No it absolutely doesn’t happen to everyone.
But if it so common, that’s a damn good argument for gun control, isn’t it?
Dumbasses like your co-worker want it both ways, don’t they? Accidental discharges are common, they happen to everyone, no biggie, so pooh-pooh-pooh don’t fret you silly scared-of-your-own-shadow lib. But don’t use that as an argument for stricter gun regs! We’re responsible gun owners!
carolus
Look, the “responsible gun owner” is largely a myth.
Most gun owners, particularly those from ‘burbs, don’t know squat about firearms except what they see on TV and in the movies. And many rural gunowners aren’t a hell of a lot better.
There isn’t a gunowner who hasn’t had a close call–be it an accidental discharge, a muzzle sweep, loss or misplacement of a weapon, handling a weapon while impaired or somesuch.
That they have weathered such incidents without a hospital visit, a police visit, or a death lulls them into the belief they know all there is to know about guns and are “responsible.”
Problem is the margin between an inadvertent incident causing no harm and one that ruins several lives is razor-thin.
rb
@mike with a mic: People are people, and people make mistakes, even the best of us. A lot of us, I’d even wager the majority of us, are also grade A idiots when sober, and even worse when drunk.
This. It’s why the libertarian fantasy of a totally armed populace is so distasteful.
rb
@Jebediah: It also bugs me a bit that if a word or phrase is misused long enough, by enough people, the misuse becomes accepted use.
A sense a disconnect here ;)
Schlemizel
@joes527:
BIL (the good one, not the stupid one) owns a lot of guns & living in the country loves to shoot tin cans etc. He owned a cheap .22 auto with a tube feed. Seriously they used to sell these things at Holiday gas stations! He is extremely safety aware.
We got done shooting one afternoon & it was beer time. He worked the action on the .22 several times, pointed towards the ground & pulled the trigger. The then pulled the action back so it locked open & stuck his little finger in there to make sure (rim-fires can be stubborn) The thing was empty. Then he closed the action & pulled the trigger. BANG! We both damn near wet ourselves. There is no way that is possible but it sure as hell happened.
RaflW
Trigger locks should absolutely be the law of the land. Tell me where in the 4th amendment a trigger lock is forbidden.
If a shithead gives a 5 year old a gun and it goes off and kills so much as a cat, the person who gave the gun should go to jail. Period.
Why is that hard to understand? Kids killing kids does not have to be accepted as a consequence of fetishizing the 4th freakin amendment.
ETA: He said the gun was kept in a corner
OH! Well then, that’s just as good as a trigger lock. I guess I overreacted.
/infuriated snark
mike with a mic
@johnny aquitard:
To be fair there are different kinds of accidental discharges. Some of them are due to human error, this can be corrected with proper training (which is something the military is really good at drilling into your head), in other cases there are manufacturing issues. Some guns killed a lot of people because they were faulting and going off for no reason.
The issue is that the gun control side often lumps to the two together and argues for sweeping legislation rather than lumping the two together. And all it takes is a brief look at daily kos to see a ton of “gun control advocates” who, when among their own admit they just want a total ban. And that sends responsible gun owners screaming back into the arms of the NRA. Gun control advocates are their own worse enemy here.
Cassidy
@gene108: This is the Ruger 10/22. Not a child’s rifle at all, but is commonly the first rifle a child will put their hands on as they get older and learn to shoot. There are others in the same class, but the Ruger is very popular. I know of a few people who have bought them as their children were born (1 for each) and stored them away to give to their kids when they reached a certain random age. They are cheap to buy, very well made, very low recoil, accurate as hell, and infinitely customizable.
Schlemizel
@Ben Franklin:
exactly. people here are saying the gun was designed for kids. If it was a 10/22 it is not designed for kids.
Random j. nerd
Two things. One article I read wad that the kid got the gun a year before, so they gave a four year old a gun. Most people don’t trust 4 year old kids with real scissors, and they hold their hand when walking lest they dart out into traffic
Second this is a common enough that at least one company has a line of guns for kids. Cricket arms, they have a “kids corner”, it features 30+ photos of kids brandishing weapons. None of the kids look like the have a double digit age.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: That doesn’t change that their is a well established and lucrative market in child sized .22lr rifles.
Ben Franklin
@johnny aquitard:
But if it so common, that’s a damn good argument for gun control, isn’t it?
About 6000 deaths per year driving while distracted (texting)
There are vehicle code regs, but so far no one is talking about the problem of the cell-phone, just the irresponsible owners.
http://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html
scav
@Schlemizel: Well, that description of the gun was what I read in the earliest AP reporting last night, so ‘here’ needs to be defined broadly.
StringOnAStick
@mike with a mic: You shoot cats that come to the attractive nuisances known as “bird feeders”? Wow, you’re about to become real popular around this place.
artem1s
@Chet:
mandatory trigger locks. gun lobby squashes any discussion of them.
the point of the post is the gunnutz won’t let anyone have a rational discussion on regulating an item that has been proven to be dangerous, over and over and over. Only when guns are concerned is this the case. Yes, occasionally you see some article about a kid getting behind the wheel of a car and somehow managing to get it out of gear and hurting someone. But generally the damn thing has been designed to keep 2-year-olds out of trouble in a car, even if they are crawling around in it unsupervised. Even the trunk release is designed to be recognizable to little kids in case they get locked in there.
Guns could be designed to be safer but that is going to require major regulation to get there. Ya think the gun lobby didn’t work hard to keep that family from being able to sue the pants off of them for selling an inherently dangerous product and marketing it to toddlers?
The auto industry has finally, after 30-40 years of push back, started to tout safety as a feature, not a bug. Yet mandatory redesign of guns never even enters the conversation. It all gets rerouted back to registration and the evil government taking away guns.
Design a gun that can only be fired by the owner; make him/her legally responsible for any damages caused if it is altered to be fired by anyone other than the legal owner (require insurance too). Those two steps would sell a lot of guns, and prevent most of the accidental deaths with kids and many of the other problems.
Why in the 21st century has there been no significant changes in gun safety design? It’d be the equivalent of making people crank start their cars or use telephone party lines.
Eric S
I’ve gone shooting exactly twice in my life. The first time I was with an ex-military man. The second time was with a friend who is a police officer. Both times we spent a lot of time on gun safety long before a single bullet was loaded.
I thought I would find it more fun than I did. The second time I had already applied for and received my Illinois FOID card and intended to purchase a gun. I ended up not following through because it just wasn’t for me.
