US Toddlers Involved In Shootings On a Weekly Basis (washingtonpost.com) 822
New submitter fremsley471 writes with this story by Christopher Ingraham about shooting accidents involving children 3 and under in The United States. There were at least 43 cases this year of shootings involving a toddler. The Washington Post reports: "This week a 2-year-old in South Carolina found a gun in the back seat of the car he was riding in and accidentally shot his grandmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat. This type of thing happens from time to time: a little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead. But cases like this happen a lot more frequently than you might think. Briefly sifting through news reports found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself."
Laws (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
I know people are going to cry "Second Amendment" and everything, but if you're so stupid as to leave a weapon where a 2 year old can get to it (especially if it's in the back seat of a car with the child in the back), you should lose your right to own a gun. I have nothing against responsible gun owners - which are likely the vast majority of gun owners - but there's a very visible minority who seem to act like guns are a fun toy to play with or just leave lying around instead of the dangerous weapons that they really are.
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The Second Amendment seems pretty clear to me:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
See how it uses the word right?
Context: Brit who wouldn't want his own country's strict gun laws changed... but the US constitution seems pretty unambiguous here. That the Second Amendment is inconvenient doesn't mean it's unclear.
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We had all of those things in Vietnam and still couldn't manage to hold the country against an army mostly comprised of simple infantrymen with small arms.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not even a conservative, but the reading of the 2nd amendment as a right of the government to arm it's own forces seems rather silly.
If you are going to gut the constitution, do it right and just repeal the 2nd amendment. The supreme court gets a lot of stuff wrong, but that wasn't one of those things.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, you are committing historical fail and probably doing it on purpose.
The existence of the militia was never dependent on the existence or lack of existence of a national army. Even when a standing Army existed on this side of the pond, it was not considered unnecessary.
The original purpose of the NRA aligns nicely with what a colonial would think of the 2nd Amendment.
If anything, the founding fathers would get rid of the US Army rather than the 2nd Amendment. The state of modern tech probably would not change that.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
if you're so stupid as to leave anything remotely dangerous where a 2 year old can get to it (especially if it's in the back seat of a car with the child in the back), you should lose right to be a parent
There fixed that for you. Little gits getting hurt with guns and making an issue about it is imply a anti-gun lobby ploy to tug at your heart strings. The fact is two years are injured by all sorts of things all the freaking time. How may two years drink toxic household products each week? I don't imagine they print all those mr.yuck stickers because that does not happen. Yet nobody proposes enhanced background checks to purchase drain cleaner or banning its sale/possession. Instead they propose a simple requirement to have child proof caps on these things. They are not entirely child proof but hey there is very little that will resist a two year old left to have their way with it unattended.
Sensibly we already have rules that require firearms to be locked up where kids can't get them. It still happens just like kids still get poisoned. Anecdotally I bet more of us know someone who has had their stomach pumped, than somone injured while 'playing' with a gun.
How many toddlers are hurt by kitchen knives?
electrical outlets?
heavy objects knocked of tables?
Falls onto hard surface such as stone from furniture?
How often is the relative severity of such injuries greater than those related to their accidents with firearms?
The simple fact is being two years old is very dangerous because two year olds are mobile, curious, but nearly without experience and highly limited in capability for judgement. It strains credibility that a person who could be so negligent as to leave a loaded gun where a two year can get it, is otherwise capable of keeping that child safe. Every responsible parent I know with children that small immediately scan new spaces for anything that could be a potential threat before turning their child loose. If you leaving loaded gun out I am sure there are plenty of things around with the potential to be nearly as dangerous you are doing nothing about.
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Service Announcement -- Gun Safes (Score:3)
Yet caps on drain cleaner are more regulated than trigger guards on guns. Why?
Well there are many ways to safely store a gun that do not require trigger locks. You could store it in a safe, for instance.
Be VERY, very careful about storing a gun in a gun safe around kids. (Pick the right one and pay more). There are a lot of badly designed safes out there that kids can crack into. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I think that you're being sarcastic, but there are already tons of laws on the books at the state level that say that gun owners need to keep their guns locked up and away from children.
Perhaps we should start giving these people 10 year prison terms for manslaughter until people get the message.
