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This case is obviously a tragedy and the parents should have been responsible and locked it up, but don't try and blame the gun. Maybe if car seats weren't adjustable, kids couldn't reach the pedals to drive if they steal the keys either... (a stretch, but you see where I'm going)
Sorry, this is just weak liberal gun phobia.
/gun owning liberal
Privately owned guns are the ultimate guarantors of our liberty.
Guns are not evil.
Teaching children how to be responsible with guns is a good thing.
Any Questions?
1) Define liberty for us.
2) Provide a lit review on case studies supporting your comment, per @14.
like they cracked down on Vietnam?
like the British cracked down on the colonies?
like we are so thoroughly and definitively cracking down in Afghanistan? (for the third time in a decade...)
an armed and determined population will never be subjugated by an occupying force.
sure, a pussy liberal who depends on a government titty for the air he breathes would be giving up in a second but not Real (Patriotic) Americans....
hense the 2nd ammendment.
I've been following this story - I'm originally from the Pittsburgh area. I understand the reasoning of the judge who decided to send the case to adult court. Psychiatrists have testified that the boy in question is unlikely to be able to function in society by the time he turns 21, when he would have to be released because the juvenille justice system automatically releases people at that age. However, there has to be a compromise. If the boy is found guilty, he will be kept completely isolated in an adult prison until he is 18, with the exception of whatever doctors are treating him and the guards. You would think that there would be some kind of a middle ground that would allow him to be in a juvenille facility until he turns 18, and then have him sent to an adult prison, but PA's system doesn't allow for that.
I was a good shot, nobody was hurt, nothing traumatic happened. It was just the feeling of raw power in my hands, and the knowledge of the damage that I could do, even accidentally, that was repugnant to me.
For me, it's just a matter of risk vs. reward. I believe the risks of gun ownership are too high to warrant the reward of hunting and even the potential reward of self-protection, IF that necessity should arise and IF the gun was actually more of a help than a hindrance or situation-escalator.
I suppose it's possible that the boy in the linked story would have found a way to kill his father's pregnant girlfriend without a gun...and I definitely agree that the weapon should have been completely inaccessible to the child...but having a gun around, IMHO, just makes it far too easy to use lethal force against a person.
So write me off as a scaredy-cat liberal if you must, but I've thought long and hard about this issue, and I fall firmly on the side of anti-gun.
I'll leave you with this tidbit - why do you assume, if any kind of crackdown were to happen, that everyone would take up arms against the government? You think the populace will be united? Or that there will be any sort of organized force to oppose them - one big enough to fight the National Guard? Think again.
Of course, that won't happen, except in the feverish imaginations of hard right loons who find inspiration in The Turner Diaries. We have a government of, by, and for the people, and even though it's pretty fucked up in a lot of ways, it's never going to oppress the people like that. Find another line of logic - one that's actually logical.
@19 and 22 - That is what the founding fathers had in mind, though I admittedly don't find it a very persuasive argument myself. Private firearms ownership might have some limited and marginal deterrent effect on government, but any likely limitations on freedom would probably be gradual enough that it wouldn't spark rebellion before it became irrelevant. Personally I consider the right to self defense a more compelling argument for ownership. I know people will debate that and throw around a lot of questionable statistics on both sides, but I guns aren't going away (just like abortion isn't, how about we call it even*) and people should have the right to proportional defense.
*I also support abortion rights, but maybe we can offer this as a trade to the right!
In case I'm not around tomorrow ... Virtual hug and many kind thoughts.
Now, that I've inherited my own shotgun, I might have some questions for you. There isn't much to it, but is has been altered.
Take care.
Cases where a very young person commits a very bad crime always test the limits of our justice system. A kid at my high school killed his dad with a crossbow when he was 15 or 16. He was tried and convicted as a juvenile and had to be released when he turned 18 (there were mitigating factors in his case though).
No matter the details of the sentence, going through the criminal justice system (juvenile or adult) at such a young age is always going to be damaging.
Sad story, all around.
You're welcome to "take your chances," and I hope you (and your baseball bat) are up to the job. Do not, however, presume to tell the rest of us what we can or can't do. That's where you're going to run into trouble.
that is one reason the teabaggers are so up in arms. they recognize turning health care over to the government as a large and seductive step to dependence.
it is also possible that some segment of the population will decide they've had enough.
does the Supreme Court ponder the effect on popular outrage when it considers overturning state Constitutional Ammendments outlawing homosexual marriage that passed with 80% of the vote?