I’m certainly not qualified to teach a gun safety and/or usage class. I do have a base working knowledge though and my coworkers cavalier attitude towards the incident was really and truly an eye opener. My early experience with gun owners gave me a rosy view of gun ownership. My views have changed.
jibeaux
My son has a gun designed for kids. It’s clear plastic and shoots little spongy orange Nerf bullets.
mike with a mic
@carolus:
We all accept some level of risk in our lives, and that our lives cause risk to others. Some of it is stuff we need to do, like crossing the street for example. Some of it is shit we don’t need to do, swimming pools kill far more kids than guns by a factor of 10, and we don’t really need those but we want them. Some of it is stuff other people do, cats infect and kill people and the allergic reactions they cause are horrific to others as well, but we want cats so other people must suffer even though we don’t need them.
So if you own a car, pool, and a cat… you’re putting yourself and those around you at risk. The car and the pool are far more likely to kill or maim someone than your gun is. And cats are horrible for the environment and if someone is allergic to them potentially lethal.
The key is risk management and admitting that their is a risk. Get car insurance, put a fence around your pool, keep your animals in your yard and accept that others can dispose of them if they go into theirs, trigger lock your guns and keep them in a safe.
Schlemizel
@Random j. nerd:
There ar a couple, Chipmunk is one brand someone posted to a different manufacturer earlier.
I wouldn’t give a 5YO a gun but I don’t think its the end of the world either. If I was to give a gun to a little kid these small things are actually ideal. Because they are small there is a lot less chance they will have trouble holding it and handling it. Because they are single-shot the kid can only have the one bullet I give him or her at a time, can’t ‘hide’ a bullet in the magazine and are easily seen to be empty (heck, you can pull the bolt & then the thing is inoperable all together).
In that case the gun is actually a better choice. But it still requires a parent that will take the damn thing away and never allow the kid to even know where the ammo is.
Ben Franklin
@artem1s:
mandatory trigger locks
Already mandatory in CA. Each weapon you purchase has one at additional cost.
RaflW
@mike with a mic:
Hmmm, straw man.
Many, many of us want: trigger locks, limits on magazines, limits on high-power rifles, cop-killer bullets, etc.
Sometimes, well even many times, what you see is what you get.
DKos is not the source of most liberal policy work, either. Just to keep that in mind.
gbear
@Comrade Dread:
They’ll just tell themselves that god had a special plan for the shot baby and continue to live their clueless lives.
carolus
@mike with a mic:
Both instances of inadvertent discharge stem from the same root cause: human error.
In the rare, rare case a gun “just goes off” due to a design or manufacturing problem, it is because the weapon is dropped or otherwise being mishandled.
Problem is that gun training isn’t standardized (outside of the armed services). Chances are most gun owners learned their safety skills from a friend or family member. Of course, this makes the huge assumption that friend or relative was firearm competent.
Cassidy
@artem1s:
You’ll get nowhere with this as it’s not true. There have been some very advanced safety designs built into weapons, especailly considering when you consider the lack of any safety feature on early firearms and revolvers. The issue you’re dealing with is that those safety features need to be able to be overcome quickly so that the weapon can be used for it’s purpose of killing. Essentially, the safety features are only designed for you to not shoot your dick off in a deliberate or negligent manner, but still be overcome to employ the weapon quickly. There isn’t much room in between.
Trakker
I would love to see the blue states do to gun dealers what the red states are doing to abortion clinics, forcing them to comply with so many costly requirements that most just have to shut down. We could even give the right full credit for the idea and thank them for the idea.
mike with a mic
@StringOnAStick:
Cats are a horrific menace to other peoples pets, wildlife, and coming from a family that has had people hospitalized because of the type of infections they give and allergic reactions yeah, fuck cats. Plus cat owners lie and keep them in buildings where they are banned, which caused a horrific asthmatic issue for my sister and landed her in the hospital.
Most cat owners are worse than gun owners in terms of responsibility. And there is no reason for cats either. Cats severely infringe on the safety and quality of life for other animals (both wild and pets), and many humans. Owning a cat makes you an assholes and shows a complete lack of care for other people around you.
Schlemizel
@scav:
“here’ refers specifically to commenters here. I know this will come as a shock to many but reporters are by and large dumb fucks. The story I read only identified the gun as a Ruger 10/22 & made no claims for its design being for kids.
IF it was a 10/22 then the AP writer has his or her head up their ass. IF (and either is entirely possible given the dumb-fuckitude of reporters) it was a gun made for kids thats different. BUT, no gun I have ever seen made specifically for little kids (two different brands mentioned in this thread) are semi-auto. That means no bullet hidden in the gun some place. The kid would have had to gotten a bullet & manually loaded it as those guns are specifically designed to not hold anything other than the one round in the chamber.
Cassidy
Well, this is going to end well. I shall mosey on over to the microwave for some popcorn.
carolus
@mike with a mic:
Seriously? Comparing guns to cars, swimming pools, and cats?
NotMax
@ RaflW
For handguns, already are (with some delineated exceptions).
mike with a mic
@carolus:
Not true at all. Winchester had a huge lawsuit because their guns went off at random due to the firing mechanism. There are other models from other makers where the firing ping wiggles and pow, gun goes off (leading to people shooting themselves with a gun they had in their trunk).
Of course, corporations being corporations they cover up, recall, pay to shut down lawsuits. But faulty weapons that randomly go off are a thing. A gun is a fairly complex and sensitive item.
CarolDuhart2
@Ben Franklin: How about being ticket while being caught texting and calling while driving, and the PSA’s we’ve had lately about that? Apparently gun safety doesn’t even get the PSAs or the public education efforts texting and driving do.
Let’s face it, GUNS are dangerous tools designed to kill. Even the most low-powered ones can severely damage you if wrongly used. We need to get past the gun worship I’ve seen lately, and regulate them like we do cigarettes, whiskey, fast cars and prescriptions.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel:
It’s a small rifle, dude. That’s an easy mistake to make for someone who doens’t know anything. Admittedly, a simple google search won’t kill you, but at least they correctly identified the rifle and spelled their name on the byline correctly, sans drool.
scav
@Schlemizel: I’m not argung about the dumb-fuckedness of reporters, but if you’re expecting a phd-level of understanding of all issues from people on BJ before discussion is licit, I don’t know what you’re at. I’m not about to accept your anecdote about what you’ve seen marketted to kids as the final word on what exists either. most of the time, information gets shaken out of these brewhas and added to the heap.
joes527
@mike with a mic: wow. This is going to get ugly. Not that I disagree that supporting an artificial top predator is an ecological disaster.