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There are such laws in some states but not in others. You can't lock someone up for breaking a leg that doesn't exist. But maybe every state should have these laws.
Re: Laws (Score:3)
Are we going to give out manslaughter charges to all the parents that let their toddlers drown in five gallon buckets as well? Cause there are more of those every year than die by gunfire and there's also no reason for an unattended bucket of water to be lying around.
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Seems to me it is the gun owner who should be responsible for securing their weapon and making sure it is only being used by responsible adults. It is not the parents job to make sure the kid can't get at some hidden gun they don't know about.
Of course the reality is that in most cases the parent and the gun owner are actually the same person.
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This is the USA, nobody has personal responsibility for anything.
You can kill a motorcyclist with your car because you were texting and you get off with merely a slap. Come on back when you are ready to apply personal responsibility and consequences across the board.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are the moderators keeping Slashdot on target for nerdy rather than pure, unadulterated SJW fodder?
Ironically, I may get modded down, demonstrating the answer.
Nerds have guns too, and kids. And brains with which to analyze such issues. Failing to talk about public policy issues that affect society would deprive the world of much nerdly wisdom.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Although there are other places to talk about those things. Not as many places to talk about things that are more associated with Slashdot.
I don't complain when truly big news stories bubble up here, but I have to admit, I am wondering why I am reading bland gun control articles here when I could be going twenty other places to read the same article.
It's not like I am going to read about Linux kernel mods on Salon.com.
Re:Laws (Score:4, Funny)
It's not like I am going to read about Linux kernel mods on Salon.com.
Unless Linus Torvalds murders someone in the kernel dev forum for misplacing a semicolon in a mod..
Re:Laws (Score:4, Funny)
Well, it did kill ReiserFS. Won't somebody think of the file systems?!
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I figure that the real problem here is idiots who breed. How are you going to solve that problem really? I doesn't matter if it's pools, dogs or detergent pods. Even if you remove the gun, the idiot parent is still an idiot.
It's just that guns are sexy and exciting from a yellow journalism point of view.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Its more about focus than audience.
Yes, I'm of an age to have children now. However, there is no lack of places where I can read this sort of article.
Where else would I go to if I just wanted to aggregate tech news?
You don't have to answer that. I may find out myself if this gets too silly.
Seriously. At least the articles about the gender imbalance in tech are actually talking about tech jobs. What does this have to do with tech?
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Where else would I go to if I just wanted to aggregate tech news?
You don't have to answer that. I may find out myself if this gets too silly.
Soylentnews [soylentnews.org] seems to have lots of tech articles, and less fluff.
Hacker News [ycombinator.com] is another.
Re:Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I hear that all the time. But what about plain old "kids who have been shot by guns recently" contributes to making Slashdot a place I'd go to over say, CNN or Salon or Fox News, or DailyKos?
News for Nerds may not just be tech, but seriously, these sorts of articles are all over sites that have nothing at all to do with nerds.
Your argument is like saying that nerds are humans, therefore any news that concerns humans is News for Nerds. Therefore, we should just cut and paste the AP wire into Slashdot.
More to the point, does every single article everywhere have to talk about guns?
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Though we may not give much thought to it when we climb behind the wheel, lots of people are killed in car accidents including kids. That is one reason why motor vehicle use is so highly regulated. You must be licensed and to get a
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In my state a county sheriff deputy left his 9mm loaded and accessible to his two year old daughter in his garage.
The outcome wasn't good. He had plenty of training.
We need to outlaw stupidity.
Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of context? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any reason at all for this to be on Slashdot, except to push a general political agenda?
It's worse than you might think.
By associating toddlers with gun shootings they're making an emotional argument against gun ownership.
In short, we need to clamp down on gun ownership because we've now inflated the likelihood of a tragic incident in the minds of the reader. We do this by showing the enormous, large number without context, and by making it seem continuous and ever present.
Consider what your teenage daughter might think on reading the headline: One child a week gets shot! OMG!
This is just another non-evidence-based appeal for gun control, brought to light because the democrats are using the issue [washingtonpost.com] to help get elected.
And then, of course, they'll do nothing. Again.
Think it through. What contextual information might put the "one toddler a week" meme into perspective, and make it seem less important?
