Guns as available as candy

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", Amy Schumer, availability of guns, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, kids and guns, Minnesota gun deaths, safe gun storage

In America guns are almost as readily available as candy. That is not just me talking. That is a quote from this article about yet another “accidental” shooting of a child by a child- this time in my state of Minnesota. Let’s take a look at the quote from this article:

Wilson said it is far too easy for children to get their hands on a gun.

“These kids can get a gun just like they can go and get a Snickers bar,” said Wilson, who has found himself responding to shootings in Minneapolis to help loved ones cope. “It’s not a surprise to the people who know.”

People know. It’s not a surprise. Kids can get guns like they can get candy. Kids can find loaded guns in parks. And then kids “play” with guns and sometimes when adults are in the same house. Adults are responsible for this. All guns start out as legal purchases. They don’t fall from the sky and end up in parks or in the hands of felons or others who should not have them.

And now a brother has killed his older brother. A family is devastated. A community is devastated. These are avoidable and senseless deaths.

If people know, why aren’t we doing something about this? Where do we think a gun laying around in a park comes from? Shouldn’t kids be playing in parks without fear of them coming across a gun? Obviously the gun was not a legally owned gun. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say obviously because “law abiding” gun owners have been known to leave guns laying around in bathrooms, or leaving them behind in store dressing rooms or in purses or backpacks, etc. I have written about these real life incidents many times before. But in this case, I suspect the gun was “lost” by someone else who shouldn’t have had it.

We have, by most estimates, about 300 million guns in one place or another in America. Many are legally owned. Many are not. This is about one gun per person. Stunning. With that many guns around it is inevitable that the incident I linked to above happened. It will happen again and again and it has happened before. On average, 9 kids a day are shot in America. About 7 die. Why isn’t this a national emergency?

Where is common sense?

We have such a cavalier attitude about guns in our country that finding a gun in a park is no big deal apparently. And when adults just assume that their kids know better than to play with a gun, I would say we have a serious unaddressed problem. And thanks to the corporate gun lobby,this problem is leading to devastating and avoidable gun injuries and deaths all over our country.

Just because it hasn’t happened in your community doesn’t mean it won’t. Until we get serious about having the national conversation that we deserve to have our children will be at risk. Guns are dangerous weapons designed to kill people. They are not toys. They should not be as available as candy bars. They should be difficult to access by those who shouldn’t have access- period.

The irony of this attitude towards guns appears in this great video by Comedian Amy Schumer in which a woman is asking why she can’t access birth control. Watch to the end for the best punch line. You can watch it here and decide for yourself:

http://likescake.tumblr.com/post/117172623563

Point made. Guns are easily available to children- birth control for women? Not so much.

And before I go, I must refer my readers to this awful incident, yet another of a “law abiding” Florida parent mishandling a gun resulting in the death of his own child.From the article:

Hernandez was only confirmed as the shooter through Bay County Court documents. According to court records, Hernandez was in another room of the apartment “practicing form in front of the mirror and the gun … accidentally went off and went through the mirror and the wall and fatally injured the daughter,” his attorney reported.

Practicing his form? For what? Does this guy need to look good while carrying that gun or shooting it? In what world is he living? Oh, right- the world of those who think carrying a gun makes them look macho and where nothing bad will ever happen with their own gun. Or something. At any rate, that need to practice how you would look while wearing your gun can lead to tragic consequences. A child is dead.

Sigh.

Where is common sense?

Armadillos and the targets of bullets

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, ASK campaign, Brady Center, corporate gun lobby, David Hemenway, kids and guns, research on gun violence, target shooting, Wayne LaPierre

I’ll get to the Armadillo in a minute. But first….

A man walking a hiking trail in Arizona was hit by a bullet from somewhere in the distance. The bullet is still lodged in one of his wounded legs and now he is wondering if the bullet came from a nearby shooting range. From the article:

Sawyer said he was hiking the Max Delta Loop Trail around 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday, he didn’t immediately realize he was shot.

“I was like I don’t know what’s wrong; something’s wrong with my legs,” said Sawyer.

The bullet went all the way through his right leg and lodged in his left leg. He manages to make his way down the mountain and to a ranger station where he called for help.

There are two gun ranges north of the trail at the base of South Mountain. One belongs to the Phoenix Police Academy; the other is a private gun club called the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club.

Investigators say no one was shooting at the Police Academy at the time.

According to a police report, detectives believe the bullet that hit Sawyer came from the gun club, as does Sawyer’s attorney Garvey Biggers.

“We know for a fact there were three competitions going on, all ages were shooting that day, from children to adults… so if you have an inexperienced shooter, you could easily lose control of your weapon,” said attorney Garvey Biggers.

