Kim Scafuro
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Bravo...
Are you saying must be coupled with training, proper handling and storage including a strict adherence to Jeff Cooper's 4 rules of gun safety?
1. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
2 Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
4. Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
Are you telling us that a object designed to throw a piece of metal at high velocities is dangerous? Because that is the type of hard hitting journalism that is sure to earn you a Pulitzer Prize.
I fully agree that these are essential rules. They are exactly what I was taught - or taught to others - the many, many, times I participated in firearms training.
So, how do you propose that "training, proper handling and storage including a strict adherence to Jeff Cooper's 4 rules of gun safety" be enforced - be regulated - for America's gun owners?
I was hoping the last paragraph would have some sort of proposed solution but, alas, nothing.
Instead of being sold as a feature piece, something closer to the truth is that it's just bitching without a solution. More like an extended Op-Ed piece without the crucial ingredient of completing your point, I'd say.
The fact that you have chosen one of the least common types of accidental child death to campaign against is clearly because you have a political agenda and you are trying to use children (a VERY common tactic) to appeal to people emotionally rather than using facts or statistics.
In reality, the rate of violent crime in America is down 22% (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri…) since the last assault weapon ban ENDED in 2004.
Also, your article could gain some credibility if it actually linked sources instead of saying things like "another Harvard study."
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/data…
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri…
You mean legislating like this?
http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~scripts/n…
Does Seattle have a bylaw requiring that all firearms be stored in a container or location "designed to resist the entrance of children"?
That's fantastic that Seattle has done that and the rest of America should follow suit. Perhaps a nationwide law could potentially reduce this problem to the same order of magnitude as accidental gun deaths. My point is that the article paints this as some sort of epidemic when in reality it is a relatively uncommon type of accidental child death, and gun violence has fallen dramatically since the early 90's.
The article needs to do more (like maybe citing at least one source of some kind, any kind) to persuade an intelligent person that there is actually a problem.
But gun nuts, like most crazy conservatives, are incapable of making reasonable, working analogies.
Or understanding them.
Or, at least, the Blue States I've lived in.
Perhaps Red States give you more freedom to drown your child, too.
Public gun use? Like at a firing range? Yes firing range employees do enforce proper gun safety. I'm not sure what your point is.
Also, I consider myself very liberal. I simply require my opinions to be backed up with facts and numbers, and the current gun hysteria (on both sides) is seriously lacking in this regard.
Second, this is a print article. I can't embed links in print. So I provided one to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's firearms research page in an earlier comment.
Finally, surely you're not arguing that because a lot of kids drown, we shouldn't pay any attention to two-year-olds shooting themselves in the head?
Your "posts:unsupported insulting blanked statements" ratio is 2:2.
Calling people from certain parts of America more likely to drown their child without evidence is pretty insulting and bigoted.
Guns don't kill, governments do. Gun free zones are the problem, they allow armed criminals to kill. Arm the teachers, the administrators and the parents. Don't allow the "Liberal"(commie) trash who control the so-called educational system to teach mindless pacifism that is ensconced in their arrogance of false civility.
If we have violent criminals in prison who have been convicted of a crime and can't be trusted with weapons why is the govt. turning them back out on the street? So they can point at them and say "See, the sheeple can't be trusted with guns." The 'crime' argument is a red herring.
Time to repeal all of the ‘gun laws’ including GCA ‘68 and the NFA; Shut down the evil BATF Nazis and try them for treason, and murder where appropriate and distribute their retirement funds among their victims; Then enforce the Bill of Rights on places such as Commiefornia and New Yawk and Chigawgo and if necessary bring the troops home and have them restore Liberty here and remove Amerika’s natural born traitors in the process.
Millions will dig the ditch they are told to dig then wet their pants when the machine gun bolts slam home and die stupidly wondering “How did this happen to me?” The tiny minority will have to do what will be required.
It’s time to stop arguing over the culture war. It’s time to stop hunkering down for the apocalypse. It’s time to stop waiting to get beamed up. It’s time to start thinking Normandy.
If you sit home waiting your turn you deserve to have your gun taken from your cold dead hands.
The Founders didn’t wait for the Brits to knock down their doors. They gathered at the green and stood up like men and they killed government employees all the way back to Boston.
What will you do when it’s time to hunt NWO hacks, republicrats and commies(“Liberals” and ‘progressives’)?
Don't understand? Go to willowtowndotcom and read the quotes page first. Then read my column "Prepping for Slavery."
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know those stats are discredited.
