Children and guns…a post about a post

I recently wrote a post on Sulia.com titled Kids start playing with a loaded gun at home, 10 year-old boy is dead, shot in the chest. The post pulled in numerous comments that spoke to gun safety, parental negligence, the National Rifle Association, firearm education, stockpiling weapons, and alcohol and drugs. I believe that the comments are so good that they need their own post; hence this.

All of the comments, in my opinion, represent good arguments about guns because they explore the gun-worshiping society in which we live. The comments are included in this post because their voices need to be heard again. The comments are good reads whether you support gun control laws or not because they are from the writers’ experiences and are written with feeling.

My thanks to all the commenters; it was, and is, impressive!

Kids start playing with a loaded gun at home, 10 year-old boy is dead, shot in the chest

NRA: Are you happy yet?

Are our politicians, who are complicit in every gun death, happy?

You, NRA and politicians, have protected our Second Amendment rights at the cost of children’s lives! Satisfied?

“A 10-year-old boy in San Diego has died of an apparent gunshot in what authorities deem as an accident, after children were playing with firearms found in their home. The boy accidentally shot himself in the chest while playing in a garage. The Associated Press reports that no adults were home at the time of the incident and a 14 year-old was babysitting.”

Betty Brock:   I have learned somethig this year even an enraged public cannot fix the broken gun laws. The public came together and demanded that the laws be fixed, well we all know how much effect that had on our politicians. ZIP, ZERO.
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Marti Williams:   Maybe it is time to go after the NRA when ever there is an accident involving children and guns. If they are so insistent on gun rights, then it is time for the injured parties to go after them (NRA) for failing to educate the owners about proper gun storage/safety.
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SoCalDeni:   My Dad was a lifetime member of the NRA, and had several guns, but they were kept unloaded in a locked display case. He taught my brother and me everything about guns & safety as soon as he thought we were old enough, which is probably why we never played with his guns.
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Marti Williams   My father was also a member of the NRA as well as my husband. They both store ( my father is now dead) their guns safely and taught me and my children gun safety. I never played with my father’s guns, and my children never played with any of their guns either. We were all taught to respect guns, and to handle guns carefully. Safety was always emphasized.
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Patrick White   SoCalDeni and Marti you are both correct. But for every child who learns to respect guns, there are 1,000 or more parents that leave loaded guns stacked in corners. I too learned respect for firearms as a child and it has stayed with me all my life.
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Kimberly Czelusniak SkinCareGuru4U:   Why do do many feel the need to stockpile guns, leave them loaded, & laying around? I hide chocolate from my kids, and give it to them when I feel it is ok! This is guns people! Let’s wake up here!!! CT MOM
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Patrick White   Kimberly, many people stockpile guns because they are afraid of their own shadows. The ones that leave them laying around and loaded are very, very stupid and, in my humble opinion, very negligent. I also believe that it is gross negligence on the parents part if anyone is hurt. There are no accidents with guns, only negligence. Parents like this need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! Unfortunately, the law calls them “accidents”, but the law is wrong, it should be criminally negligent!
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honoluludiva   Patrick thank you for this post I agree with all you just said!!
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Anomaly One Hundred   I thought Republicans were pro-life?
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Carla Akins   Anomaly, you know that’s only until they’re born.
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James Wilkinson   The number of child-induced, gun-related killings is staggering. Child killing child. Child killing self. Child killing parent. And none of this has a whiff of difference to the deaf ears of our gun manufacturers, their mouthpiece the NRA, and their despicable owners, Congress. I believe the only way to combat this is not through the Legislative or Executive Branches of government, but through the Judicial Branch. Local police and prosecutors should come down on any and every negligent adult who leaves a loaded gun around or who, for whatever reason, is involved in a child’s death by handgun. Do that and the insurance companies will exact their toll on homeowners’ insurance costs and THAT might actually get these gun-loving, gun-hoarding, gun-toting idiots to change their ways. And who knows? A child or two might survive.
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James Wilkinson:   It’s unfortunate that our “discussion” about this assumes that owning, possessing, and using a deadly weapon is somehow a “god-given Constitutional right,” as one whacko bird said. The discussion MUST evolve to whether owning a firearm is still in the best interest of the people in our country. And yes, I mean we should begin talking about whether the “god-given Constitutional right” to “keep and bear arms” has any relevance anymore. Times change; our Constitution has been amended many times to accommodate those changes, and I firmly believe now is the time for a substantive challenge to the Second Amendment. My own son is in the Army and complains vociferously that he is not allowed to take his military-issued weapon and the large-capacity magazines – loaded, of course, with special issue military rounds – home with him. Because, you know, someone with a BIGGER weapon might just decide to break in one night and, you know, the Good Guy having that firepower next to the nightstand would be the ONLY way to stop the Bad Guy with a gun.
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Patrick White:   James..good comments. Thanks.