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This is just another non-evidence-based appeal for gun control
That may be, and I haven't and won't bother to read the TFA, but this sort of thing does highlight something that pro-gun people seem to ignore - That the bell curve exists and that no matter how much you wish it was otherwise, 100% of a population can't exist on the "good" side of the distribution.
Re:Lack of context? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is some context from the CDC:
Every day, over 300 children in the United States ages 0 to 19 are treated in an emergency department, and two children die, as a result of being poisoned.
0-19 is a bigher range, but 300 per Friggin DAY! The parent poster is absolutely correct this is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things that threaten the children. Our resources would be better directed elsewhere. The problem is not the guns so much as it is caretakers that are stunningly negligent! In the care of sort of person that could 'accidentally' allow something as obviously dangerous as fire arm to end up in the hands of a child, these same children were almost certain to be severely injured by something else sooner or later. The fact it was a gun is simply coincidence.
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What contextual information might put the "one toddler a week" meme into perspective, and make it seem less important?
I'd probably check into how many of them are stealing candy from other toddlers and physically striking each other. Kind of hard to play up toddler gun violence when you look at the out of control prevalence of toddler theft and assault.
You could probably attack it from a women's rights perspective as well. Don't think of it as toddler gun violence so much as an unusually late term abortion. If Disney can still claim full control of an animated cartoon over 70 years after drawing it, clearly we can exten
Re:Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
(make it really hard to squeeze?)
I don't think most people would go for that, especially people who do target shooting competitively. The harder you have to squeeze the trigger, the more it fucks up your aim.
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(make it really hard to squeeze?)
I don't think most people would go for that, especially people who do target shooting competitively. The harder you have to squeeze the trigger, the more it fucks up your aim.
But a target pistol's shitty at self-defense. It's sighted for relatively long range, and (except for certain Bullseye events) small-caliber. For a self-defense weapon you'd want some stopping power, and you have virtually no use for ranges above 30 ft.
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Re:Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
And even as crime rates continue to drop, the number of guns in circulation continues to increase. In the last 20 years, the number of guns in civilian hands has increased 40% or so, while the violent crime rate has decreased by a similar amount.
Really hard to argue that more guns == more crimes when guns go up while crime goes down....
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It is not a technology problem. It is a variation on PEBKAC - you do not leave knives with toddlers, just as you do not leave a firearm in their reach.
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Err...that doesn't do you much good if you need a gun QUICKLY.
Hmm...s
Re:Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any reason at all for this to be on Slashdot, except to push a general political agenda?
What agenda? That a first time firearms owner should seek out safety instruction? Hardly a controversial agenda, even the NRA supports that.
If someone requires special instruction in order to realize that firearms must never be stored where a toddler can play with them, then that person is an unfit parent. This isn't a firearms issue. If an unfit parent allows small children to play near busy traffic and the child gets run over, you don't see people calling for a ban on automobiles. You rightly see people recognizing that he or she was an unfit parent.
A lot more than 43 young children are seriously injured or killed because of ingesting various poisons found in every household, like cleaning products, iron pills, prescription drugs, drain cleaners, etc. Lighters can be dangerous, too. But it so happens that there is no major political agenda to oppose cleaning products or lighters and both parties receive massive funding from the pharmaceutical industry.
That is the only reason you don't see similar stories covering all of the other things a toddler with shitty parents might do to injure themselves or others. That, and a lot of people fear guns in a way that they don't fear Chlorox. Fear and the desire to tell others how to live (always in the name of safety) are irresistable to a large number of people. They're major political forces today. They also sell newspapers and increase page views.
What you won't see in mainstream news? "Responsible parent stores firearms in locking gun safe, teaches children how dangerous they are and that they are not toys as they grow old enough to understand, lives happily, and accepts the responsibility that comes with the freedom to bear arms."
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If someone requires special instruction in order to realize that firearms must never be stored where a toddler can play with them, then that person is an unfit parent. This isn't a firearms issue. If an unfit parent allows small children to play near busy traffic and the child gets run over, you don't see people calling for a ban on automobiles.
Um actually you do. In fact that's exact the reason why the automobile is one of the most heavily regulated inventions in existence.
You see, that's how life works, dangerous things get regulated. It is only in the US, and only in the stupidest parts of the US that people seem to love guns more than common sense.