Sawyer’s legal team says the range is exactly 540 meters from where Sawyer says he was on the trail.

Is it possible for a bullet to travel 540 meters?

“Yes, no doubt about it,” said Biggers.

Of course, the owners of the gun range are disputing the hiker’s story. They wouldn’t want to be held responsible for flying bullets that travel far enough to hit innocent hikers on walking trails.

In my neck of the woods, we often hear gun fire at our cabin and at the cabins of good friends. There are more than a few shooting ranges in our area. People love to shoot their guns at targets or practice their shooting skills before hunting season or just for sport. And they are mostly safe. But guns are dangerous weapons designed to kill. Bullets travel far and often stop when they hit an innocent person at a distance. There need to be very strict regulations and safety practices for those who shoot guns at shooting ranges or those who choose to fire off their guns for fun on private property.

Remember this one? Florida law comes down on the side of allowing gun owners to shoot off their guns in residential neighborhoods close to families and children. Where is common sense? From the article:

That changed in 2011 when Gov. Rick Scott signed a measure putting teeth into the state restriction. Now local officials could be fined, removed from office and held responsible for their own legal bills if they’re sued over local gun ordinances.

In January, Volusia County municipal managers began communicating by email about the issue of the firing of guns on private property. Ponce Inlet Town Manager Jeaneen Witt wrote in a Jan. 10 email to South Daytona City Manager Joe Yarbrough that a resident in her city was setting up a shooting range on his property. Witt expressed her concern over the powerlessness of local governments to control the use of firearms and suggested lobbying legislators to set a criteria such as lot sizes and buffers.

This is the gun lobby at work “protecting” us all and it’s state legislators failure to stand up to the gun lobby.

Where is the right of people to feel safe in their neighborhoods from potential flying bullets?

It happens. This Kentucky woman was lucky she didn’t get hit by a stray bullet while using the bathroom:

A Lexington woman says a neighbor target practicing in his yard shot a bullet into her home over the weekend.

Fairshinda McLaughlin said she and her family were outside enjoying the spring weather at their home on Lexington’s outskirts Sunday afternoon when they heard a loud noise.

“I thought it was a bomb. I thought a propane tank or something exploded, It was that loud,” she said.

That sound was a stray bullet crashing through her bathroom window.

McLaughlin called the police, and officers discovered the source of the bullet – a neighbor about a mile away firing at targets in his yard.

McLaughlin said she was just about to go use that bathroom.

Seriously folks. Can we talk about this dangerous culture of anything goes with guns anywhere? I could provide many more such inane and dangerous examples.

And then, of course, this one went around on social media because it was so stupid and ridiculous:

A Georgia woman was accidentally shot by her son-in-law on Sunday while he was attempting to shoot an armadillo.

According to WALB, 54-year-old Larry McElroy was outside when he fired his 9 mm pistol at the armadillo. The bullet killed the animal and ricocheted off of its shell.

The bullet then struck a nearby fence, went through the back door of his mother-in-law’s home, through the recliner she was sitting in and struck her in the back.

Fortunately for all, she was not badly hurt. Bullets don’t know where to stop. Can we talk about gun safety reform?

Recently in Vermont, a 6 year old boy was doing some target shooting with his family when he was accidentally shot:

The boy, his father and two other children were taking turns shooting at a target with a .22 caliber pistol, under the supervision of the father.

While the boy was shooting, the handgun failed to discharge. The child subsequently lowered the still-loaded firearm, but before his father could intervene, the gun discharged. The bullet hit the boy in the lower leg, White said.

Some of my critics would tell me that it’s OK for 6 year olds to be out shooting at targets. I would argue otherwise. Supervised or not, 6 year olds don’t seem old enough to handle the responsibility of holding a deadly weapon. Guns and kids just don’t go together well. Numerous incidents of “accidental” shootings by children are reported every day in media sources. I write about them. I also write about how these can be avoided.

The first question I want to ask is if adults really think children can handle guns? The second question I would ask is why we want young children near guns? The third question I would ask is why children aren’t participating in the activities more suitable to young children like just playing, riding bikes, going to the playground, playing soccer or softball or swimming, etc.?

And one important question to ask is if there are guns in the homes where your children play and hang-out? The Brady Center’s ASK campaign is encouraging parents to ask this very important question. It’s not a frivolous question nor should it be controversial. Here’s why. Yesterday charges were filed against an Idaho couple who left unsecured loaded guns around in their home which resulted in one child shooting and killing a friend:

Prosecutors are charging Rusty and Ashlee Lish with one count each of misdemeanor injury to a child for the accidental shooting death of Noelle Shawver that happened nine months ago.