And these regulations are obviously wildly insufficient if they kill 15 times as many children as guns, even though far more Americans own guns than pools. Why not write an article on that problem?
"Second, this is a print article. I can't embed links in print. So I provided one to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center's firearms research page in an earlier comment. "
I apologize, I missed the link in the comments.
"Finally, surely you're not arguing that because a lot of kids drown, we shouldn't pay any attention to two-year-olds shooting themselves in the head?"
Of course not, and that's an obvious straw-man take on what I was saying. I'm saying that the nationwide hysteria propagated by articles like this seems to forget the fact that there are far more dangerous household items to worry about than guns.
Somewhere around half of American kids go swimming every year, whereas only a tiny fraction of kids get their hands on guns. Given the vastly lower per-capita death rate from swimming, we have to conclude that these regulations have been very effective at reducing the death rate for swimming. Clearly better regulations on guns should move forward immediately.
But yeah, the real issue here is swimming pools.
Well, they are approximately 15 times more of an issue, if our goal is to save lives. I'm not sure why that's hard to understand.
Now if your goal it to create a sensationalist article...
http://www.childdeathreview.org/national…
Unintentional death by firearm is the lowest! unintentional injury rate for mortality of children. 0.2%!!
and page one key findings:
http://www.childdeathreview.org/Reports/…
"Homicide is the leading
cause of death for non-Hispanic black male teenagers (I.E, gang bangers). For all other groups, accidents the leading cause" .
Facts are unfortunate aren't they.
If you and others just as ignorant don't want to have guns in your homes then don't. Leave the rest of us alone and stop trying to pretend that further regulation and government oversight is going to make us, any of us, safer. Oh, right we should understand it is for our own good...
The majority in this country will always support and defend ignorant ways to cause harm to oneself and other people, because supposedly that is a cornerstone of freedom.
I think you will find that the rights of self-defense exist throughout the natural world.
The Bear has it's claws, the bee has it's sting, the fire newt has venom it secretes from its skin. I have a gas operated semi-automatic carbine chambered in 5.56 NATO.
So it goes.
@11
Teaching gun safety in school would be a good start.
Yeah, the bear has its claws, and the bee its sting; these are not rights, except by an act of semantic chicanery (and you, sir, are no semanticist of any demonstrated note). That beasts may successfully or unsuccessfully utilize their attributes as they see fit doesn't really constitute a "right"; it's not a right until it's yielded. Otherwise, I could say I have the "right" to suck out your eyeball, fuck the hole, and jizz all over your frontal lobe simply because the idea may occur to me. But the proclivity and ability (unless you're armed, of course) to do so doesn't amount to a right unless I am contractually assured that I will suffer no repercussions for following this impulse.
Your weapon, as described, doesn't even occur in nature, and certainly not as a part of you. Even if it did, your ownership of it wouldn't be a natural right, because every right--even your right to breathe at this moment--is contingent on someone contractually yielding you that right, either by not killing you or by agreeing to a legal system that would punish anyone who did.
"Guns don't make you safer"? Yeah, we get it, a weapon is designed to do damage but what it certainly can do is make you a hard target. It might even allow you the ability to cancel a threat to you and yours.
But, hey, people do a lot of silly shit like shoot up neighborhoods or leave their guns unattended or even write inane articles that they need to personally defend continuously... how do you resolve this problem?
You find a way to fix stupid and I'll think about giving up my guns.
Thanks though, for educating me on the level of safety my gun confers. Your deeply entrenched pseudo-intellectual bias and probable lack of real world experience in this area is very convincing to a plebeian casual gun owner like myself.
Before reading your Op/Ed I was foolishly convinced that people who store and handle guns irresponsibly, particularly when there are children present, are somehow PERSONALLY responsible for the results of their actions. Now I understand that the millions of people who are capable of owning a gun without harming themselves or their loved ones, people like myself who do not see these inanimate objects as inherently evil, WE are the real boogeymen. Well, us and those scary self-possessed murder-machines of course. Great work as usual, Goldy, for depolarizing the issue so that gun owners and gun abstainers can have a civil conversation about this topic.
On the bright side you bring to word many arguments I have struggled to properly explain to justify my position against irresponsible gun ownership and I thank you for it.
Well huh, which of those thre scenarios don't end up with people hurt or dead?
@39 - Cool story bro.
Also, we're too overcrowded anyways.
"...Oh! and Goldy, can you slam them backwards Christians while you're at it??? Of course you can!!! You're out "go to Gal!!!""
Hey Seattle, keep safe in your haven of make believe...you're so darned cute that way.