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[...] virtue signaling rituals [...]
What an awesome term!
We should use this more often...
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Put your hands up!
Umm..please wait while I scan in my gun.
OK... you're not going to shoot back are you?
Well, yes, I planned on it. As soon as I can get this thing to accept my finger print.
You should stick to the old school guns.
Yes, but I can answer my email with this too.
Sounds dangerous to me.
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Which is why most gun owners should not have guns. If you are more afraid of the "government" than you are of the possible accidental shooting of someone with your legally purchased firearm, then you aren't paying attention.
Paying attention to what? If you screw up with your gun, you endanger the life of at most a few children. If government screws up, it can endanger the lives of 50 million children.
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Here we go with the people telling others what they should and shouldn't have.
Obviously the problem isn't guns. (Score:5, Funny)
Guns, after all, aren't a factor in people being shot, guns don't make you shoot anyone.
Thus we need to ban toddlers instead.
It is a perfect solution. Nobody likes them they cry, they behind, and they make stinky poops.
This problem suffers severe undersampling (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course what happens to the gun owners (if they are lucky enough to not be the ones shot)? Generally nothing. Not even charges investigated, law enforcement just says "shit happens" and walk away.
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Some do get charged [wgnsradio.com].
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Children due dangerous things. They stab people with knives, they hit people with blocks, and they always - at any house - somehow find the most poisonous cleaning product in the house.
People kept safe by having a gun is also severely under-sampled since it usually prevents a crime from taking place. Guns can be an equalizer. When a 100 lb woman or man is being attacked at home (or on the street) against a 200 lb assailant, equalizers are needed.
Re:This problem suffers severe undersampling (Score:5, Insightful)
30,000 people per year die due to guns, and it's a top political story every week. 88,000 deaths per year due to alcohol [cdc.gov] and nobody talks about it.
Is anybody calling for medication or alcohol control? Maybe somewhere, somebody has this as their pet project, but nationwide, it (correctly) goes nowhere. What is it about guns and their fraction of deaths/injuries that scares people so much?
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We need to be harder on them (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a gun owner. I have a permit and I carry daily. I support our rights to own firearms and refuse to give mine up. I believe that anyone who does this has a great responsibility to society to be trained, secure their weapon, and to be responsible. It should be a felony to leave a weapon unsecured and unsupervised. If a child acquires a weapon from you and uses it to harm himself or commit a crime you should be charged with a felony.
Only if you prove you took adequate steps to secure your weapon (safe, trigger locks, etc) should you be able to walk away free. We need to encourage responsible gun ownership and punish irresponsible gun ownership. These types of situations are preventable simply through education and a little bit of punishment.
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That's a quality red herring right there. What was the last time anyone has asked you to give up your gun?
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If you decided to move to New Jersey, then you wouldn't exactly be "FORCED" to do anything, would you?
Mod parent up (Score:2)
It is a felony in California. After a rash of incidents that involved children getting a hold of guns, California passed a law that made the owner of the firearm strictly liable and responsible if a child was able to obtain possession of that firearm and do any damage with it.
To go even further, when you purchase a firearm in California there is a disclosure of this law to the purchaser and the purchaser is forced to by a lock with a handgun.
After this law, the rate of incidents involving children accessing guns went down dramatically.
Citation needed, but if true this is the most informative comment here: it presents concrete steps which seem to have successfully addressed the problem and may provide a model for further work.
Personally I think a parent who loses a child has suffered enough ninety-nine times out of a hundred, but if data shows it saves kids lives, yes, we should move toward strict liability.
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Less guns means less gun violence.
maybe true if only tautologically.
instead you will see a rise in beatings, knifing and other forms a violence.
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Less guns means less gun violence.
maybe true if only tautologically.
instead you will see a rise in beatings, knifing and other forms a violence.
You have to try a lot harder to knife and a lot, lot harder to beat someone to death compared with shooting them.
It's kind of why the military give soldiers rifles and bullets rather than a pointy stick.
Guns scapegoat for education / socioeconomics (Score:2)
I am not a gun owner. I think gun ownership in general should be heavily restricted in this country, and most types of firearms should be banned outright. The only way to reduce gun violence in this country is to get rid of most guns. Less guns means less gun violence.