Shawver died on July 30th after being accidentally shot in the chest by another five year old at Lish’s Chubbuck home.

According to police reports Noelle Shawver was playing with another 5-year-old in the master bedroom of the Lish’s Chubbuck home.

Court records say people in the home heard the gun go off and when they went into the room, they found Shawver with gunshot wound to the chest.

Shawver was taken to Portneuf Medical Center where she died from the wound.

Investigators say inside the master bedroom they found the .22 caliber rifle involved in the shooting, a loaded 12 gauge shotgun with a round in the chamber, a loaded 7 millimeter rifle and a loaded Glock handgun, all unsecured and within reach of the children. (…)

“Even though the adults weren’t actors they provided the setting that allowed this young boy to go in and point the gun and pull the trigger,” said Herzog.

According to police reports multiple officers at the scene located several loaded and unsecured guns in the master bedroom area of the home, where Shawver and the other child were playing.

“It’s a horrible tragedy,” says Herzog.

Police say of the four guns found in the room the children were playing all were within reach, and no locks or other security measures were located on any of the weapons. Herzog says he hopes this case brings awareness to gun safety.

“The Lish’s are going to be in a position where hopefully they can do some good and increase public awareness about firearms in the home and overall the community can get some benefit from it,” said Herzog.

Will these parents get involved in public awareness about the risks of loaded, unsecured guns in homes? We can only hope. They are poster parents for the reason parents ought to use common sense and ask about guns in other parents’ homes. No one ever believes something like this can happen. But happen it does- too frequently.

We need to have a serious national discussion about the public health and safety problems presented by the over 300 million guns owned by Americans. In no other country is this a problem. Why are we not having the discussion? One answer is pretty clear. The corporate gun lobby doesn’t want that discussion because if the risks of guns in homes is revealed and discussed, perhaps parents will think twice about buying guns for whatever reason they do. Yes, some people believe they need guns for self protection. They must believe the horror stories of home invasions, the need for guns to protect themselves from national disasters, from some invisible enemy or whatever the gun lobby is telling them.

The NRA’s own Wayne LaPierre has been busy warning Americans about all of the dangers out there that should remind people they must have guns to defend themselves. And he’s not afraid to mention the beheadings and murders committed by terrorists, or other such awful things that could actually befall us if we don’t have our guns for protection. See it for yourself below in his words at the 2015 CPAC conference:

I wonder if the parents ( above) now charged with recklessness and negligence with their guns believed that the nightmare the gun lobby warned them about was actually one that happened because of their own guns not because of something for which they thought they needed those guns? I wonder if that father who allowed his 6 year old to shoot at targets because, well because……. thought his own gun would injure his own child instead of some invisible enemy lurking dangerously outside of his home.

Aren’t we better than this? We need this discussion about the risks of guns. It is beginning in spite of gun lobby efforts to stop it. Here’s a great article by Harvard public health researcher David Hemenway about the public health risks of guns:

So I decided to determine objectively, through polling, whether there was scientific consensus on firearms. What I found won’t please the National Rifle Association. (…)

I also found widespread confidence that a gun in the home increases the risk that a woman living in the home will be a victim of homicide (72 percent agree, 11 percent disagree) and that a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be (64 percent) rather than a safer place (5 percent). There is consensus that guns are not used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime (73 percent vs. 8 percent) and that the change to more permissive gun carrying laws has not reduced crime rates (62 percent vs. 9 percent). Finally, there is consensus that strong gun laws reduce homicide (71 percent vs. 12 percent).

Of course, it’s possible to find researchers who side with the NRA in believing that guns make our society safer, rather than more dangerous. As I’ve shown, however, they’re in the minority.

Scientific consensus isn’t always right, but it’s our best guide to understanding the world. Can reporters please stop pretending that scientists, like politicians, are evenly divided on guns? We’re not.

OK. The evidence from researchers and professionals in many fields agree. Guns in the home are a risk to those in the home. Duh. There is evidence. What are we doing about it? So far, ignoring it but it can’t be ignored for much longer. It’s time for a change in the conversation that can lead to a change in both policy and our nation’s fascination with guns.

The irony of the gun lobby “logic”

April 28, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", 2005 Immunity Law, Amanda Gailey, Child Access Prevention Laws, conceal carry permit holders, constitutional carry, corporate gun lobby, George Zimmerman, irresponsible gun owners, kids and guns, Open Carry, Stand Your Ground laws

Oh the irony. It is playing out every day. What the gun lobby says about more guns making us safer is plainly not happening. Sure, there are the occasional incidents of a law abiding gun owner using a gun for legitimate self defense. Those on my side are not arguing that that is not the case. We are arguing that more often than not, a gun is used with bad intent to harm others and a gun in many situations emboldens the person with the gun and escalates a situation. In addition, guns are not needed in many volatile situations to change the outcome.