But Tunch will not be pleased.
Trollhattan
@belieber:
Somebody who should be relieved of their parental duties, stat.
TG Chicago
I agree about the “close calls” thing. So many of these accidents are bizarre “gun goes off and hits someone in the next room” kind of things that you have to figure it happens dozens of times without anybody getting injured for every one time someone gets hurt.
BruceFromOhio
@mike with a mic: You were doing okay here. But, you should’ve quit while you were ahead.
If you are using DKos as a yardstick for gun control advocacy, ur doin it rong.
Schlemizel
@Cassidy:
If the writer assumed it was a gun for kids & didn’t bother to verify then the drool part was just lucky.
I think auto safety and gun safety are a perfect comparison. back in the 60’s people realized that too many people were dying in crashes for no good reason. Lots of people got involved. There was tougher DUI enforcement, mandatory seat belts and air bags, better highway design, better car design, better training. The results are that deaths per million miles drives is about 1/3 of what it was in the late 60’s.
Nobody fretted that the government was going to take our cars away. Nobody is refusing to register their car or get a damn license before being allowed to drive.
We need the exact same sort of attitude & effort on gun safety. It would be part of the “well regulated militia” of second amendment fame
RaflW
@mike with a mic:
Per CDC, 2010 gun deaths in the US age 0-19 was 2,711
In the United States in 2006, 1100 people under 20 years of age died from drowning. That includes roughly 1/3 drowning in lakes, rivers and seas.
So, umm, rather than pools being 10X more dangerous, they’re in fact less than 1/3 as dangerous just in this quick, rough comparison.
And considering how many kids swim each year vs handle or face a gun? I’d guess the death-per-incidence-of-use rate is really, really lower for pools than guns.
Amir Khalid
@mike with a mic:
Peace and love, brother.
Schlemizel
@scav:
go & look at the web sites then. both are linked here I believe
Ben Franklin
@CarolDuhart2:
Let’s face it, GUNS are dangerous tools designed to kill. Even the most low-powered ones can severely damage you if wrongly used.
No question, but most implements of daily life are dangerous when abused,
We need to get past the gun worship I’ve seen lately, and regulate them like we do cigarettes, whiskey, fast cars and prescriptions.
Smartphones could fall into that category, but mostly it just results in new taxes, with very little modifying behavior to go with it.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Cassidy: I knew there was a reason I had pied him.
ranchandsyrup
@mike with a mic: One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus.
Schlemizel
@RaflW:
I’m actually stunned that the number of gun deaths is so low. I would have bet that the majority of the 35000 or so a year happened to people under 30 and the larger portion of that half under 20.
Not sure if Mike is trolling or just too passionate about the topic
scav
@Schlemizel: utterly willing to do that. Just not willing to write off everyone “here” for failing to meet your criteria of requisite prior knowledge.
Cassidy
@Schlemizel: I’m with you. Just sayin’ it’s an easy mistake to make for the uneducated.
Hell, I’ve said before I want bans on SA guns, registering of all weapons, forms stating intended use, licensing with annual renewal, insurance, public disclosure, taxes, etc. I want gun ownership to be a chore and an expense. And, i want heavy penalties for non-compliance as well as confiscation of current firearms in circulation.
The Moar You Know
@mike with a mic: You have found nirvana. A blog full of liberal cat owners and lovers, one which you can’t be banned from as FYWP has no working ban mechanism. I hope your stay here is long. Please post a lot about how much you love cats.
Senyordave
My wife was a kindergarten teacher for almost 15 years. I would come in twice a year and help out. I loved doing it, and the kids are great at that age. But they are foolish little people. That’s what 5 and 6 year olds are – and should be. Giving them a gun – WTF? I wouldn’t entrust a gun to most adults I know.
Schlemizel
@scav:
sorry, I did not mean to come off that way. I’ll try to do better. I was more pissed off to think that some lazy reporter was causing mass stupidity than at peopl e here
Eric S
@Ben Franklin: Guns fall in to a different category here.
The scissors on my desk can be dangerous when abused (I have another work story there but I’ll save that one). The hammer in my toolbox can be dangerous when abused. The chef’s knife in my kitchen can be dangerous when abused. My car can be hell and gone dangerous when abused.
All four have non-violent uses. A gun only has one practical use and that is to kill. And to clarify my earlier post I still support some level of gun ownership but I think there needs to be legitimate licensing and controls. The poster that compared it to car ownership and licensing is using an argument I’ve used often and support.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
I personally love cats, but there is a dearth of regulation for them.
RaflW
@NotMax:
If for handguns, trigger locks already are the law of the land, good. Then 1) expand the trigger lock law to shotguns, rifles, and 2) actually prosecute people who negligently allow their unlocked guns to be discharged by themselves or a youth in their care.
“I kep’ my ghun in a corner, shouldn’t ottah hurt no won” is not a reason for a d.a. to not press charges. Shit-a-rama people need to be held accountable.
But the ‘party of personal responsibility’ acts as if guns are magic devices that go off without warning or prejudice and the people with them in their hands are not ever to be held to account (unless robbing a liquor store, in which case a drone strike is called for).
Cassidy
A gun that shoots wet, pissed off cats at people….heh.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Except Texas tried to pass a law making it illegal to text and drive.
It failed.I believe Perry vetoed it.So, yes, it has been proposed.
Gin & Tonic
I was looking to change homeowner’s insurance companies. One came for an inspection, and would not write the policy for liability because there isn’t a handrail on the stairs that go down from my deck. It’s 5 steps down to a grass surface, and the steps are 8 feet wide. The deck surface is less than four feet above the ground. If I had a proper handrail but two loaded Bushmasters in the hall closet, I wouldn’t have had a problem.
That’s insane.
The Moar You Know
@TG Chicago: Guns don’t just “go off”. Not possible. They have to be loaded first.
And that right there is the difference between “accident” and “homicidal negligence”.
Ben Franklin
@Eric S:
A gun only has one practical use and that is to kill.
I don’t see skeet-shooting as a practical use, but then what is the practical use of Sports, in general?
Cassidy
Still would have happenned.
gbear
@Ben Franklin:
Talking on a hand-held cellphone while driving is banned in 10 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia) and the District of Columbia.
The use of all cellphones by novice drivers is restricted in 36 states and the District of Columbia and the use of all cellphones while driving a school bus is prohibited in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 39 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, novice drivers are banned from texting in 6 states (Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas) and school bus drivers are banned from text messaging in 3 states (Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas).