43,000,000 angry armed irrational rednecks can, like 400,000 FB friends, also be a force for social change...
I'll leave you with this tidbit - why do you assume, if any kind of crackdown were to happen, that the National Guard would take up arms against the people?
Is it some sort of youth ritual?
I am so confused.
only tyrants fear the people
38
don't be slow...
jealous because we won our freedom and got an actual real country and didn't have to settle for a few crumbs from HRH?
OK, so let's look at the numbers. 23,000 gun-related deaths in the last year that's available. Minus about 10.000 suicides. Minus pretty close to 10,000 in "legitimate" shootings - cops, homeowners, and whatnot. So you've got ~5,000 shootings by scumballs in a year . . . in a country of 307,000,000 people. Not bad odds at all, really.
nanny state ninnies fear life.
But if you want to stick to homicides, 65% of homicides are committed with firearms in the US; that's 99 times more than Singapore, which has strict gun control. The US has homicide rates up to 4 times higher than countries with similar economies and cultures.
Guns are also overrepresented in crimes in which nobody gets killed, such as robberies and family violence, but the likelihood of someone dying is far greater in situations where one of the people involved (victim or perpetrator) is carrying a gun. Armed robbery is also far more likely to result in the victim's death than unarmed robbery. Rates of gun ownership are positively correlated with rates of crime.
As for self-defence, studies have shown that guns are used in self-defence in less than 1% of all crimes. A 2000 study found that "Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society."
So far I'm not seeing much about free gun ownership that's positive.
What I cannot understand or accept is the idea that people should be allowed to own assault rifles or other similarly designed firearms. An assault rifle is not something that you use to dispatch game or carry in your pocket to ward off muggers; it is an offensive weapon that fires bullets in bursts and sprays. It is impractical for hunting or self-defense due to its structural limitations, and is little suited to anything besides attacking others. Like grenades and missile launchers, they should be limited to on-duty military personnel (and perhaps riot police, etc.).
Do you think that private citizens should have access to those things?
Also, so-called gun rights advocates insist on not having any sort of waiting period, under the reasoning that they prevent honest citizens from exercising their 2nd-Amendment rights. Do you think that gun purchases should be allowed without the time to perform a basic background check on the buyer?
1. An assault rifle is . . . a selective fire rifle designed for combat.
2. A selective fire rifle fires semiautomatically and [in] at least one automatic mode by means of a selector depending on the weapon's design. Some selective fire weapons utilize burst fire mechanisms.
3. Burst mode or burst fire is a firing mode enabling the shooter to fire a predetermined number of rounds, usually 2 or 3 rounds or 100+ on anti-aircraft weapons, with a single pull of the trigger.
"Bursts and sprays" sounds pretty accurate to me.
And I'm aware that the "misinformation" charge was directed at me, but since you've chosen not to elaborate and to accuse someone else of essentially the same thing (if that's what you meant by "do your fucking homework"), I thought it was appropriate to point out your own ... misinformation.
damn canadians and their hypersensitive persecution complexes....
@52, You're right, it is illigitimi, but I hate playing nice.
venom was talking about his farting technique
you aren't really holding Singapore up as a positive example of anything, are you?
I started shooting (under supervision) with a youth model 20 gauge when I was 10, started hunting when I was 12 (again under supervision). I see no reason why hunting needs to be restricted to adults, any more than karate, baseball, or snowboarding.
I am under no illusions that my guns are to protect me from some government or anything like that. They are for hunting and recreation.
Fuck you for assuming all guns and all gun-owners are paranoid, NRA members looking to indoctrinate children. Fuck you for your knee-jerk reaction to a story about guns.
Fuck you for being a STUPID FUCKING CREDULOUS HACK.
Oh, and I fucking hate the state of conservatism in this country, so I'm not some teabagger/right-winger/Fox News nutjob.
I don't want to own an old FlaK 36, so I don't. I think I also have the right for my neighbor to not own an old FlaK 36, even if he does want to; there are some weapons that are suited only for war, and the 88mm AT gun is definitely one of those.
@61: Yes, Alleged, I was. I fart bursts and sprays of bullets, as I am just that manly. I also crap C4 and piss napalm.
(you might want to invest in a cookbook...)
