That gun debate thing again
The Washington Post has decided that we need to reinvigorate the the gun debate. Now, they’re wringing their hands over that fact that a five-year-old girl, Haley Moore, of LaPlace, Louisiana, got a hold of her father’s handgun and killed herself the other day. Apparently, her father went to take a shower and didn’t put his gun up while he was doing that. It was a tragedy – there’s no other way to describe it. But the Washington Post says that it’s proof that we need “smart gun” technology;
What should not get lost in trying to make sense of the senseless is how much the nation has lost by avoiding serious debate on this issue for so long. Some 33,000 Americans each year are killed by guns.
[…]
If we actually debate ways to manufacture a gun, say, that a 5-year-old can’t accidentally fire, many lives might be saved.
Well, here’s the thing. I have five-year-olds in my house all of the time and none of them have even put their hands on my guns. I lock the guns up in a safe where they can’t get to them. I’m always mindful of who is in my house, and where my guns are in my house – I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one.
Even if a viable “smart gun technology” existed, there are millions of guns out there that don’t have the feature to work their actions. So, how will that help? The only thing it will help is to make the Washington Post editorial staff feel better about themselves because they had a “debate”. How’s about we have a debate about enforcing existing gun laws before we saddle legal gun owners with even more useless laws and unreliable technology that won’t stop anything – well, anything except the hand-wringing.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Guns
Wow…that article was rife with links, to the point of distraction.
I wonder why the video forgot to mention the other child shooting in Washington State…where the Off-Duty Marysville cop left a loaded handgun in plain view of his ‘gun obsessed’ toddler who got a hold of it and shot his sister…she later died.
I guess that would distract from the narrative that only normal everyday Americans are not trustworthy when it comes to firearms.
Sorry, should have wrote that the shooting occurred in the family van while mom and dad went into an Antique store ‘really quick’.
Another example of a “highly-trained” dipshit.
I know enough cops to know that they are people just like the rest of us. There’s good ones, bad ones, smart guys, idiots, hard-chargers, lazy fucks, nice guys, assholes, and more than a few individuals who shouldn’t be trusted with a fucking stapler. They’re “highly trained” to fill out 347 different forms, call for backup, and hopefully to know the law they’re supposed to enforce. Firearms training–at least real training, y’know, with bullets–costs lots of money. A lot of LE agencies don’t want to spend that money, or don’t have the money to spend even if they wanted to. Some PDs have stricter requirements for weapons qualification than others, and some are better than others about enforcing those restrictions.
The very first bullet wound I ever saw as a firefighter-EMT was a cop who tried to draw his “safe action” (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean) Glock, which he was carrying with a round in the pipe, with his booger hook on the bang switch. That very-predictable negligent discharge went straight into his foot. And why was he drawing his sidearm in such a hurry? Because a Goddamn DOG was barking at him.
Some lawdogs are solid guys who conscientiously train on their own time. I know quite a few guys like that. Some are my cousins. But I’ve also come across a few that bring me back to that old saying: “Apparently, as a law-abiding citizen with a perfectly-clean record and no history f violence or instability, I’m a threat to public safety and HAVE to be disarmed. But they’ll GIVE that asshole a gun!”
How about the Obama Administration take the lead on this “smart gun technology” and mandate that every weapon that they ship to the “freedom fighters” in the Middle East have this capability? That way, at the first sign of danger when the troops that Obama armed throw down their weapons and flee, those weapons cannot be used against American Forces? Maybe they can even come up with an application that can change the firing capability when those “freedom fighters” switch sides.
Remember when Congress passed a law banning metal-free ceramic “stealth guns” after “Die Hard 2” came out? Never mind that such things don’t actually exist…
Next, you will be telling me that hand grenades do not have fuses that take 37 seconds to detonate. I still don’t know why John McClane just didn’t toss all of those hand grenades out the window instead of strapping himself into the ejector seat of a parked cargo plane.
John,
I feel you said it all right here – ” I lock the guns up in a safe where they can’t get to them. I’m always mindful of who is in my house, and where my guns are in my house – I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one.”
To leave your gun out, in a place where a five year old can access it – is far from being smart or responsible.
I’m going to add to that – to not teach your children that they are not toys is failure also. I know kids will be kids, I was one once. My kiddos will not even touch my disassembled pistol at the kitchen table without my permission. They understand there is a severe penalty for picking up a single piece without permission. I know it will not prevent all incidents, but a little fear of daddy also helps.
When S&W introduced the lock safety on their revolvers, the price of used pre-lock S&W revolvers went up significantly. If smart guns are mandated, I’ll have my retirement plus some in my safe.
I’m sick and tired of hearing that fucking 33,000 number…24,000 of those are killing themselves…regardless of access to firearms that number doesn’t change.
It’s always interesting to note that the gun grabbers like to compare us to Japan when it comes to homicides, but they stop short at suicides…because the Japs are very efficient at killing themselves at about twice the rate of Americans, meaning their little country has the same amount of suicides as our three times their size nation has each year. The Japs are able to achieve that high suicide rate without guns, so assuming no guns would reduce suicide is as faulty a premise as one could propose as it lacks any evidentiary support.
Regarding the 9,000 or so homicides each year those could be reduced on a massive scale as well, regardless of the number of firearms present in the law abiding population, using more effective and readily available legal statutes to dismantle gangs and drug operations. It’s a curious thing how we fight this “drug” war when looked at from a distance. There is no actual overall strategy to address it nationally or locally. There is only the daily tactical operations to interdict shipments and arrest local operators. It’s clear it’s not being prosecuted as a war, but rather as a simple nuisance that as long as it’s confined to black and hispanic youth gangs it’s an acceptable death rate and it provides a great vehicle to ramp up the armaments and resources of the local PDs.