Many localities have enacted their own bans on cellphones or text messaging. In some but not all states, local jurisdictions need specific statutory authority to do so.
Ben Franklin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
It’s illegal to text while driving in CA, but the driver is cited. Nothing in there about regulating cell-phones.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@carolus: Well, you know, the purpose of a cat is to give other people allergies, the purpose of a pool is to drown, and the purpose of a car is to run your brother over in a getaway. See, they’re all used only for dangerous purposes.
Ben Franklin
@gbear:
enacted their own bans on cellphones or text messaging
There’s no ban on cellphones. The behaviors are regulated, not the phone..
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Actually, another thing proposed here in Texas, starting with teenage drivers, was to have the phone detect when it is moving in a car, and stop working.
But, to follow up, we regulate cars and the drivers.
Richard
The manufacturer makes guns that look like toys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyWL13xzD8k
The kid looks like she is 4 at most.
Geeno
Outdoor cats – I would never own an outdoor cat. Too many vet bills – and fleas – blech. Keep your cat where it can’t bother others; it has the added bonus of being cheaper.
johnny aquitard
@carolus:
I once got swept by some moron’s AR-15 while in a gun shop. I was buying a bore brush and a guy comes in (wearing camo, natch), wants a gunsmith to look at his AR, pulls it out of a bag and sets it on the counter. Muzzle swept me on the way to the counter, and the rifle ended up sitting on the counter with the muzzle still pointed at me.
I moved in a hurry, yes I did. Dumbass was oblivious, wasn’t even paying attention where his rifle was pointed.
Gunsmith comes to the counter and Dumbfuck then jacks open the action to show him something and there’s live round in the chamber.
I let him have it, verbally, and all he says is, hey man cool down, nobody got hurt.
Butch
And the county coroner described it as “just one of those crazy accidents.” Yeah….
NCSteve
@mike with a mic: Saying your gun was good for killing your neighbor’s cats isn’t exactly going to win you much credibility around here. Ditto, laughing off killing squirrels because they weren’t obeying the “birds only” sign you posted next to the food you left out in the open.
joes527
@gbear: I think that what Ben was fishing for was background checks for cell phone purchases, and to close the “cell phone show” loophole.
Because cell phones are _exactly_ like guns, don’cha know
RaflW
@Schlemizel:
Per CDC, the death rate starts to surge at 15-19, peaks at 20-24, and slowly declines from there. Its all horrendous
2010, United States Firearm Deaths
All Races, Both Sexes, Ages 0 to 85+
Age Group Number of Deaths Population Crude Rate
00-04 . . 82 . . 20,201,362 . 0.41
05-09 . . 73 . . 20,348,657 . 0.36
10-14 . . 225 . . 20,677,194 . 1.09
15-19 . . 2,331 . . 22,040,343 . 10.58
20-24 . . 3,870 . . 21,585,999 . 17.93
25-29 . . 3,434 . . 21,101,849 . 16.27
30-34 . . 2,738 . . 19,962,099 . 13.72
35-39 . . 2,411 20,179,642 . 11.95
40-44 . . 2,379 20,890,964 . 11.39
45-49 . . 2,695 22,708,591 . 11.87
50-54 . . 2,685 22,298,125 . 12.04
55-59 . . 2,297 19,664,805 . 11.68
60-64 . . 1,742 16,817,924 . 10.36
65-69 . . 1,270 12,435,263 . 10.21
70-74 . . 1,046 9,278,166 . 11.27
75-79 . . 903 7,317,795 . 12.34
80-84 . . 761 5,743,327 . 13.25
85+ . . 723 5,493,433 . 13.16
Total . . 31,665 . . 308,745,538 10.26
edit: FYWP!
Cassidy
@johnny aquitard: I had a dude point a rifle at me and fire at with blanks from about 5 feet away. I restrained myself from hitting him, but the amount of cursing and dressing down that followed made my CSM blush.
Ben Franklin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
we regulate cars and the drivers.
You got me there, but driving is a privilege, not a right, amirite
The Other Bob
@mike with a mic:
I can teach my kid how to swim. When the Y can teach my kid how to be bulletproof you will have a legitimate argument.
johnny aquitard
@johnny aquitard: Memo to self: The guys who feel like they need an AR-15 are gonna be the same guys who feel like they need to keep it lying around loaded.
The Moar You Know
@johnny aquitard: That’s standard response #1.
Standard response #2 comes into play when it doesn’t go down so well and you take a bullet through your spinal column.
A beautifully crafted mechanism allowing one who employs it to dodge blame forever.
Ben Franklin
@johnny aquitard:
guys who feel like they need to keep it lying around loaded.
I don’t have an AR-15 but I have a Mini-14 and I don’t keep it loaded. I do have a handgun I keep loaded and handy, but no little ones to get curious about it.
Eric S
@Ben Franklin: We might need a new thread if we start getting into a definition of sports. My opinions there are strong. Defense and/or sweating have to be involved.
I still will argue that skeet shooting or any target shooting is just practice for hitting and killing a live target. People have made it into a game and enjoy it. I don’t have any more problem with that than people enjoying listening to music I dislike or watching TV shows I don’t like. Their entertainment, not mine.
condorcet runner up
@RaflW: a thousand times this:
RaflW
@Ben Franklin:
Heck, a flower pot is dangerous if abused. Deadly, occasionally. But guns are kill when used as directed. That’s not just some rhetorical distinction.
Mnemosyne
@carolus:
The sad part is, it didn’t used to be a myth. My dad had guns in the house my whole life, but he kept them locked away in a separate room that only he had a key for. He only took them out when he was going to the shooting range or on a hunting trip. I even had to take a hunter education course when I was 12 to learn gun safety because he wanted to make absolutely sure that I didn’t do anything stupid if he made a mistake and forgot to lock up or left a gun out.
At this point, I’m really starting to think that most gun owners think of them like toys, no more dangerous than a Barbie doll or a Transformers car, and they are genuinely shocked when a gun goes off accidentally and kills someone. Because our current gun culture (fed by the NRA) says that safety concerns about guns are overblown and a liberal plot to take all guns away, so anyone who does treat their guns with care and an eye to safety is a namby-pamby pinko commie who needs to stop being so hysterical about safety.
Which is why you end up with fucktards who think giving a gun to a four-year-old and then letting it sit in the corner with bullets in it is a great idea. After all, a gun is no more dangerous than a hubcap, so why not let your toddler play with it?