Yesterday a student brought a gun to a school in a Seattle suburb and fired off a few rounds. The boy was stopped by an unarmed teacher who tackled him before he could do anyone, including himself, harm. From the article:

A 16-year-old boy who fired two gunshots Monday inside a Washington state high school, hitting no one before a teacher tackled him, told detectives he never intended to hurt any students, a police spokesman said.

Three other staff members at North Thurston High School in Lacey, about 60 miles southwest of Seattle, quickly helped subdue the teen.

The boy told detectives “there were some issues in personal relationships,” Lacey police Cmdr. Jim Mack told The Olympian newspaper. Asked if the shooting could have been an attempt at “suicide by cop,” Mack said, “It definitely could have been.”

How would a teacher with a gun have changed this situation? Would the teacher have had a gun holstered on their person as some suggest should be the case? Would a teacher whose gun was stored somewhere in the school not near where the incident occurred have had the time, training or inclination ( given the fear and with adrenalin surging) to get to a gun? And then what? Would a teacher have shot this student? This appears to be a student with some problems who now will hopefully get some help. His life was changed by the incident. Other students lives have changed as well. But no one is dead. And a gun was not needed to stop the student with a gun.

By the way, where did this young student get his gun? Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

Others lives have been changed by bullets. This Texas man shot his own wife believing her to be a burglar in his home. This, by the way, is not the first of similar types of shootings. From the article:

According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the man was sleeping when he woke up to the sound of someone “scuffling” downstairs.

Deputies said he saw the front door open so he grabbed his gun thinking a burglar had broken in.

But when he fired, his target was his wife.

So far no charges have been filed. And that brings me to other such “accidental” shootings where no charges occurred or were rejected after a “law abiding” gun owner mistakenly shot someone. Sure, people have gun rights. Do they have rights to be irresponsible with their guns and then not be held responsible? This incident also highlights the irony of the “logic” that having a loaded gun around the home for self defense too often results in the injury or death of someone living in the home.

And what is the “logic” to people like this guy, ostensibly a “law abiding” gun owner, holding a neighborhood hostage bringing out a SWAT team to disarm the situation?:

Around 8:30 a.m. Monday, police were called out to 58 Randall Road after a gas worker who attempted to shut off gas service was threatened with a gun.

Several SWAT teams, a bomb squad and negotiators were called out to help. More than 20 shots were reportedly fired from inside the house toward officers and SWAT vehicles, police said.

Surrounding houses were asked to evacuate the area. Officials say Parker was believed to be armed with a high-powered rifle and possibly explosive devices.

All because of an angry guy with a gun- or from the sounds of it, someone who should not have had a gun, threatening law enforcement and a city worker with his loaded gun. It’s harder to carry out threats like this with some other kind of weapon or object. But when so many people succumb to the fear and paranoia promoted by the gun lobby, people like this use their guns with bad intent rather than in self defense. We all know how things can go terribly wrong with one armed citizen making threats. This is the America we have. Is this the America we deserve?

Speaking of the armed America we have and holding gun owners responsible when something goes wrong, Amanda Gailey of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, has written an article wondering about why negligence with guns is rarely prosecuted or found to be legal negligence:

Every year many gun owners, like Wilson, unintentionally cause death and injury yet face no legal consequences. In criminal and civil courts, the legal system often fails to hold negligent gun owners accountable for such harm.Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit effort that combs through more than a thousand media sources to collect information about gun violence, has verified more than 1,500 accidental shooting incidents in 2014. Data on the legal outcomes of these shootings is sketchy, but many cases of unprosecuted unintentional shootings are available—dozens from the first two months of 2014 alone remain unprosecuted.

The past decade has seen legal measures to prevent gun negligence systematically dismantled. The 2005 Protection of Legal Commerce in Arms Act statutorily inoculated gun manufacturers and dealers from most claims of negligence in gun deaths. This is even more dangerous than it may first sound. Many people unfamiliar with guns assume that they are designed with simple safeguards against unintentional shootings, but this is not always the case. Glock handguns, for example, have no external safety: If a round is chambered and the trigger is squeezed, the gun fires. As Aaron Walsh, a criminal defense attorney in Augusta, Georgia, put it, “With any other product in the world there would be no Glock company because they would be sued out of existence. You don’t have a safety? That can’t be right.” (…) Yet some of these cases are appalling. A man in Washington practiced drawing a loaded handgun and unintentionally shot and killed his girlfriend’s daughter. A man in Florida twirled a handgun on his finger and killed a pregnant woman. A man in New Mexico handed a loaded rifle to his six-year-old daughter, who unintentionally shot her sister in the neck. None of these gun owners was prosecuted. The district attorney in the New Mexico case told the Farmington Times, “The father did not follow basic and universally accepted firearm safety rules” but “the problem is that the standard for criminal negligence is higher.”

