Friday Gun Notes
No relation to the story, I was just in a brunette-with-gun mood
Breaking news on Thursday – remember the Virginia 1st grade teacher who was shot by a 6-year old? Not quite three years ago, Abby Zwerner was shot in her classroom by a kid on his first day back from a two-day suspension for slamming her phone. Might maybe be a few anger issues which need to be addressed, hmmh? Anyway, Zwerner sued three school officials who she said should have acted, but the judge limited the suit to the vice principal, Ebony Parker.
Parker was the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal as defendants.
The lawsuit said Parker had a duty to protect Zwerner and others from harm after being told about the gun. Zwerner’s attorneys said Parker failed to act in the hours before the shooting after several school staff members told her that the student had a gun in his backpack.
I have to admit I was skeptical about the original suit. But, after hearing that Ms. Parker was told hours before by multiple staff… yep, I can see the $10,000,000 judgement as right.
Parker faces a separate criminal trial this month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison in the event of a conviction. AP
Parker’s lawyer warned the jury against 20-20 hindsight… sounds like Mr. Magoo could have seen this coming.
For those who think their gun is “out of reach” – how did the kid get the the gun? His mother had it in her purse…which he accessed by climbing onto a drawer. (The mother got four years for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges, too)
Anti-gun folks like to say “more children die from guns than anything else!” We know that is nonsense – especially when you parse the data with real world figures. (Like that 23 and 24-year olds are not ‘children’. Funny how they are children in this context, but Dems want to think for voting that 16 year olds are mature adults?) Let’s look at a few facts from John Lott:
For those under age 18, vehicle deaths are consistently greater than those from firearms. When you use the FBI murder data, the vehicle deaths exceed the firearm deaths for 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023 — and likely 2021, though the FBI data isn’t available for that year.
And, more tellingly – let’s look at murders, especially drug-related:
About 72% of the firearm murders for those under 18 involve 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds. So that would be 40% of all the firearm deaths. About 57% of those involve 16- and 17-year-olds. That is 32% of all firearm deaths. These deaths are largely gang-related, and even banning guns is unlikely to stop drug gangs from getting a hold of guns to protect their extremely valuable drugs.
Suffocation? Maybe even more of a niche stat – but:
Suffocation deaths for those under 18 are greater than total firearm deaths using the FBI data in both 2019 and 2020 (2,253 and 2,110, respectively). It is almost the same as the number in 2022 and 2023 (2,154 and 2,042, respectively).
Suicide? The majority of all firearms deaths, and taking it out of the stats reduces the percentages another 30-40% mas o meno.
Accidental shooting deaths? Under 10 years old, fewer than 50 annually. Under age 18? Less than 100.
Worth reading. Crime Prevention Research Center/BFA
The number of shooting deaths in the US of children is nothing to be proud of. For the civilized world it is quite high.
The numbers aren’t large, for example on average about 25 people a year die in school shootings and 90% of those are children. While this sounds like a small number, in many countries around the world the number is effectively zero. Indeed in the US as well, the number was effectively zero for many decades, over a century really. So this is an achievable goal and reducing violence should be a goal. The issue is how to achieve that goal because our current dysfunctional government can’t even agree on a budget to keep the country running.
How do you propose we achieve that goal? It would be great if every parent/grandparents who owns a gun(s) taught them early on that they aren’t toys to be played with and maybe even enrolled them in some gun safety classes with range time. But its not a perfect world and never will be. I certainly don’t trust the government to make it perfect.
That is the hitch isn’t it? Trust and faith in government is near an all time low.
Even if trust and faith were higher, we all need less of them looking over our shoulders asking ” what are you doing now. What about now? How about now”?
That “civilized world” you mention also denies their citizens a means of self defense not only from the criminal element but also from their own government. In short the govt does not trust it’s own citizens to have any real means of maintaining a civilian form or governance. Any government that has to disarm those it governs should and cannot be trusted by the citizens. It becomes far too easy for that government to abuse and silence dissent from it’s policies by the citizens. The Brits are demonstrating that very well by arresting those who dare criticize the govt and it’s policies by simply posting memes it considers “might be offensive”.
Not necessarily.
While the slide of the UK is notable some other countries have gone the other way. If Iraq, that allows the possession of fully automatic AK47s and hasn’t had a school shooting in over a decade, can figure it out, certainly we could.
I suspect eventually will be allowed to call it a cultural issue, exacerbated by certain societal dynamics. A huge preponderance of shootings occur between a small part of the overall populace and age group.
Depending on the source, 3500-5000 underage kids die due to booze annually. ~178,000 Americans die each year due to booze. I’ll believe that we’re serious about saving lives when efforts to curtail booze related deaths reach the same levels of fauxrage as the gunsenseless arguments. Until then, it’s all about control – not saving lives.
I’m not sure about your numbers. Only about 2200 people die from alcohol poisoning every year in the US. Of those the large majority are over age 35.
Multi-causal deaths related to alcohol such as other health issues are practically non-existent among youth. DUI crashes are a leading cause of death in most age groups but it is unclear how many are actually caused by those under 18, whether or not they were a victim. Crashes will appear more prominent in a younger group because they lack many health issues of older groups.
In any case, alcohol related deaths are currently in the midst of a steep decline. Alcohol consumption in the US has declined dramatically in the past 5 years in all age groups. Through 1975-1981 Alcohol consumption peaked at around 70% of the population consuming alcohol. In 2022 (post COVID rise) it was 68%. In 2024 it was at a historical low of 54% of the population. If we regard 2022 as anomaly due to the social issues of that no so long ago period, the trend is sharper.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/693362/drinking-rate-new-low-alcohol-concerns-surge.aspx
OFF topic;
Am going on the recliner to do crosswords and i was wondering if any of you Gals and guys could put me in for FIRST on todays WOT because I may fall asleep taking a nappy poo. Thankyou. Maybe I should my brand spanking new Amazon Magic 8-Ball so maybe it would give me the skinny about the time it comes on 10-4 and even as said on TV Highway patrol
Start teaching “No. Go. Tell.” in kindergarten.
“The Four Rules” starting in 3rd grade.
Basic Rifle Marksmanship starting in 6th grade.
“On your person or in the safe.” for adults.
-That- knocks out most of the accidental firearm stuff pronto.
Gee. That wasn’t hard.
I learned rifle marksmanship in the 10th grade in HS Junior ROTC. I even made the rifle team. We had a small-bore range in the basement. I cut my teeth on a Remington Model 40X. We had Korean War era uniforms. I still remember how excited I was to first put on that Eisenhower jacket.
So yeah, gun safety and rifle markmanship in junior high, but only after they pass a mental evaluation. We don’t need any more school massacres.