Anna in PDX
@SiubhanDuinne: Hello, I see I am not entirely alone on this one! *waves*
NotMax
@Schlemizel
Not quite the case, though primarily fringe movements, for differing, shaky rationales.
A bit more, from a while back.
See, too, the so-called “Sovereign Citizen” adherents.
Just Some Fuckhead
If the two year old had been armed, this could have been averted.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Well, you do have a right to bear arms, though that seems awfully mean to bears. And if you’re gonna go that far, you don’t have a right to own ammunition.
But, there’s nothing preventing regulation of guns. We have the right to sell and own alcohol, yet we regulate it as well.
LABiker
Aw, look, there’s even an adorable toddler’s gun club:
http://www.crickett.com/crickett_kidscorner.php
RaflW
@The Other Bob: Except as noted vis. the actual death rates.
To your point, we also don’t have “swim suit detectors” at high school doors.
Mandalay
@RaflW:
And from this link:
So as you point out, far more kids die from guns than from pool drownings every year.
Ben Franklin
@Eric S:
I still will argue that skeet shooting or any target shooting is just practice for hitting and killing a live target
I agree with you on the semantics of the word ‘sport’. Many should just be called games.
But professional football seems to have similar vein..
Anna in PDX
@NCSteve: Real actual guns for kids. That is so weird. I do not understand this. (speechless)
Death Panel Truck
@Jebediah: My biggest pet peeve is “could care less” instead of the correct term, “couldn’t care less.” When a person says “could care less,” they are saying the opposite of what they mean.
Ben Franklin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
And if you’re gonna go that far, you don’t have a right to own ammunition.
A well-regulated militia means that neither the weapon or ammunition is involved.
It’s about regulating the militia, or people in the militia.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Death Panel Truck: “Begs the question” is a rhetorical fallacy. It has started really driving me nuts that people use this to mean “raises the question.”
Trollhattan
@johnny aquitard:
A-yep. Wish I had a link to the comment from around the time of Sandy Hook described the strict rules the commenter had for carrying a rifle while patrolling on and off his Iraq FOB. IIRC they didn’t even insert the magazine while on guard duty and when on patrol, would insert a taped-over clip upon leaving the base. On return they removed the clip, emptied the theoretically empty chamber and dry-fired into a barrel filled with sand, at which point they were allowed in.
Have probably screwed up the details but the simple take-home is the folks we pay and train to defend our nation follow rules that would have our gun-fondlers screaming “oppression” if they had to behave likewise. I do not trust civilians with military weaponry, and believe I have the constitutional right to be 100% protected from same.
Gex
Here’s how it works in America. If you can come up with the cash to acquire a gun, you get one free homicide. There really isn’t a problem until AFTER that.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Don’t skip out on the last part of that amendment, dude: “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
Aimai
@Senyordave: it’s also wrong to say that the four year old was given the gun. If the gun was left standing, loaded in the corner all children in the household, including the now dead two year old sister, had access to the gun. We’re “given ” the gun. I’m so sick of the stupidity of the American people. This family chose this fate and we let them do it on behalf of a small segment of the population that hates democracy and fears the ballot and dreams of a violent, revanchist, restoration of white/rural/righteous rule. That’s what it boils down to.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
In the vast majority of cases, they are toys, as in “something the owner buys for their own entertainment and not out of any actual need.” This is the 21st century. The vast majority of people don’t hunt for a living anymore. Nor are they in any danger of being attacked by wild animals, or finding themselves on the front lines of an Indian war. Nor, with the end of the draft and the rise of the all-volunteer force, will they ever find a citizen-soldier purpose for their guns.
Guns aren’t tools of everyday life anymore. At best, they’re there for entertainment and at worst, as props in the owners’ delusional fantasies. That’s done a lot to erode the sense of responsible gun ownership, IMO.
Mandalay
@RaflW:
Not quite. The rate rises again after 60-64.
It would be interesting to know how many of the deaths older than 64 are gun suicides related to illness. If the numbers are significant then that is the best argument I can find for gun ownership until this country grows up about euthanasia.
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: I’m really starting to think that most gun owners think of them like toys,
I think guns are viewed more like religious charms. How could there be harm in keeping another rabbit’s foot around?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Trollhattan: I believe that was our own John Cole describing that.
NotMax
No one yet has mentioned the dire warning from both Ralphie’s mom and Santa Claus?
“You’ll shoot your eye out!”
gbear
@Ben Franklin:
…because you just never know when you might feel the need to shoot someone.
And if you reply that it makes you feel safer, you’re nothing but chickenshit.
Ben Franklin
@gbear:
You’re safe, for now…:)
RaflW
@Ben Franklin:
You’re half right. The SCOTUS decision in Heller (written by Scalia) makes it pretty clear that restrictions on guns are permissible. Its not an unlimited right.
Our right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are called out as rather special on our Constitution, but they’re not unlimited. My liberty and happiness can infringe on yours (for example, speeding makes me happy, but that don’t cut mustard in traffic court). So why would gun rights be the onlyest, specialist right of all that trumps everything? Sorry, no.
Ben Franklin
@RaflW:
Scalia? Well, umm, now……..
Ben Franklin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yes, those were tenuous times…..just as now.
Amir Khalid
@Anna in PDX:
Me neither. And since such gun-makers are still in business, we must infer that there are enough parents buying guns for very young kids to support them.
CarolDuhart2
@condorcet runner up: As noted earlier, it is. Also with pools there’s also been a safety push. You can’t get insurance if you have a pool that can’t be locked and fenced. You have to drain it when the season’s over. They have to be lighted. The city pools where I live are drained and lighted at night, surrounded by high wire fencing to keep would-be trespassers out. No one is allowed to swim unsupervised, so even during the season they don’t open if there are no lifeguards. And you can be sued for reckless homicide if your pool is left unlocked and a kid falls into the pool and drowns. For above-ground pools, you have to keep it covered when not in use. There’s separate wading pools so small kids don’t have to swim in water too deep.
But guns? We don’t seem to care. A five year old gets a gun and kills himself, a friend, or parent? Shrug. What is a five year old doing with a real gun? Shoot, I remember when five year old kids who wanted to play with guns got realistic-looking toy ones, and later bright colored plastic ones, water guns, and cap guns. Real guns were for kids nearing the age of 15 or so who could go out in the woods and hunt with their parents.
