Seriously? You say this is no place for flippancy or sarcasm? OK, tell me: exactly what DID most Americans learn from this incident, and tragically many like it every year?
 | |
| Viral Facebook photo of 10-yr-old NJ boy holding apparent assault rifle |
This is fucking nuts. Nuts! Nothing about the right of the adult American citizen to keep and bear arms, nor anything implicit in that right about a right to train adolescents to handle guns properly, indicates we cannot legally prevent unsupervised use of guns by young children. Gawd a'mighty, what's wrong with us? Why do Americans... ANY Americans... want this preventable tragedy to be possible?
I view this particular incident like a parent leaving a patio door open and a toddler drowning in a swimming pool. If you have something deadly on your property, you need to make for damn sure your kids are kept safe from it or they are mature enough to handle themselves around the danger. In California one of those parents would be going to jail on felony charges, accidental or not. The misuse of an improperly stored firearm by a minor is a felony for the adult responsible. This child could obviously not respect the “pool” rules. Always treat a firearm like it is loaded, always make sure a weapon is not loaded before handling, always point a weapon in a safe direction. That 2 y/o died for no reason , for a lesson that has been taught to us before. That said, more children die is swimming pools than in firearms accidents, by a lot. I don’t understand your outrage here.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the picture you have attached this posting. The news reports that the 2y/o was shot by a .22lr rifle. Just to be clear, they make .22 caliber rifles that look like that but are no more deadly than the picture of the rifle on the article you linked to.
Hello, Nonny Mouse. You must not be very proud of your opinion, if you won't even sign a screen-name to it. You should take more pride in your work; it's a respectable... and respectful... piece. I don't expect real-world names in the comment threads, but it's easier if you give us some handle to use.
DeleteIt doesn't matter whether more kids die in swimming pools than in firearm incidents: both kinds of death are avoidable and unnecessary, and should, in virtually all cases, be prevented. Trust me, Nonny, I have plenty of outrage about both avenues to the grave.
Any gun is likely deadly, appearance notwithstanding, if it is improperly used. I am old enough to remember when the NRA was a legitimate org promoting firearm safety and education, rather than a radical political lobby promoting a crazy agenda. I wish it could serve those roles... promoter of gun safety and education... again. Not bloody likely, I'm afraid.
the Nonny was not intended, I signed it with my google ID, something, didnt take.
ReplyDeleteI got the impression from your original post that you think something could have been done legislatively about this shooting. I don't know what the penalties are for this kind of negligence in Kentucky, google failed me. I know that this incident is completely the fault of the guardians and any legislation that comes from this should only be pointed at negligent storage of firearms resulting in a minor doing harm. This would be easy to get through a state legislature if we had a functioning democracy. The california law is actually well written. You have to sign like 4 things about guns and minors when you purchase a firearm, there are signs all over gun stores. They only one punished is the person who was negligent (yes there was a victim as well).
Note, I guess the murder weapon was a single shot youth .22.