As for people NOT in LaLa land, a gun is your only REAL protection against someone who means you/your family harm until the popo decide to get there.
Don't stop believing Seattle!!!
GOLDY, it seems you fail to notice the similarity of your logic to those who matter-of-factly proclaim "because Jesus said so" or other such nonsense.
It is instantly granted that the mixture of idiots (and/or violent a-holes) with firearms is volatile to the point of public danger. It is similarly so with cars, trucks, booze, household chemicals, explosive devices created from commonly-accessible substances, and more.
It is NOT however, universally conclusive that, as you declare, "guns don't make you safer".
In fact, guns can indeed make you safer in your home, when properly (and strategically) stored for appropriate threat-level access, against an intruder(s) intent on doing great harm or death.
You, GOLDY, will never out-think this reality regarding the most-dangerous home invaders of modern society.
Of course, competency-of-situation training by firearms owners should never be displaced; and access to firearms in such cases cannot be replaced.
"And these regulations are obviously wildly insufficient if they kill 15 times as many children as guns, even though far more Americans own guns than pools. Why not write an article on that problem?"
Somewhere around half of American kids go swimming every year, whereas only a tiny fraction of kids get their hands on guns. Given the vastly lower per-capita death rate from swimming, we have to conclude that these regulations have been very effective at reducing the death rate for swimming. Clearly better regulations on guns should move forward immediately.
This also addresses the automobile strawman.
Does it make sense for some Americans to own a gun for personal safety? Sure. I can imagine the circumstances. I even acknowledge such in the article.
Also, if you're a hunter or marksman, well, you obviously need guns to enjoy your very legitimate sport. (I loved riflery when I was a kid.)
But most urban and suburban Americans who are buying guns for personal safety reasons are making a mistake. These weapons are much more likely to be used against themselves and their families than against an intruder or assaulter. There are exceptions, but those are the statistics. Keeping a gun in your home increases your chance of being the victim of one. The types of threats people think they are protecting themselves from are extremely rare compared to the way guns are actually used (predominantly, suicide).
On the other hand, keeping a dog in your home dramatically reduces your risk of being burglarized, even just a little yappy dog.
Brilliant article. My thoughts confirmed and backed up with justified anger, logic, facts and empathy.
At this point if I accept the majority of your premises, I still arrive at these two conclusions: 1)your gun-lovin' culture is full of idiots, who are incapable of common sense (also the red-neck getting out his shotgun to settle a dispute in the titty bar parking lot doesn't look good)
2) GUNS DON'T MAKE YOU SAFER! Maybe they do some people. I do in fact know several smart competent people who I enjoy shooting with and who I trust to keep guns in their house. But you know what, they don't keep those guns loaded (they just always treat them like they are) and they keep the amo in a separate locked case. This circles back to conclusion 1.
Also, some of you just need to crawl into the woods and join a militia, there's no place in civil society for some of you. Please leave!
David I agree that simply owning a gun does nothing for one’s safety, most of the firearms community would also agree. A firearm in and of itself does nothing to ward off evil, it is inanimate object. Owning a firearm should also coupled with training, a tool that you do not know how to use is not useful.
The "gun culture" you seek to eliminate are the people that are pushing safety and training on firearms owners. They’re your safety instructors, Range officers, our weapons trainers, your responsible gun dealers, hunters and competition shooters. These are people who are pushing both themselves and others to become more proficient at their chosen martial art. We are seeking to expand a fires culture of safety and responsibility, to teach people how to use the pistol they keep for self-defense but have never taken to a range.
A gun that someone owns but cannot effectively operate is a liability, teaching them how to safely use the gun turns it into an asset.
@50
Good advice; however guns can still be fired with a trigger lock, a safer way to secure a fire arm is to get a lock that goes through the action of the firearm, by law all new firearms now ship with a lock, usually an action lock or they have an internal lock built in. A lock that goes through action forces you to remove the magazine and expose the chamber, thereby removing any potential cartridge from the chamber and preventing the bolt from being in battery. Personally I feel that a locker or better yet a safe is the best option, and of course all firearms should be stored unloaded.
Many gun owners choose to teach their kids to shoot. Doing so with a rifle that fits their bodies makes more sense than doing so with, say, a 10lb 44" World War II era battle rifle.
Cricket doesn't hang around playgrounds giving kids a free taste. They make rifles that parents can use to teach younger kids how to handle firearms. Cricket puts an extra layer of safety in their guns that isn't present in most. I'd say they've done their part to service a niche market responsibly.