Two counterexamples to prove you wrong. Mexico. Switzerland.
In particular in Switzerland target shooting is popular. There are many semiautomatics with detachable magazines, something that would be considered an "assault weapon" is various misinformed circles. However what does Switzerland have. Proper background checks, proper safety training and proper safe storage for one. Secondly they don't have much in the way of poorly educated and hopeless.
So no, its not the guns. Guns are just scapegoats for
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Less guns means less gun violence.
Bullshit. The vast majority of guns in this country are not used in crimes. It is not the number of guns or gun owners in the country that is the root of the "gun violence" problem, it is the fact that there are those out there willing to commit violence in general, and they are acquiring and using guns as a vehicle for said violence. Until anti-gun Americans realize "gun violence" is "violent actions committed with guns by violent people", instead of "violence perpetrated because of guns by otherwise whole
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I am not a gun owner. I think gun ownership in general should be heavily restricted in this country, and most types of firearms should be banned outright. The only way to reduce gun violence in this country is to get rid of most guns.
Darn that pesky Constitution.
Less guns means less gun violence.
Yep, because when Chicago was forced to start issuing concealed carry permits, this happened: [theblaze.com]
On Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department announced that the city experienced its lowest murder rate since 1958 in the first quarter of 2014. There were 6 fewer murders than the same timeframe in 2013 — a 9 percent drop — and 55 fewer murders than 2012, police said.
Further, there were reportedly 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims compared to last year. There have also been 222 fewer shootings and 292 fewer shooting victims compared to the first quarter in 2012.
All crime is down 25 percent from 2013 and police say they have confiscated over 1,300 illegal guns in the last three months.
And here's what happened when England banned handguns: [crimeresearch.org]
For an example of homicide rates before and after a ban, take the case of the handgun ban in England and Wales in January 1997 (source here see Table 1.01 and the column marked “Offences currently recorded as homicide per million population”). After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. The homicide rate only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate.
Chicago -> more guns, less crime
England -> less guns, more crime
How does it feel to have your beliefs crushed by facts?
Re:We need to be harder on them (Score:4, Informative)
I understand that the US constitution makes it so, but I don't think this is really a sane thing to do.
The Second Amendment to the US Constitution was put there because the original 13 states had recently won their independence from Briton by an armed uprising against Briton. The founders intended the Second Amendment as a "last resort" of the people to keep the government in check.
Yes, over the past 200+ years, many have argued that the states would protect the people against a too powerful national government. So far, that argument has been successfully countered. It might only be a matter of time before that argument ultimately prevails.
Also, the vast power of the national government effectively moots the Second Amendment.
How come gun ownership is a right but ... access to public health care and decent education in your country are not?
The Ninth Amendment not withstanding, because the US Constitution doesn't mention them. At least not in language today's politicians would recognize. This is exemplified by the debate over whether the Fourth Amendment confers a right to privacy. While the words "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, ...." do not include the word "privacy", the words used do describe privacy. Still, a significant faction argues that the absence of the word "privacy" infers the right is not granted. Except the Ninth Amendment says otherwise. Indeed, the US Constitution was intended to limit the government's power, not grant rights that the founders believed to be inherent and inalienable.
I agree, good health care and education are basic human rights. I would even argue that the Declaration of Independence supports that. Again, not specifically, so the politicians feel free to ignore it as is convenient for them. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence is largely ignored, just as the Ninth Amendment is largely ignored. True the Declaration of Independence is not part of the Constitution, but it is the preeminent founding document of the US. What it says is no less important than the Constitution.
Shooting the house next door (Score:3)
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That's for sure. Just ask Chris Kyle.
What we need... (Score:3, Funny)
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Gun Control... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I find that there are generally two arguments:
--You can't take my guns
--Ban all the guns
My thoughts are that, the "Ban all the guns" group is wishful thinking. That ship has sailed, and if you try to ban guns, then only outlaws will have guns, and I don't think that's any good.
For those folks that want guns, I think that's all fine and well and good, but the owner of the gun must be held criminally responsible if the gun kills anybody. If your toddler picks up the gun and kills grandma, you are on the hook for murder. If a gun is available to a toddler (or anybody, really), you can count on the toddler to kill somebody. Period.