Even if you include the suicides and take the 30,000+ number at face value, in a country of over 300 million people, 33,000 works out to… a little over 1/100th of 1%.
Call me callous, and I know that every death is a tragedy, etc., but I’m not going into crisis mode and surrendering my constitutional rights over a number that is so far to the right of the decimal point that it hardly even counts as a rounding error from a statistical standpoint.
Especially when the great majority of those are either suicides, or criminals being killed by other criminals.
Sorry.
Well, VOV, keep in mind the democrats’ SOP: wail and gnash teeth over the plight of minority communities, blame conservatives, swear that they’re the ones who will make it all better, then proceed to do absolutely nothing of value for those communities, often opposing initiatives that actually would help, keeping them poor and shitty. Rinse and repeat each election cycle.
And when a city’s leadership–mayor, city council, police chief, fire chief, and what have you– are Dems and all members of racial or ethnic minorities, it’s still the fault of conservatives that the city is in the shithole. There simply is no end to it.
I had the pleasure of pointing out the suicide rates in Korea and Japan to a liberal type and also pointed out that they had the level of gun control he masturbated over.
His answer was along the lines of how “little brown people are different than we are” and it would be different in the US.
And these are the fuckers who call us racist…
Said H. “Wide Load” Clinton, “Unlike Donald Trump, I will not pander to the gun lobby.” That’s funny. She has identified only one group that she is unwilling to pander to. The rest? No problem. And how about the WaPo editorial board’s use of that ever popular word to describe Trump: incoherent. Have you noticed how often it, or some form of that word, is used by the Left to describe Trump? It’s as if they all got the same memo and are obeying it dutifully. Want some fun? Google “Trump incoherent” and look at the hits. As for the little girl who was killed, regrettable deaths occur many times daily. Some are due to negligence and others not. It would save the lives of many children if hotdogs, balloons, and backyard swimming pools were banned. Many more kids will die from those things this summer than from negligent storage or handling of a firearm. But I guess that the “one child’s death is one too many” argument applies only to guns.
I have over fifteen years of Fire/EMS experience. I’ve worked in rural areas with a high ratio of firearms to people, in densely-populated urban areas, and plenty in between. I’ve responded to countless stabbings, beatings, and overdoses. I can count on one hand the number of shootings I’ve dealt with. None of them have involved children. I wish to Christ I could say the same about swimming pool drownings.
I will never, ever have a swimming pool at my house. If I ever buy a house with a pool, the first thing I’ll do is borrow a tractor to fill the damned thing in. Because I’ve seen more of those incidents than I care to remember. Each of them involved a kid who knew how to swim in a pool secured with a locked gate. And every one of them was fatal. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ONE OF THEM KILLED A CHILD. If they really want to do something that will actually save children, they can shut the hell up about guns and ban residential swimming pools.
“I will never, ever have a swimming pool at my house.”
You got that right
Although all guns sold in the US are mandated to come with locks of some sort, educating people about gun safety and doling out gun locks by the federal gov’t is something the Left opposes. Gee, I wonder why that is. Until last year, the oBaMa administration refused to dedicate any tax dollars to the effort. When it finally did, and the DOJ awarded a grant to promote gun safety and to obtain locks for distribution, the Left went nuts. Well, which is it Lefties? Do you want to save lives or is that just a ruse to get the guns one day?
And, yes, that was a rhetorical question.
I’m thinking you didn’t need that statement, it’s never about saving lives it always about controlling the public. It’s easier to control a disarmed population…
Free Men Don’t Ask Permission To Bear Arms….we should everyone one of us remember that and act accordingly.
Regarding the gun debate America needs to have… I believe the NRA President has openly and publicly asked for that very debate with President Obama and has been completely ignored.
Well, my view is this. If your kid doesn’t understand how dangerous a hot stove is, you educate him. You don’t tell him to stay away from the stove because it’s hot. You put his hand on the hot stove and tell him that it’s dangerous and he has to be careful around it.
That’s just common sense. My mother would light the oven for me when I wanted to make cookies, when I was 6. She told me to always use hot pads with hot dishes and if I got nipped by a hot pan, she just said ‘I told you so’.
It seems to me that you can use the same amount of plain old common sense with guns of any kind, where kids are concerned.
Just use some effing common sense, and for Pete’s sake, lock the guns up where the kids can’t get at them.
A few random thoughts – I trained my girls early and often about gun safety, and told them that any time they wanted to handle one of them, they could: just ask Daddy first. I left an (unloaded) .357 in easy access range of them for a coupla years, with its lovely blue carefully wiped down and spotless. NOT ONCE did I ever find a little fingerprint on it. We took the mystique out of them, and made sure they knew how to shoot. One is a fine shot, one adequate, and one…well, she’s not so good at that but she humbles me in many more important ways and is truly my hero. Kids need to be trained early and thoroughly an ‘accidents’ (usually negligence) don’t happen.
Smart guns? Not till the Secret Service is willing to carry them.
Yep! FAR more effective to “gun-proof” a child than to child-proof a gun.
I think you will all find this report about ‘gungate’ to be interesting.
http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/05/25/fraud-gungate-real-end-katie-courics-career/
Carry on!! Is there anything those idjits will NOT do to have their way?
I saw that report and read the director’s defense about the editing. He said the pause was put there to allow the audience time to think about the question. Such a load of horseshit those two are. Couric is a hack journalist. Screw both of them.