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Carla Akins:   All great posts. James I agree wholeheartedly. The long and short is that we will most likely never be able to stop mass shootings. Newtown was a tragedy and no disrespect is intended but one individual with an agenda (sane or not) is almost impossible to prevent or stop. If he hadn’t used guns he could have used a poison or bomb. I only mention this because to a large extent, these incidents have to be removed from the debate. The larger is issue is multi leveled. 1. Handguns 2. Gangs 3. Hunting weapons 4. Location (where are all these weapons) 1. Why do we have so many? 114M handguns in the US. Why? This category should have been combined with #2. There are proven numbers that cities that engage gun buyback programs drop in handgun deaths and injuries. These guns, that are later destroyed are more than 98% of the time taken the home of at least one gang member. The reason every gangbanger has one – is because there are so damn many of them, making them cheap to buy on the street. 2. Gangs are going to kill each other. Always have, always will but it’s much harder to do without a gun (or at least less of them). More people (civilians/rivals) survive beatings than shootings. Besides, it’s incredibly difficult to accidentally kill a sleeping child in their bed with a badly swung ballbat outside on the sidewalk. 3. Rifles and shotguns have been successfully doing there job providing meat for the dinner table, putting clay pigeons out of their misery and providing home defense for hundreds of years before the new bigger, badder, AR/AK/XX rifles became available with their Costco sized clips. 4. Location -Where are all these guns? Well, we know that there are enough guns to put one in the hands of every man, woman and child in the country with some left over to loan to company when they come to visit. 101.5 per 100 people and we have no clear picture of where all these guns are. How can we even begin to make changes or even enforce current laws with this lack of intel? Sorry paranoid gun nuts, there needs to be a national database and your guns need to be registered. We should also insist on expanded background checks for all sales, owner’s need to complete a competency test (driver’s license) and prove they have safety measures in their home: gun safe/trigger locks/etc. before the completed sale. People will still kill people, they will still commit suicide and accidents will still occur – but at lower levels. How much lower? I don’t know but does it matter?
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James Wilkinson:   I am fed up with the worn out excuse that ‘if we “take guns away from law-abiding citizens”, only criminals will have guns.’ Of course, nobody AT ALL is suggesting “taking guns away.” From anybody. This country had a problem instituting Prohibition (and, frankly, it didn’t work) and dealing with it, but we did it. When it was repealed, regulations and punishments were put in place to ‘control’ alcohol’s availability, use, and abuse. Today, alcohol is still made in private and abused by drinkers of all ages, legal and underage, and beer, wine, and liquor manufacturers do not have the legislative protections the gun manufacturers enjoy. They also don’t have a screechy-loud mouthpiece like the NRA does. In our country, millions of people use illicit drugs and abuse legal drugs and alcohol and no organization says if we “take away” alcohol and drugs, only criminals will have alcohol and drugs. So it should be with guns. Effectively regulate them in accordance with their ability to inflict deadly force on others. Have our law enforcement agencies strictly enforce those laws and our legal system mete out the appropriate punishment. Of course, having that kind of regulation and punishment starts with the Second Amendment and not painting non-gun owners as anti-American, anti-God, Leftist fringe whackos. The gun manufacturers should be held accountable and legally liable for their wares, just like any other industry. As a realist, I think there is no chance whatsoever that anything like that will happen. As the pain and horror of Newtown, Columbine, and movie theatre murders fade from the headlines and memory, the spineless representatives we have in Congress will be swayed by the millions of their owners’ dollars to focus on other REALLY important things.
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James Wilkinson:   And I just read this tragic story: “LAS VEGAS – Police said a firearm accidentally discharged when a teen girl handled it inside a Las Vegas home, resulting in a 13-year-old being fatally wounded. Las Vegas Metro police disclosed some details Wednesday in the shooting that took place the previous day inside a residence in the 1600 block of Little Crow Avenue, near Spencer Street and Pebble Road. Police said the firearm appeared to have come from within the home and no charges were expected to be filed.” The real tragedy is that “no charges were expected to be filed.” Let the homeowners’ grief be punishment enough? If I was the Dad to that 13-year old girl, I would not be satisfied. Negligent behavior MUST be punished. Always. There are no gun “accidents.” Shooting is either intentional or negligent. Period.
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Carla Akins:   She was shot by her 19 year old brother when he was trying eject a shell from his firearm.
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Marti Williams:   Maybe making gun buyers buy insurance at the same time or having them show proof of insurance at the time of purchase would be an idea. The cost for the insurance would go down as the purchaser bought safer storage lockers. It won’t stop the guns that are already out there, but it could have a soberinr effect on new purchases.
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Patrick White:   James, you are absolutely correct. You wrote something I’ve wrote and said for years and that is, shootings are either deliberate or negligent, there are no accidents…I repeat, there are no accidents! I learned respect for, and how to handle, guns at a young age and none of my weapons ever had an “accidental” discharge by me or anyone else. I might add, that I’ve never had a “negligent” discharge with a firearm either.
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Carla Akins:  James I agree, we can no longer tolerate the ridiculous reasoning or the weasel like behavior from our Representative’s in Washington. I do not own a gun, nor do I want to – I am a walking accident, a complete klutz but until a few years ago gave no real thought to gun ownership. Like many here, they were a part of my childhood but these types of “unintentional” shootings never occurred. I have not been able to find a way to describe the difference accurately. We were all taught about guns and gun safety. We respected firearms, although honestly I can only ever remember one pistol – they were all long guns. As teens we stole our parents, liquor, weed and cars (we called it sneaking them out) and certainly we should have died on more than one occasion.