IowaOldLady
Saw this linked on the GOS: http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/04/gunfire_and_moments_of_fear_as.html
While students were home for a teacher in-service day, “armed gunmen” invaded the room where teachers were meeting and shot up the place with blanks. The “gunmen” were testing their readiness for an assault. The teachers were NOT expecting the drill and thought it was real.
I try to imagine what would have happened had a teacher been carrying.
Mike Lamb
@Ben Franklin: That’s incredibly specious logic.
pokeyblow
vtr, way up at #29, recalls the horrific event in Massachusetts where some dipshit took his child to a gun show and had him fire a demonstration Uzi. The gun recoiled upward as it shot, and took the poor kid’s head apart.
Of course, folks weren’t allowed then to call the father stupid, because he had just experienced such a painful loss.
I’m really sick of all the excuses which are made (e.g., the above, Thatcher’s funeral, etc.) for telling people they can’t say what is goddam obvious.
MomSense
@Comrade Dread:
At 4 they can barely tie their own shoes–how is a gun appropriate at that age???
The Other Bob
@gbear:
I am back to my snarky saying: Cowards Carry Guns.
If a person is so scared that they have to carry a gun every day they need to ask themselves a few questions:
“What am I afraid of?”
“Do I need to move?”
“Do I hang with the wrong crowd?”
“Am I paranoid and need psychological help?”
GxB
@Anna in PDX: Got to start them young, chances are they’ll defend their cherished beliefs all the way to the retirement home (provided they live that long.)
AKA: You know who else indoctrinated their young?
NotMax
@IowaOldLady
And firing blanks can be just as fatal as non-blanks.
Jon-Erik Hexum.
Brandon Lee.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric S:
Probably about as much as this urban, non-hunting, non-gun owner who is a military veteran knows about firearms.
So go figure.
RaflW
@Mandalay:
Urph. I didn’t notice the rate rise as the populations ages and shrinks. One would guess that suicide by gun is a contributor to the increase. I support physician assisted suicide for the terminally ill, in part because self inflicted gun death seems so brutal. And awful for the family afterwards.
My dad is 82 and suffering from mid-late Alzheimer’s. He has asked for a gun on more than one occasion in the past year. He lives in Texas, the best we can do is make damn sure his DNR is on the coffee table at all times and all caregivers and aides know not to call 911 if he starts having a heart attack or such.
If he were in Oregon, I think he’d have asked to check out about a year ago, when he still was of sound enough mind to do it. (Though I don’t know if Oregon’s law accepts Alzheimer’s as sufficient to trigger the Death with Dignity).
Shooting one’s self for sure, though, not death with dignity…IMO.
Anna in PDX
@NotMax: GMTA! that was the first thing I saw in my mind when I went to that TPM article.
Kay
It would be interesting to see how these gun cases are handled, nationally, and if the gun fetish influences that.
Here’s how these cases are handled:
johnny aquitard
@Ben Franklin:
Pretty much what I expected. If it isn’t the AR loaded it’s going to be something else.
Sterotype? Maybe. True more often than not? Hell yes.
That’s what they all say. Always so confident.
So, there is no way, ever, that a child or an unauthorized adult can ever come into the place where you keep this ‘handy’? No visitors? No nephews, nieces, in-laws, neighbors, friends and their kids ever visit?
Pretty rare if that’s the case.
gene108
@Schlemizel:
When I read it, I thought it said the gun was small, so I assumed they had the kid-sized version. Guess I misunderstood.
RaflW
@Ben Franklin:
So you agree, then, that the right to guns is limited? I take your elipses as acknowledging that you have no counter-argument.
Anna in PDX
@Amir Khalid: Too weird… my kids used to play with sticks and pretend that they were guns. They had a lot of fun and sometimes somebody got hit with a stick. But there was no danger they would kill each other. I just don’t understand how any parent – particularly one who uses guns who would presumably know better than those of us who don’t how deadly they are – would think it OK to let a kid have one as a toy. Am still having trouble processing the new ideas here.
– There is a company that markets real actual guns for children.
– There are parents who buy them for 4 or 5 year olds.
– They shoot real bullets.
What? Why?
SatanicPanic
@Chet: Not allow them to market to children. We already established this with the tabacco companies. you can still buy cigarettes. Not that complicated.
lucslawyer
And another child is sacrificed on the altar of the 2nd Amendment.
NotMax
@NotMax
Screwed up that link pretty well.
Corrected linkage:
No one has mentioned the dire warning from Ralphie’s mom and Santa Claus?
pokeyblow
“No point in prosecuting the parents for reckless endangerment,” they’ll say. “They’ve suffered enough.“
GxB
@Death Panel Truck: How about “Waiting with baited breath.” Sounds like they brush their teeth with chum, but I see it used like this so much it’s seems to be accepted usage.
I’d stick to topic here but it’s too damn depressing.
Trollhattan
@RaflW:
Very sorry to hear about your father; what a trial for everyone.
Friend’s father was admitted to the hospital with stroke symptoms, but tests didn’t confirm that. Days of further testing eventually turned up a serious calcium imbalance that had nearly killed him. It took a couple weeks to bring his system around and in the meantime he was, well, nuts. During one of his daily visits my friend asked his dad if there was anything he could get him the answer was, “Yeah, get me a knife.”
“Why do you want a knife?”
“So I can kill you and get out of here!”
Move the conversation to a house with a gun stash and imagine the possibilities.
Villago Delenda Est
I’ve already commented on this fully preventable tragedy in earlier threads, but there are so many basic safety rules that “responsible gun owners” should be adamant about that were utterly ignored here.
The gun fetishists really do treat firearms as toys. This is definitive proof of that…presenting an actual firearm (not a Red Ryder BB Gun (“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”)) to a five year old, leaving it totally unsecured in the corner, allowing live ammunition anywhere near it without adult supervision in an appropriate place (on a hunting trip, or at a firing range), etc.
I’m sure all these points have been covered elsewhere in the thread, because this is so FUCKING EASY TO FIGURE OUT.
But the gun fetishists can’t. Not one of them…not a one, meets my criteria for “responsible gun owner.” These deadly tools, designed only to bring grievous injury, if not death itself, are treated like fucking toys by these irresponsible oversized children.
When I was growing up, pointing a toy gun at another was out of bounds. These guys give their kids the real thing, with ammo, and don’t think about it twice.
They should be at a bare minimum permanently removed from the body known as the “militia” and never be allowed to possess, much less own, another firearm again, for the rest of their lives.
