This post has been updated since first posted.

A comment from a Facebook friend when this article was shared around yesterday about a Tennessee woman whose gun discharged while in a diaper bag she carried to a store:

“Diaper bag necessities for the modern mother:

Diapers, check
Desitin, check
Wipes, check
Pacifier, check
Handgun, che…wait…WHAT?

Oh, yeah, freedom demands that every diaper bag have one. And dead infants are only counted as collateral damage by the anarchists.”

More from the article for your edification:

A mother, who was shopping with her two children, ended up firing a gun inside a busy Southaven store on Sunday.

It happened at the Bargain Hunt on Stateline Road.

Investigators say Stephanie Scrivener’s gun was inside a diaper bag when it fired.

She now faces charges for discharging a weapon within city limits.

Sigh. No words.

In other news about guns and babies, this one year old baby was shot by his 3 year old brother. I don’t make this stuff up. From the article:

Charges likely will be brought against the person who took a gun to the house where a 3-year-old boy shot his 1-year-old brother in the head and killed him, the Cleveland police chief said.

Chief Calvin Williams said investigators are trying to determine where the gun in Sunday afternoon’s shooting came from and how it was left within reach of a child.

Full details about the shooting on the city’s east side weren’t released, but Williams said at least one adult was home when it happened.

“A 3-year-old cannot be held accountable for a tragedy like this,” said Williams. He said someone had to have supplied the weapon or “knew the weapons were there and didn’t do anything to safeguard them, so people will be held accountable for this tragedy.”

Sigh. Where is common sense? Serious questions just have to be asked about our American gun culture. Are we asking them? Is anyone answering them other than to give us the usual shameful nonsense coming from the corporate gun lobby about how safe we now all are because of more people owning and carrying guns? They are wrong. Who is pointing that out? How many more will it take?

Instead of having a serious discussion about “accidental” gun discharges by “law abiding” gun owners and about the easy access to guns by babies and toddlers, we are hearing talk of needing guns to fight against our own government. The corporate gun lobby is pushing young parents into believing a gun in the house will protect them from evil things like hurricanes, zombies, ISIS, and whatever else is lurking outside their doors. Remember the words of Wayne LaPierre doing just that?:

It must be terrifying to be Wayne LaPierre, the man who has led the NRA for the past two decades. For years he has shared his nightmares and fears of daily living with us — a worldview of paralyzing paranoia, where terrorists, bad weather and Latin American gangsters lurk behind every corner, ready to prey on unarmed citizens.

“Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world,” he explains in his latest expression of anguish, an Op-Ed published in the Daily Caller yesterday. “And though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.”

“Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals,” he continues. “These are perils we are sure to face — not just maybe. It’s not paranoia to buy a gun. It’s survival.” (…)

When the NRA head appeared on Fox News Sunday earlier this month, he told host Chris Wallace, “My gosh, in the shadow of where we are sitting now, gangs are out there in Washington, D.C. You can buy drugs. You can buy guns. They are trafficking in 13-year-old girls. And our government is letting them!”

Sigh. Survival. Tell that to the parents of the now dead one year old who did not survive the senseless and avoidable gunshot injury inflicted by his 3 year old brother with a gun in his hands.

I am updating this post to include a totally absurd and disturbing story about one of the workshops held at the recent NRA convention  which was clearly outside the bounds of common sense and reality.  More from the article:

There is no factual basis to allegations that parts of the U.S. have turned into no-go zones that Muslim extremists had supposedly conquered — a myth that wasspread by Fox News reports earlier this year.

Tarani’s comments were part of an hour-long seminar in which he discussed what he claims are the threats Americans face on a daily basis. The frequency and intensity of “mass murders, beheadings and suicide bombings” are increasing, he said. After detailing the events of a number of mass shootings and terrorist plots by an “endless supply” of militant groups around the world, Tarani told the audience they should be prepared to respond to all kinds of threats.

Tarani also warned that the country’s “porous borders” are letting extremists and terrorists into the United States. “It’s possible that at least 20 percent of what comes over that border — that’s a big number, guys — is Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ethiopian al shabaab, known gang members and supports of the cartel,” he said, warning people to arm themselves to respond to threats before law enforcement can.

The myth of no-go zones was also spread earlier this year by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who said in an interview that there are Muslim areas in Europe that are dominated by extremist Muslims where the police refuse to enter. Fox News previously made several mentions of no-go zones, prompting British Prime Minister David Cameron to publicly refute the claim and even call one pundit “a complete idiot.” Fox later issued several apologies and admitted that no-go zones do not actually exist.

It’s hard to know what to say. Raise your hand if you have heard of beheadings in the U.S. or ISIS members coming over the borders. The hypocrisy of this is that the gun lobby resists any attempt to keep guns away from known terrorists. But this kind of fear mongering is inexcusable and very dangerous. For the gun lobby, it drives people to the gun stores and that is exactly what they want. Crazy, insane, shameless, idiotic, stupid and dangerous. More myths and deceptions.

Instead of addressing a national public health and safety epidemic, the pundits and politicians and would be politicians are pandering and sounding crazier and crazier. How do you explain the speech at the recent NRA convention by someone who should know better- a Republican neurosurgeon trying his darndest to curry favor with the gun rights crowd? Here is what Dr. Ben Carson said ( and I don’t make this stuff up):

“I spent many a night operating on people with gunshot wounds to their heads,” Carson said. “It is not nearly as horrible as having a population that is defenseless against a group of tyrants who have arms.”

No words.

And, of course, now declared Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio continued the pandering and deception when he spoke at the NRA convention:

Like many of the other GOP heavyweights who spoke Friday, Rubio also accused the president of picking and choosing which amendments to support. He noted the Obama administration’s attempt to ban armor-piercing bullets and the administration’s attempt to increase background checks on gun sales in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“The sins of the evil do not justify the restrictions of law-abiding citizens. In fact, the sins of the evil make those rights more critical,” Rubio said, adding that he’s no fan of gun-free zones.

Really? The shooting of 20 first graders doesn’t justify doing something to strengthen our gun laws and have a national discussion about gun violence? Inexplicable and shameful. These are our babies and our children. We need to protect them from evil for sure. The evil is that the corporate gun lobby is preventing us from stopping people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them anyway. The gun lobby would rather arm the people who teach our precious children than prevent the shootings of them in the first place through common sense measures like background checks, safe storage of guns, strengthening trafficking and straw purchase laws. Those are the “sins of evil” and yes, they do justify restricting those who are not law abiding. But Rubio is echoing the nonsense of the gun lobby when he says these laws would restrict law abiding citizens. He is wrong. But he’s running for President and he must curry favor with the uber powerful and well funded national fear mongering organization.

Why aren’t we crying about our lack of action when it comes to saving our babies and our children from the devastation of senseless and out of control gun violence?

We need to be afraid of our out of control and crazy American gun culture.

UPDATE:

Someone sent a link to this story about a toddler pulling a loaded gun out of a diaper bag at a Vermont day care center. Of course it was left there by a responsible gun permit holder. Oh wait- in Vermont you don’t need a permit to carry a loaded gun around. Maybe they should re-think that one. Good grief. This is why there should be no loaded guns in purses and diaper bags.