If Cricket were advertising in public, or on cartoon shows, or making displays at Toys 'r Us, *that* would be "marketing to children." They aren't.
There's a reasonable case to make that it's better to teach kids safe gun handling at an early age, rather than wait until they are teenagers and already know everything and are hardwired to take stupid risks.
Familiarizing kids with firearms takes away the mystique. Should such a child encounter a firearm at a friend's house, the temptation to play with it will be much less. At the same time, the child should have had an indoctrination that includes "don't mess with this". A child who has not had the same exposure will probably not be able to resist exploring.
Teaching kids under close supervision under controlled circumstances is pretty damn safe. Leaving a firearm around for a 5 year old to play with...not so much. Lock 'em up, dammit. I do.
I wish the State Of Warshintun would start a voluntary gun registration program. I think most firearm owners would sign up in a second. I would like for my guns to be traceable to make it easier to return them if stolen and build up a profile of burglary rings.
I have known a five year old who killed himself when he grabbed his father's pistol off the bed while the old man was dressing in his police uniform. If I had my way all handguns would be ground into a powder and nobody but law officers could possess a pistol. I'm fine with long guns, especially bolt action rifles or shotguns. The Rambo wannabes who substitute massive ammunition feeds for their lack of other male characteristics should get counceling. Five shots without reloading should be plenty for anyone.
I am an old hippie and have known many parents who wouldn't ever think of buying their children toy guns or even play with them at friends houses. I know for a fact that those kids, especially the boys will turn any stick, pop bottle or discarded old boot into a gun. Pew! Pew! Pew! It's imprinted on the "Y" chromosome.
sorry about that.
This is the "outlaw hammers because they could kill someone too" argument, which is bullshit. Hammers are built for a PURPOSE - hammering nails, building shit. Pools are built for entertainment and exercise. Guns are built to kill shit. And don't give me the "collector and target shooter" argument here - all that points out is that some people like to collect or practice with things that WERE BUILT FOR THE EXPRESSED PURPOSE OF KILLING SHIT. And the "personal protection" argument - again, personal protection with something that was manufactured to kill things. Not stun, not maim, not pound nails, not cut paper, not chop vegetables and other food. Built to kill. Period.
Virtually every other "why don't you outlaw this also" argument is built around pointing out that something made for a purpose OTHER THAN murder could potentially ALSO be used to murder. You can murder with a car or a heavy rock. But when talking about regulating, I think its OK to draw the line and purposeful death devices. Yeah, I'm cool with that. Because I don't live is some fucking bizarre universe of false equivalencies.
So are you. Because this is a made-up, convenient, rationalizing argument with no real, convincing data behind it. And even if you had data, I would respond by asking if the study accounted for conflicts that might of de-escalated WITHOUT some dumb ass pulling out a murder weapon.
@52 - First, this is just utter BS. 90+% of gun owners I am friends or relatives with, that I see in media stories, or self-made videos, that I meet, that I talk to, that I read about are just a bunch of compensating, chest-puffing, self-mythologizing boys with (what they think are) really cool toys. It's just excess because excess is fun, but rather than admitting such hedonistic tendencies, we construct bizarre reasons for why we "need" these things, and rationalize our way out of the conversation.
Second, if 5% of the effort, media, marketing, story-telling, and money that is poured into the sales and glorification of gun ownership were aimed at safety programs (and actual safety programs not "c'mon down to the range and SHOOT A AK-47!!!!!!!!!!! also safety stuff" events), then I'd be down. But this simply isn't the case. The expense, enthusiasm, excitement, and energy behind the gun lobby comes from crazy self-mythologizing story telling that appeals to people imagining that Call of Duty is going to happen in real life and they are going to be the awesomest hero ever. Period. Safety is an afterthought - it doesn't get the money, the airtime, or the emphasis.
Yes, I've been to gun ranges. Yes, I am friends and relatives with gun nuts. Yes, I would say this to their faces and have.
http://tinyurl.com5prf8s
You can't trust the media to get it right!
I have personal stories in my circle of friends who walked away from bad situations only because they carried and pulled their weapons with intent to use them, but instead merely diffused the situation when the criminal turned coward and ran away.