The threat of a FlaK 36 is very real. I could end up with a hole clear through my house (and anything in it) if it is fired. Same with a machine gun or assault rifle; if my neighbor sees a suspicious shadow and unloads a clip, those bullets could easily kill me or anyone else who happens to be in the line of fire.
In answer to your question, yes, under certain circumstances. Before 16, I never had the gun out of the (locked) cabinet unless my dad knew about it (we were going hunting, shooting, etc.). After that, I could drive to my cousin's and go hunting without parental supervision, but he still knew about it. That's why we have parents: to gradually get more responsibility as we earn it. I went through mandatory hunter's safety, and my father judged me responsible and balanced enough to handle increasing amounts of responsibility with a gun.
And in response to your earlier statement, it is not the case that anyone is assuming that all gun-owners are paranoid NRA members looking to indoctrinate children. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to own guns (sport hunting included, much as I find it abhorrent). But no child should be handling or have access to a gun.
@72: I don't know about you, but at age 11, I knew it was wrong to kill people. Just exactly what part of that don't you understand?
@AD: The Fillmore, eh? Coolness. I've never been there, though I definitely counted Bill Graham as a friend.
@Dingo: Nice that you can Wiki "assault rifle." Boy, you're good. Only problem is, buy that definition almost nobody in America owns one. Which, um, gets back to my original point.
It must be a city thing to be so freaked out by guns. I'm no fan of Uzis and crap like that, but I've pretty much always had a shotgun.
Almost nobody in America owns an "assault rifle" by your (Wiki's) definition. OK, I do, but I'm the exception. When you start throwing around things like "assault rifle" and condemning everybody in America for owning one, well, excuse me, but you kind of come off like a jackass who doesn't know what he's talking about.
So to recap, you've made some claims about widespread gun ownership being a good thing, you've been sarcastic a lot, and you've called some people stupid, but you haven't really said anything of substance. So far you're the one looking like a jackass.
Of course suicides count, come on. The states with the highest rates of suicide (Wyoming, Montana and Arizona) are also the states with the highest rate of availability of guns.
Bullshit. I'll bet Washington state is among the leading states for suicides from people jumping off bridges, too. This tells us exactly nothing.
But if you want to stick to homicides, 65% of homicides are committed with firearms in the US; that's 99 times more than Singapore, which has strict gun control. The US has homicide rates up to 4 times higher than countries with similar economies and cultures.
And then there's England, where guns are every bit as banned, but they still play a pretty serious role in the subculture. By the way, did you know that, since they've banned guns, the ratio of crime using other weapons has skyrocketed? Knives, pint glasses, and even dogs are now on the "hit list."
Guns are also overrepresented in crimes in which nobody gets killed, such as robberies and family
violence, but the likelihood of someone dying is far greater in situations where one of the people involved (victim or perpetrator) is carrying a gun. Armed robbery is also far more likely to result in the victim's death than unarmed robbery. Rates of gun ownership are positively correlated with rates of crime.
I don't have stats on this. Do you? If so, please link to them.
As for self-defence, studies have shown that guns are used in self-defence in less than 1% of all crimes. A 2000 study found that "Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society."
Again, which study? Smells kinda funny to me.
?
Pasewark and Fleer (1993): high suicide rates can be accounted for by the accessibility of lethal weapons, and availability of weapons greatly influences the rate of suicide by this method.
And then there's England, where guns are every bit as banned, but they still play a pretty serious role in the subculture.
According to the United Nations survey on crime, 8% of homicides are by gun in England, compared with 65% in the US.
By the way, did you know that, since they've banned guns, the ratio of crime using other weapons has skyrocketed? Knives, pint glasses, and even dogs are now on the "hit list."
That may or may not be true, but it's hardly an argument in favour of more guns.
Dinner; more later.
In general, I'm on your side. Over the years I've come to realize that, yes, there are way more responsible gun owners than irresponsible ones, and the responsible should not suffer because of what the irresponsible do.
@ Dingo, American gun ownership may shock you, but it is true - many children learn to use guns and grow up to be responsible gun owners. Suddenly declaring kids unfit for handling guns is not supported by the evidence, namely that millions of children through the centuries have learned to use guns and did not end up harming anyone. It's not like driving a car.
PJ Cook (1987): "Armed robbery is far more likely to result in the victim's death than is an unarmed robbery."