I don't have a gun in my house, but if I want one, I still want to be able to have one. But if my kid shoots somebody with it, I need to be put in jail because of it.
It boggles the mind, however, that somebody would be dumb enough to think a toddler wouldn't pick up a gun and explore their world - like the woman that was killed when her toddler pulled the gun out of her purse while shopping at Wal Mart. That's just stupid, and she paid the price.
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I fall into the "ban most guns" camp. Not all guns.
I think there's a huge, quite ignorant and paranoid group of people in this country who think that the government is the greatest threat, when there's no members of the government going around shooting up large numbers of innocents in schools and theaters.
It's by and large citizens, who have purchased their guns legally.
But if we had less guns, we'd have less gun violence.
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So, I find that there are generally two arguments:
--You can't take my guns
--Ban all the guns
I have a different argument:
-- Ban all toddlers.
So our grandmas can be safe.
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The ban all the never works. We have tried it with drugs, nuclear weapons, etc etc.
So in your twisted world somebody steals a firearm and the owner is responsible? If it's stolen by a complete stranger who broke into a safe while the alarm was going off but the cops never responded till hours later? Dial it down a few notches and it's stolen from a parked car outside a gun free zone, sure it's in a lockbox etc etc. How about somebody that's mugged and the gun in stolen.
28 states have child gun access la
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My thoughts are that, the "Ban all the guns" group is wishful thinking. That ship has sailed, and if you try to ban guns, then only outlaws will have guns, and I don't think that's any good.
I like your points here, and i generally agree here with your stance here for toddlers (or basically, someone acquiring a gun that's not qualified to handle one). But I can't really agree with that stance on "only outlaws will have guns", especially when it comes to school shootings or a rampage of a similar nature. Yes, your criminal organizations and inner city gangs will still have their guns, but we could still reduce the number of mass shooting instances by making it more difficult to acquire them i
Gun Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I agree that this particular story probably shouldn't be on ./ . Secondly, I am biased on the issue of gun control. I think that responsible citizens should be allowed to own and use guns.
The real issue is gun safety. I shot my first gun when I was 3. You better believe that my dad kept his firearms locked up unloaded with the ammo in a different safe. Each of us (my sister included!) were taught how to safely handle guns. We knew to stand behind whoever was shooting, aim the barrel at the ground until we were ready to shoot, how to hand the gun to the next person in line, etc. If you are going to have weapons, store them properly so they aren't mistaken for toys by toddlers, and teach gun safety to everyone near them. Perhaps there should be a gun license (or a certificate for having completed a safety course) which must be shown when purchasing firearms.
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I don't own a gun and have never fired one (let's just say I'm too aware of my penchant for being a klutz and I know that DOESN'T mix with firearms), but I definitely think that the idea of mandatory gun safety classes are a good thing. The people who treat guns like some fun toy to play with slant some people's perception of gun owners. They overshadow the many responsible gun owners because "man unloads gun, puts it away securely, nobody injured" doesn't make for as good a headline as "man leaves loaded
Not really a big deal (Score:2)
This is really no different than in the past when a child would wander away from the group/outside the cave and get eaten by a wolf/bear/other hungry animal. Those who were lucky or smart enough not to get eaten passed on their genes. Those who weren't, didn't.
Same thing here. Only the method of demise is different.
Obvious solution. (Score:2)
Toddlers don't understand firearm risks; but they also aren't that strong. Some peashooter little handgun left around where they can find it? Terrible plan. A nice squad automatic weapon or anti material rifle? Is the kid going to operate something that weighs more than he does?
So many of these tragedies could have been averted if people had just
Bigger problems than this (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/N... [cdc.gov] "Unintentional suffocation - which also includes strangulation and choking on food or other objects - killed 1,176 U.S. children in 2010."
Just search a little and find all the other ways toddlers kill themselves and others. One of my friends with kids described it as largely being comprised of keeping his kid from killing himself all the time until he got old enough to try to kill himself less often. That's what happens when anything dangerous is anywhere near a toddler for whatever small amount of time it takes for them to do the wrong thing with it - and there are LOTS of dangerous things around, with plastic bags being higher on the list than firearms.
Nth amendment (Score:2)
stop thinking of the children, you pervert! (Score:2)
Think of the children!