Villago Delenda Est
@lucslawyer:
Moloch hungers.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Like I said… we live in a society where guns are so rarely used for any purpose other than entertainment that it’s no surprise so many of our gun owners treat them as toys.
Anna in PDX
@IowaOldLady: OMG. Rural Oregon is a very scary place sometimes.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW:
I think you’ve confused the Declaration of Independence (“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”), a rhetorical political document, and the Constitution of the United States, a document outlining the basic framework of our governance system.
flukebucket
I can’t think of a single instance when a five year old having a real gun, loaded or unloaded, is a good idea.
NotMax
Way, way OT:
Pope condemns Bangladesh ‘slave labour’ conditions
Mnemosyne
@Anna in PDX:
I highlighted that bit because, frankly, I think there are a lot of gun owners out there who really don’t know any better, because all they ever do with their guns is shoot at targets or shoot at bottles. They don’t even bother to go hunting. So they really are very removed from the reality that a gun is a machine specifically designed to kill, and they treat it with the same casualness as any other toy they have laying around the house. And any attempt to point out that guns are, y’know, dangerous, are dismissed as a bunch of nervous nellies wringing their hands about nothing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Franklin:
It’s also, bozo, about insuring that the arms of the militia are in a serviceable state so that they can be used as intended, to secure a free state.
If you’re not regulating the weapons of the militia to insure their utility, you’re not doing your job of maintaining the militia. It’s that fucking simple.
The weapons in private hands right now have nothing to do, at all, with securing a free state, except in the paranoid delusions of the gun fetishists.
lucslawyer
I wonder if either or both of these would be possible:
1) a combination of FLIR and computer chip that would disable a firearm if pointed at
a live target, or
2) a computer chip that would disable a firearm until a password of at least 10 places
is entered
Calouste
@NotMax:
I’ll listen to the Pope when he tells the US bishops to withhold communion from lawmakers who vote to abolish the minimum wage.
Mandalay
@RaflW:
No, not the best, but more dignified than dying in a diaper, with drool on your chin, shit on your thighs, a tube up your nose, another tube in your arm, and nothing going on upstairs.
For 2005 through 2009 suicides by gun for those over 64 was 79.1%, the highest of any age bracket.
Villago Delenda Est
@lucslawyer:
Any such attempts to impose safety will be vigorously fought by the primary agents of the merchants of death, the NRA.
Count on it. They’ve blocked the inclusion of taggants in black powder for fear that it will interfere with their right to blow people to smithereens for looking at them the wrong way, or something.
Punchy
Related:
I’m guessing 29% is within the margin of error for The 27% Principle.
Also within the margin of error for The 27% Principle:
That’s your fellow Americans, folks.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ben Franklin: Yep, tenuous. All those Indians threatening to take their land back, the British on our coast, and all those slaves trying to escape. And you never know when Congress is going to establish an Army.
JR
@Schlemizel: @Cassidy:
The 8 year-old brother who killed his 5 year-old sister in Alaska used a 10/22.
The 5 year-old brother who killed the 2 year-old sister in Kentucky used a Crickett.
Alaska: http://www.adn.com/2013/04/30/2885052/mountain-village-boy-shoots-kills.html
rk
The poor children. It’s sad that they were born to such wretches. The parents have got exactly what they deserve.
hackenbush
To be fair, this did happen in “The South”. You’ve got about as much chance of getting them to enact *any* gun legislation as you do of having them integrate schools or acknowledge evolution without a federal mandate.
JR
@gene108: No, you were right. The kid in Kentucky had a Crickett, which is a single-shot, kid-sized .22 rifle. There was a separate shooting in Alaska where an 8 year-old used a Ruger 10/22, which is a semi-automatic .22 available in both compact/youth sizes and full sizes.
wenchacha
@patrick II: That sounds awful. I’m sorry for your loss. Even if it happened a long time ago, it never stops being a raw deal for your absent friend, does it.
John D.
@mike with a mic: When exactly was this lawsuit against Winchester?
Kay
@lucslawyer:
They could regulate it. They could pass a law on “negligent discharge”. If the gun goes off when it wasn’t intended the owner or purchaser is charged.
But they never will.
NotMax
@ lucslawyer
Sort of like adding a turbocharger to a Model T. Possible, but impractical. Too many reasons why it is impractical to list here, but just a couple off the top o’ the noggin.
Last I knew of, deer, ducks, etc. are live targets.
Battery-operated electronic measures like that can be easily bypassed, miscue, suffer magnetic interference or fail without warning (and no reason someone couldn’t pre-enter 9 of the 10 digits in advance, in any case), plus the addition of disabling or locking mechanisms (which by their nature would have to be mechanical) to be triggered would entail significant (and possibly hazardous in terms of power and wiring) re-engineering to function and also maintain the balance and utility of the gun.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Didn’t Scalia have some odd-duck questions about trigger locks during orals for Heller? IIUC the ruling partly revolved around finding that mandating locks prevented one from adequately defending oneself. Frankly, I suspect Nino watched “High Noon” too often.
Trollhattan
In Googling Heller I came across this ref. Feel
freeencouraged to mock at will.Colin_in_AK
I just thought I would note that a very similar and sad incident occurred yesterday in Alaska, with an 8-year-old boy shooting and killing his 5-year-old. He shot her with his hunting rifle.
Amir Khalid
@lucslawyer:
In Skyfall, Q issues James Bond a Walther PPK with a safety keyed to Bond’s DNA. I know there has been work on developing safeties keyed to the owner’s fingerprint. But I don’t know how close to reality such things are, or whether they might affect a gun’s saleability/resale value by making it harder to transfer.
RaflW
@Villago Delenda Est: You’re right. But gun rights are not Constitutionally unlimited, even if I’m sometimes limited in my grasp of facts.
keestadoll
@Eric S: apparently, not much. Google this type of accidental discharge and you’ll understand…or, take a hunter’s safety class. That being said, deer hunter guy should have known better. MOST hunters do.
johnny aquitard
@mike with a mic: I was talking about accidental discharges when hunting. Which is what Eric S’s co-worker insisted everyone has them. Which in my experience hasn’t happened yet.
But there are different kinds of accidental discharges? Ok so some guns go bang unexpectedly because there’s something wrong with it.
I call bullshit. Never heard of a gun in my life that went bang all by itself. Somebody has to do something first. There is some interaction with the gun.
Which brings up several questions, if the gun went off due to a manufacturing problem, why can’t we sue the manufacturer? I understand they’re protected from liability now.
And if someone got hurt, why was the gun handler pointing that gun at that person? That falls in your first category, I’d say.