Satlzman et al (1992) found that firearm-associated "family and intimate assaults" (FIAs) were 3 times more likely to result in death than FIAs involving knives or other cutting instruments and 23.4 times more likely to result in death than FIAs involving other weapons or bodily force. Overall, firearm-associated FIAs were 12 times more likely to result in death than non-firearm-associated FIAs.
McDowell et al (1994) found that "Victims used firearms in 0.18% of all crimes recorded by the survey and in 0.83% of violent offenses. Firearm self-defense is rare compared with gun crimes."
D Hemenway, D Azrael, and M Miller (2000) found that "Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society."
Matt from Denver: most American children are not living on farms or in frontier areas where they might actually need guns, but besides that I fail to see how letting a 10 year-old (or a SIX year-old, if we're to believe 5280's claim) handle a gun is any less dangerous than letting him or her drive a car, height issues notwithstanding.
If it hadn't been youth model, the kid would've used a normal one.
I don't own a gun because I drink too much and I get stupid. Hell, I don't even like guns. But to blame the murder on the youth-model rifle instead of the actual kid is... well, it's really fucking stupid.
Yeah, maybe he wouldn't have killed her if he didn't have access to a gun. Maybe he would've used a knife instead. Who the fuck knows? The point is that the kid killed someone, not what he used to do it.
Don't insult people from rural areas as having more gun suicides...the percentages are high because the populations are low. It has little to do with gun ownership. Accidental gun death, and murder happen more in non-rural areas where people are not taught how to use a gun as a tool. I am a liberal, and I am pro gun. There are more car related fatalities by stupid drivers and drunk drivers, not to mention that if your "rates" counted for beans, it would also mean that Wyoming and Montana had more tractor fatalities and deaths from cars going through ice.....if we educate children on the proper use of guns, the proper cleaning, maintenance, and handling of guns, then all we have left are the mean people with guns and the dumbasses like Dick Cheney.
You're being emotional about this point, not rational. Maybe you don't want kids that age to help out in the kitchen either, lest they get a cut or burn? Make it a law so that they have to be 16 before they can learn how to cook?
I would argue that it's much better to teach kids to use guns while they're young (e.g., before they're made insane by adolescence) then to wait til they reach that point. They're a lot more likely to be in awe of the gun's power rather than feeling all cocky because they're holding one. And as others said upthread, as long as the adult takes full control (not letting the kid just get the gun, being there the entire time watching the kid like a hawk while he or she is handling it), there's nothing inherently unsafe.
The farms remark, btw, is a stupid one. Hunting is still a popular activity, and no one needs to live in rural areas to partake. While I agree that "sport" hunting is needless and perhaps barbaric (think of Sarah Palin shooting moose from a fucking helicopter - even the hunters I know were like, "What the fuck is that all about"), a lot of people, including urban folks who have the means to buy meat at the market, like to hunt for food. You may or may not think that's an outmoded activity, but you're way out of touch if you believe only people in the country do it.
This thread has been interesting. It's clear to see who here has been living in urban isolation and who has not.
What we have here is an emotionally disturbed kid who might well have assaulted his future mother in law with a knife or bat, but had a gun at hand. It's a tragic situation, but not a case for gun control.
Yep, my last elk hunt was with a handful of lawyers from a silk-stocking 17th Street law firm. You'd be surprised who hunts and who doesn't out there.
Which brings us to the "farms remark," as you put it, which was to illustrate a point: very few people in America in 2010 (and even fewer people who are children) have any actual need to own a gun. And while plenty of people may enjoy hunting for food, even fewer have a need to do so, and hunting is hardly an ideal activity for children either. What you have in America today is a situation where most civilians own firearms for three primary reasons: protection, recreation, and crime, and none of them are good reasons to give children guns.
I recognize that I'm biased on this topic, by the way: every country I've lived in has had fairly strict gun control, little gun crime, and few gun owners (including 2 countries where even the police aren't armed), I've never touched a real gun, I know no one who owns one, and frankly, I like living in a place where people are still shocked when there's a gun-related crime and it's safe to assume that in all but the worst situations no civilian will be carrying one.
And 5280 (at #87): not according to what I've read, but I'm certainly willing to be updated. Link?
Just because most people don't own assault weapons doesn't mean that it's okay to let people have them; that kind of reasoning is entirely illogical.