With guns!
Guns are tools (Score:5, Insightful)
Guns are tools and, like many other tools, can be misused. Would there be the same outrage if a toddler got hold of a cordless power drill and accidentally injured his grandmother with it? Granted the chance of a fatal injury is higher with a firearm, but the responsibility for proper access and use of any tool is with both the user and owner - and I would argue on a sliding scale of which one is most capable of being most responsible.
Maybe we should ban pools (Score:5, Insightful)
According to:
http://www.livescience.com/448... [livescience.com]
10 people die of drowning every day.
Therefore guns are aprox 70 times safer than pools.
Why there is no anti-pool agenda?
Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
So isn't this essentially arguing for Disneyfying the world to keep kids safe?
Ban all porn (or at least require training in the proper handling and storage before downloading that file).
Alternatively ban or require sex education (even though there is scant proof comprehensive sex education reduces teen pregnancy. Ditto banning it).
And of course all manner of food, drugs, video games, D&D, etc.
It just strikes me as peculiar that some will argue for personal responsibility and freedom of choice when their favored thingy is under fire, and in the same breath argue for regulation and restriction when it is someone else's favorite thingy.
And in the past few decades we have moved increasingly towards Disneyfying the world. I would just like some honesty to which degree the world should cater exclusively to children.
Lets do nothing. (Score:2)
This is a clear example of natural selection in action guys.
Please lets not eliminate every possible way that mother nature can weed out the less intelligent.
Chambered round (Score:5, Insightful)
For the most part, it is physically impossible for a toddler to chamber a round in most guns (unless we're talking about a revolver, but they represent a very small percentage of pistols these days). I, personally, never keep a round chambered in my pistol I carry regularly. I can pull the gun, turn the safety off, operate the action, and be ready to fire in about a second. I am not in high risk situations from day to day, like law enforcement, where the chances of me needing to operate my gun with one hand while fending someone off with the other is very likely. I can guarantee that almost every one of these people whose toddlers fired their pistol are not in high risk situations either.
So my question is why do so many people feel the need to have a round chambered at all times?
Further, I think a part of the problem is guns like Glocks have no actual safety. My conceal carry weapon has a safety which locks the action, prevents the trigger from being pulled, and physically prevents the hammer from striking the firing pin. It also serves as a de-cock mechanism. If I were to carry a round chambered, I would have the gun de-cocked, and since it is also double-action, I can just flip the safety and pull the trigger (which takes a tremendous amount of pressure when not cocked), which is still vastly safer in the hands of a child. Not only do Glocks not have safeties, but you can't de-cock them either. They are weapons designed more for military and police type use, where nothing should come in the way of the fun firing when the trigger is pulled.
So the problem is two-fold: 1) Don't keep a round chambered unless you feel the need to discharge the weapon is imminent. 2) If you have children, select a gun that has actual safety mechanisms (you know, a "safety") that enhances safety and prevents accidental discharges or operation by children.
Statistician's take (Score:5, Insightful)
In the United States there are approx 310 million guns owned by civilians. Let's not take into account millions of the weapons owned by military, police, Social Security Agency and other similar organizations.
Coincidentally, there is approximately one gun per one person in the US>
If there are 43 cases that involved, per year, that means there is approximately 0.000000143 probability that the toddler will be involved. Let's do some analysis here... There is an estimated number of more than 1,500 per year who win one million or more dollars per year in the United States. Statistically, 30 toddlers will win one million dollars before one of them is involved in accident.
There is one crucial difference. "Involved" does not mean there is a fatality.
Conclusion is very simple: The quoted number is statistically insignificant. Vaccination complications cause higher mortality than there are accidents involving guns. To finalize, there are many issues to be resolved before this topic is escalated. And put that gun to safe away from kids.
Kids with Guns (Score:3, Interesting)
In a wider context, we must enjoy gun violence or we'd have done something about it by now. Way I see it, you've got one of two options: Ban guns, like Australia did [youtube.com], or just give everyone a gun, require them to carry it at all times, and let the games begin! I know which one I'm rooting for!
Or I guess we could keep doing what we're doing and let evolution take its course. Maybe in a few generations we'll be able to dodge bullets like Neo in The Matrix.