I think it is right to look at this as one problem. Because it is indeed all of a piece.
Any responsible gun owner would run screaming from the NRA, not to it. I saw Lapierre’s disgusting unhinged rant against the victims of Newton, that fucker blamed them. Kids and teachers. And then put the onus on everyone else. There is blood on the NRA’s hands, and the ironic thing is, they actually are bringing about their own prophecies.
No fucking way an NRA member can claim to be responsible when that organization has thwarted efforts to keep felons and wife-batterers from getting guns. Hell, they’ve been lobbying to allow felons to buy guns.
In the long run the NRA will prove to be a harmful thing for gun owners. Just look at the public perceptions they’ve created about gun owners. They’ve really polarized people, and if you think that’s something any PR firm wants to do, you’re a fool. Hell, they’ve pissed off a lot of gun owners too. I wasn’t for gun control. I am now. And I’m not the only gun owner to change minds. They’re a manufacturer’s lobbying firm and they’ve really fucked over any chance we’ve had of having a sane public policy regarding guns. The gun control people didn’t do this. NRA members like Adam Lanza and the NRA did.
johnny aquitard
@carolus: That’s a bog-standard NRA tactic.
Then they point out guns are a right and cannot be regulated as if they were mere privileges like driving. As if that trumps everything, including a century or two of jurisprudence that has done just that.
NotMax
@keestadoll
Some insist it is a myth, but I can attest to having seen the following done on at least one farm:
Farmer(s) painting the word ‘COW’ in fluorescent orange paint on their herd during deer hunting season.
Gravenstone
Called it. Fucking knew that Chet the NRA shill would be on this post like shit on stink within the first 20 posts (# 17 FTW). Why don’t you go die in a fucking fire you useless waste of protoplasm?
kc
@mike with a mic:
Asshole.
Catsy
@mike with a mic: Wow. This is one of the most unhinged, warped views of pet ownership I think I’ve ever seen.
I’m very glad people like you are not in a position to make policy.
Catsy
@Ben Franklin:
Smartphones are not designed with the express and sole purpose of delivering a lethal projectile to a target in order to destroy that target.
The absolute inanity of the analogies the anti-safety crowd comes up never ceases to amaze me.
Catsy
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is actually something I drilled into my stepson at a very early age, using his Nerf guns to teach basic safety concepts like trigger discipline and where not to point the business end on a level that he could understand. We never had any real firearms in the house and never will, so that was what we had.
Fast-forward to years later when I got an Airsoft P90 and took him out back for some target practice. He was 10 years old so of course there was supervision, but I was very proud of how responsibly he handled it.
pseudonymous in nc
@NCSteve:
As I said in an earlier thread, I’ve seen in-laws’ kids (5 and 8) posing with My First Deadly Weapon™. The girl got a pink one. Yeah, lovely.
Let’s get this out here: Americans are really shitty gun owners.
pseudonymous in nc
@mike with a mic:
So, good for sociopaths like you? Oh, I forgot, you like feeding birds.
Catsy
@Amir Khalid:
Feature, not bug.
Catsy
@johnny aquitard:
Unlike that pesky First Amendment, which is subject to an ever-increasing number of exceptions and yeah-buts.
Just to be clear on what these people’s priorities are:
Freedom of speech? Potentially dangerous or harmful enough to require a large number of laws defining exceptions or cases where that freedom must be balanced by the need to avoid or punish harm inflicted by it.
Freedom to own a firearm? Virtually sacrosanct, no matter how many lives have to end or be forever changed in order to preserve that absolute right.
This is who they are.
kc
@Catsy:
He’s posted his anti-pet screeds here before. I didn’t respond before because he wasn’t bragging about shooting cats and squirrels that time.
Narcissus
Price o’ Freedom
cckids
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
This. Christ on a cracker, I just bought a goddamn NERF bow & arrow for my nephew, & it was marked for “8 & over only”.
Because of projectiles, & lack of common sense in small children.
But an actual, honest-to-FSM gun? Have at it, 5-yr-old! Jesus wept.
cckids
@Schlemizel:
I’m late to the thread, so apologies if this has come out, but the Washington Post story identifies the gun as a .22, called a “Crickett”, marketed for children with the tag “My First Gun”. Comes in bright pink or blue, or multi-colored swirls.
They look like toys. And, having had 3 kids, you cannot expect a 4 or 5 year old to be “responsible” with a firearm. If you do, you are an ass.
NotMax
@cckids
Guess the niche market is just too small for My First Guillotine.
gbear
@johnny aquitard:
Adolphus A. Busch IV, heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, resigned his lifetime NRA membership last night in a blistering two-page letter that called the gun lobby a corporate shill and attacked its “distorted values.”
Quaker in a Basement
–Twain
Larv
@pokeyblow:
Well, I don’t think I’d support prosecuting them, but not because they’ve suffered enough. Rather, it’s the 5-year old who’s suffered enough, and having his parents yanked away and put in jail isn’t going to help matters. He already has his sister’s death on his conscience, adding his parents imprisonment to that burden seems a bit much. Ideally, I’d like to see some sort of administrative punishment, like taking away their right to own firearms.
lojasmo
@The Moar You Know:
WP Ban Hammer
pseudonymous in nc
@Larv:
You prosecute them in the hope that the parents of the next kid to get My First Deadly Weapon® on his fifth birthday at very least lock the fucking thing up.
ascap_scab
#MyFirstRifle #TheGoodNewsIs – now those Kentucky parents won’t have to deal with their little princess contracting HPV at age 11.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jebediah:
As do I.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jebediah:
It happened with “decimate.”
Ruckus
@IowaOldLady:
That’s about the same as the time the TSA placed a semi-auto pistol on the handle of my bag as it went through the X-Ray machine. They were checking the scanner operator. What they failed to do was retrieve the weapon before I reached for my bag. I came about an inch from grabbing the gun instead of the handle of my bag before I saw and recognized it. Assholes thought it was funny that I was pissed that had I grabbed it, some cop waking the other way could have shot me before I had a chance to set it down. I should have asked for names and reported them, but to whom and to what end, as this was during W’s reign of terror.
SiubhanDuinne
@Anna in PDX:
:: waves back ::
Fred
@Ben Franklin: The first thing my dad told me about guns is: “There is no such thing as an unloaded gun.”
The second thing was: “Never point a gun at a person, not even a toy gun.”
I must say, I pity the poor stupid schmucks. They will never be free of this grief.