You may not be familiar with the Luby's Massacre in Killen Texas that occurred back on October 16th, 1991. The shooter in that incident threw down his weapon when Law Enforcement entered the building and drew on him, he curled up like a baby in the corner of the restaurant. That occurred back before Texans were allowed to conceal carry. Read the book "From Luby's to the Legislature - One Women's Fight Against Gun Control" by Suzanna Gratia Hupp. She always carried but left her gun in the car to be law abiding. She was inside the restaurant when the shooter was walking around shooting people execution style. When she reached into her purse for her weapon and could have clearly taken the guy out....Long story short her parents were killed and by some act of God she made it out. If she had her gun her parents and numerous others would have been survivors. Oh, and she was trained, beginning as a young child. Guns don't kill people, "People Kill People". Heck meat cleavers even work well we just found out. Let's outlaw all knives and meat cleavers to. Why don't you fabricate a similar story about "Knife Control"!
In thirty days I will have my Conceal Carry Permit and you can add me to the throws of those "crazy", "righteous", "conservative", gun toters who will not be afraid to shoot and kill someone in defense of another or in self defense. You can train to run, I plan to train and defend myself and those around me.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
http://heraldnet.com/article/20080623/OP….
Cheers!
http://heraldnet.com/article/20080623/OP…
Cheers!
Yes, GOLDY...
But it's what people like you SAY when they might mean something else-–like the sub-head of your article:
"The Only Way to Combat America’s Gun Culture Is to Kill It"
Statements like that––in addition of course, to the idiots who should have neither guns NOR children––make others of us very concerned.
And your flailing, pointlessly-inflammatory hyperbole leaves you without a shred of credibility as a stakeholder in this important public policy conversation.
If its God's will when a 5 year old shoots a 2 year old (and therefore no punishment is deserved and we should just ponder God's plan) then why is it different if a 20 year old shoots anyone? You might argue that the 20 year old is somehow different from the 5 year old, but isn't he just as beholden to God's will as anyone else? If God is infinite and so inscrutable, we are essentially unable to understand his divine will, and as such, the 20 year old and 5 year old are equally his tools and agents.
Do we expect different behavior from ants that are a day old vs a week old? As such, would God use us differently in execution of his plan depending on our age?
Either you believe that everything is God's will or you believe that nothing is God's will. If you imply some sort of middle ground then you're engaging in church-based revisionism that just tries to justify its own existence.
"Hard Target"
i liked that movie. . .
Oh wait. I'm not an idiot! I don't keep loaded guns accessible to children laying around or give them unsecured firearms or encourage using real guns as toys. Oh, nevermind.
So, as a gun owner I can simply say that I own a gun because I consider it an extension of the right to self defense, which I consider as an extension of the instinct for self preservation, which all living beings have.
Yes; idiots do need to keep their guns inaccessible to their children. But the rest of us who are responsible with our guns should not be held collectively accountable for the idiot mistakes of irresponsible people. There are enough laws already, and a right cannot be taken away simply due to the 'tyranny of the majority.'
2) Even if one assumes that there is some sort of constitutional right to own a gun, no constitutional rights are absolute, not religion, speech, association or any of the other enumerated rights. Gun advocates ignore this basic fact of Constitutional law.
3) The constitution is a living, dynamic document. Both its terms and interpretation have evolve as our society has changed over 200 years ago. We no longer live a country populated by a few million persons spread across the landscape to over 300 million persons concentrated in dense urban centers. The numbers of guns in circulation have exploded from a limited number to millions upon millions and the technology has changed from single shot muzzle loading muscats to rapid fire semi and automatic weapons with massive magazines. The result is result is that way more people are killed with guns in this country annually than American soldiers were killed during the past 10 years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many elected officials are eager to finally end our involvement in wars 10,000 miles from home but are more interested in getting reelected than stopping the daily carnage in our towns and cities.
4) The pervasive presence of guns throughout has created an extremely unstable society and public healthy pandemic, at yet our elected officials stand back and do nothing.
5) There are few guns in Japan, German, the UK, and Canada and few shootings. The argument that more guns makes our country safer is simply...simply wrong.
Perhaps Pogo was correct when he said..."We have seen the enemy and they is us..." We the people have surrendered our right to a safe and peaceful society by continuing to elect officials who are more concerned with being reelected than to address the cancer of gun violence that is undermining our society. The Nero award goes to the American electorate, as we have gotten the government we deserve. If this situation is ever going to change the American public needs to change. Until that happens, the violence that that has gripped our society will continue unabated, regardless of how may Shady Hook tragedy's, drive by shootings, suicides and accidents caused by guns occur.
This is the type of journoterrorism that runs rampant in Lane County, I am completely against rifles, read the comments from dipshits here that spew that the violent lies and hatred, and I feel like I should be packing because of my religion
but if I listened to popular opinion of this fine newspapers authors, it's muslims whom I should be afraid of, and not journoterrorists who can't keep themselves out of your private spaces