Re:Guns are the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love my country, but if you don't think it's insane that small children are shooting people on a regular basis with weapons, legally purchased or not, you are part of the problem.
There are 320 million people in this country. 52 people died this year from falling off ladders.
Yes it is important to have sensible laws surrounding firearms, but it is possible to overreact even when people have died.
Of all the causes of death, being shot is pretty low on the list. You could probably save more lives by make driving a little bit safer.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't try to reduce gun deaths. I am saying that a death by a gun is not more tragic than a different kind of preventable death.
A death caused by a toddler finding a gun is not more tragic than a death from falling off a ladder.
Re: (Score:3)
There were about 30,000 people who died from gun shots in 2012. That's rather more of a concern than 52 accidental deaths.
Okay, 20,000 of those were suicides. Suicide is easier and more often successful if guns are available, but even if we ignore those there are still 10,000 gun deaths a year. Most are murders, around 500 are accidental and about 250 are in self defence.
A death caused by a toddler firing a gun is more tragic than falling off a ladder. Falling from a ladder is a rare accident involving a to
Re: (Score:2)
Your first statement is simply wrong.
If more guns cause more violence, please, point out the abundant shootings that take place at gun shows. Certainly, there can be no higher density of weaponry anywhere?
I think we all know that the Swiss all have guns in their homes, or nearly all. Lots of shootings there?
The rest of your premises that follow therefrom are equally wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Except totalitarians aren't going around shooting up schoolrooms or theaters.
Gun owners are. Ban guns.
Re: (Score:3)
Except totalitarians aren't going around shooting up schoolrooms or theaters.
Hint: They don't have to, not when they can march you out to the edge of town, line you and your family up alongside a handy trench, and *then* shoot you in a more orderly manner.
Re: (Score:2)
If your goal is to save lives then you should be focused on the big killer cancer. A ban of guns would afford little. Those that can't get a hold of an illegal gun to commit a crime will simply resort to the use of some other weapon, possibly something even more dangerous.
Re:Guns are the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
The last totalitarian shot with a private weapon in the US was Ronald Reagan.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true, but you can't ban people.
You can't even ban stupid.
You can ban guns.
Re:Guns are the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you can run from a knife. This stupid strawman is always brought out when people talk about guns.
We don't have a knife problem. What self-respecting thug would use a knife when he can use an easily obtained gun?
We don't have a baseball bad slaying problem. Nor a crossbow problem.
We have a gun problem. Less guns means less gun violence.
NRA is the premier firearms safety organization (Score:5, Insightful)
The NRA supports this... So these shootings are a win for them.
Actually the NRA is the premier organization for firearms safety instruction, both for civilians and law enforcement. Preventing such accidents is the NRA's primary mission. Political activism is a secondary thing forced upon them.
The NRA believes that all firearms owners should seek competent safety instruction when buying that first firearm. They certify instructors, develop training materials, etc. They just don't believe in a government run system for such training since state government could deprive a citizen of ownership by failing to provide instructors or materials for mandated classes. Such things have been done in the past.
Hell, such games are still occurring, note the closing of all department of motor vehicle offices in some "black" counties in alabama just as drivers licenses will be required to vote.
Re:NRA is the premier firearms safety organization (Score:4, Informative)
"Actually the NRA is the premier organization for firearms safety instruction" You means was.
They Lobby against and law requiring training. You must be thinking of their original mission.
Try reading past the first sentence. That is still their primary mission. They lobby against a government controlled system because such systems could be used to deny ownership. It has been done in the past. Require stamps, permits, etc ... but don't issue any. The NRA merely wants a privately operated instructional system. The NRA believes all firearms owners should be instructed in safety. My father was in the Army, my uncle a police officer, they properly instructed me. In the scouts they had an NRA certified instructor run a class the first night of camp for anyone wishing to use the rifle or skeet range that week. Most guns stores I've seen provide info on where to find safety classes, nearly all run by NRA certified instructors.
Re: (Score:2)
Government can force you to buy a contract from a private insurance company that you normally would not purchase
If you think that's bad, I'm required to show proof of rental insurance every year for the apartment I rent. A corporate entity is forcing me to buy insurance that I don't want to buy! OUTRAGEOUS!