I cannot recall a single instance of ever seeing a gun at a bonfire or party when someone’s parents left town. It may have happened but it was a small town, everybody knew everything. Today’s youth don’t seem to have trouble crossing that line. But the larger problem are the 22-40ish crowd that own their guns legally, call themselves responsible gun owners but as we read every day – that’s just not the case too many times. My youngest is 27 and has 2 handguns. He’s a good kid, responsible although not overly burdened with ambition. :-D. His father and stepfather, both vets made sure the kids were well versed in gun safety and a good shot. But my son does not possess the same reverence (that’s probably not the right word) for the potential that I knew growing up. He and his friends seem entirely too casual in their approach. I’ve never seen them leave a firearm in a car or lying around the house – it’s not an action but an attitude I just can’t put into words. But it scares me. Currently we are on track to double the number of child deaths from these in home unintentional shootings.

These are the ones that are making me crazy. Just as a side note – I’m in Kansas City and just across the state line in Kansas we have a huge Nebraska Furniture Mart. It sits in the middle of a huge commercial complex with waterslide parks and the Legends raceway. A few months ago NFM announced the gun owners with CCW’s were always welcome to carry in their store. It’s posted on the exterior doors as you enter. However, their security guards are not permitted weapons.Huh?
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Carla Akins:   Patrick you’re right again. In my arguments with Mr Akins about the youngest son’s gun – he keeps telling me that it’s impossible. It’s not a revolver, it can’t be discharged accidentally. It doesn’t keep me from emailing the story each time Anomaly posts one though. 😉
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Carla Akins:   Marti I think that’s a great idea. The four surrounding counties to my home all offer FREE trigger locks at any State Patrol or Sheriffs office. No questions asked.
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Patrick White:   Carla, keep posting. The information needs to get out there for all to see.
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Alan Milton:   Again and again and again how many more must happen before change is enacted?