I also have yet to see any explanation of why waiting periods are bad, or an admission that they actually do good things. Care to respond, anyone?
I think the personal defenses argument is mildly debatable, but I was intrigued in this study (I'll wait to see whether it gets the coveted stamp of approval from 5280, fingers crossed!!)
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/rep…
where after some number crunching it appears that after exempting police officer self defense, guns were used in defense for .001% or just over 200,000 of 144 million incidences. I exclude police as any gun laws would of course exempt them, and as the armed police force debate I believe can wait for another day, I shall leave it at that. This isn't to say that the fact that so few people actually use guns for self defense is grounds to ban them, but certainly a discredit to the "I need it when I walk the streets" argument.
The question I can't seem to get out of my head in thinking about gun rights is the extent of our freedom in an environment where a shoot-out can occur over petty theft, or even in violent crimes. For me, even the idea that the perpetrator can get killed seems to be indicative of an overreacting vigilante justice system, whereby the adrenaline-spiking victim suddenly has means to put that burglar in the ground for stepping foot on his property. Guns intensify the consequences of irrational decisions exponentially.
As a side note on both the problems associated with firearm possession and emotionally/psychologically stressing situations and armed police, this was an interesting article.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk…
An excerpt from an SAS trainer: "When the tension starts to rise and the adrenaline is flowing, the ‘red mist’ seems to descend on armed police officers who become very trigger-happy. This has been shown time and again in training exercises."
Do we really want to allow for more and more criminal confrontations to turn into high noon because we as citizens have the right to make it so?
"Studies of the effects of waiting periods on violent outcomes yielded inconsistent results: some indicated a decrease in violent outcome associated with the delay and others indicated an increase."
While it is of course logical that waiting periods would reduce impulsive gun crime, I think that the effect of guns on crime is more pronounced for illegal firearms and also in terms of overall likelihood of use, rather than purchase for specific use. A note on the 'inconsistent studies': in terms of national gun policy, there has only ever been a waiting period for 4 years from 1994 to 1998, which amounted to 5 days, and was eliminated by the arrival of instant electronic background checks. Other than that, according to the Legal Community Against Violence* there are 12 states with gun waiting periods, which 4 states apply to all guns, with periods ranging from 24 hours to two weeks. Thus due to a lack of consistency nationally and the easy transport of firearms on an interstate basis I think judging the effect of waiting periods is very difficult at present.
*not exactly the most unbiased source, but since they are only reporting on state laws, not alot of room for journalistic interpretation. cheers.
Yes, guns are designed to kill. Shotguns like this are specifically designed for hunting. But children can't handle them for that reason? The millions and millions of kids who HAVE handled them safely, without having any accidents or growing up to be trigger-happy murderers, doesn't mean a thing to you?
For the record, I handled and shot a gun only once in my life, when I was on a boy scout campout at the age of 11. I don't own a gun (nor do I ever intend to), I support reasonable restrictions like the cooling off period and gun registration, and think the NRA is full of it most of the time. But I'm also a realist. Guns are an ingrained part of our culture. They are a hazard, but it won't legislated away. Children have been learning how to use guns in America since the English first settled here. The evidence is that an overwhelming majority of gun owners use them safely and responsibly, and teach their children to be safe and responsible too. If your assertions were true, there would be a hell of a lot more dead and mangled people.
Guns are a hazard, but saying kids should not learn to use them makes them more of a hazard, not less.
I think when society moves in the direction of protecting kids instead of treating them like miniature adults, that is a GOOD thing. It's insane to let kids have guns. Just because our own parents were insane, doesn't make it right. The whole idea of parenting is NOT to repeat the mistakes your parents made.
I think when society moves in the direction of protecting kids instead of treating them like miniature adults, that is a GOOD thing. It's insane to let kids have guns. Just because our own parents were insane, doesn't make it right. The whole idea of parenting is NOT to repeat the mistakes your parents made.
What are you gonna do, rise up against the MAN?
If weapon bans on say, grenades hold up constitutionally, then so should bans on guns that aren't of constitution-era technology http://www.americanrevolution.org/artill…. Or do gun control opponents suggest lifting restrictions on WMDs? Just sayin'-- it's a slippery slope no matter which direction you want it to go.
Guns are tools. Tools aren't bad. People are bad. Also, they are stupid. You don't blame the hammer when you hit your finger, don't blame the gun when some a$$hole uses it improperly.