Ah yes. The 2005 “Immunity Bill” that offers protections to the gun industry that no other industry enjoys. Silly me. Shoot someone by accident? No worries. Rights will protect you. A gun discharges accidentally? No problem. The immunized gun industry will protect the industry, not the shooter or the weapon.

There is much more in this article that is worth considering. Ms. Gailey, like the majority of us and actually the majority of gun owners, knows that people who are negligent with guns should be held accountable. She writes about the fact that gun owners ‘ negligence is treated differently than in other cases of negligence resulting in the death of an innocent person:

When a surviving family member does sue a negligent gun owner for the death of a child or spouse, their lawsuits often fail. Andrew McClurg, a law professor at the University of Memphis, has written extensively on what he sees as a “right to be negligent” that has arisen from the failure of courts to hold negligent gun owners accountable. McClurg sees these rulings as flagrant violations of tort principles that result from strange mistakes in reasoning about risk—judges have ruled in favor of negligent gun owners because specific chains of events were unforeseeable. (…)

Findings in other civil cases against negligent gun owners suggest that political sensibilities motivate some decisions by the court. In one case McClurg examined, a gun owner kept a loaded handgun next to a tray of change in his bedroom, which he allowed his teenage daughter to raid for spending money. Sometimes she did this with her boyfriend; eventually, the boyfriend took the gun and used it to rob and murder a man who was leaving a restaurant. The victim’s family sued the girl’s father for leaving a loaded gun lying around where he knew minors could access it. The court declined to hold him liable, saying it was “not persuaded that society is prepared to extend the duties of gun owners that far.” This reasoning was not based on principles of liability, but on what the court thought the implications would be for gun ownership in America.

Indeed, political squeamishness about defining responsible gun ownership drives our failure to hold negligent gun owners accountable. It leads to statutes that protect recklessness among manufacturers and sellers, enables legislation that encourages gun proliferation, and shackles a legal system that ends up seeming more concerned about running afoul of the firearms lobby and its adherents than in protecting the public.

We do need to change this “squeamishness” to stand up to the corporate gun lobby. They have managed to make even negligence with a gun a right. It’s time for that kind of irresponsible attitude about guns to change. But instead, in many states, we are going the other way.

The corporate gun lobby has pushed for anyone to carry guns everywhere with little to no accountability, training or permit. This, of course, will suggest to a felon that he/she, too, can just strap their gun on their waists and walk around in public with no questions asked. Because there is a move afoot to allow those who do this to do so unencumbered by the fear that law enforcement can ask if you are actually a legal gun carrier, why wouldn’t someone with bad intent do this? Here’s another Texas case to consider:

Domestic terrorist Larry McQuilliams — an anti-immigration extremist who fired a machine gun at Austin Police headquarters, a federal courthouse, and the Mexican Consulate last November, before an Austin police officer shot him down — would have been safe from police scrutiny right up until the moment be began shooting had Texas lawmakers already passed the open carry law that’s about to land on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

That’s the opinion of Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, who sat for an interview with Austin.com on Wednesday afternoon. His comments below follow a short essay published Tuesday in which Acevedo expresses dire concern about an amendment to House Bill 910 that would prevent police officers from asking people who are openly carrying handguns whether or not they’re licensed to do so. The Texas House passed that bill on Monday by a vote of 101-42, after defeating an amendment that would have allowed large cities to opt out.

“If [Larry] McQuilliams had a pistol… The only way we would have stopped him [if HB 910 were law] is if he had brandished that weapon in a threatening manner,” Acevedo told Austin.com. “Obviously, he went so far as to shoot up occupied buildings, actually shooting at police officers in front of the main headquarters, but had he been walking around the federal building or the Mexican Consulate with just a gun on his hip, we would have never been able to ask him anything about the gun or about whether or not he had a permit to have the gun.”

This seems like a good policy, right? I mean- why not protect terrorists and felons with guns because- rights? This is the extent to which our elected leaders are going to protect gun rights and appease the gun lobby. The irony of all of this is that when gun rights are treated this way, we are encouraging vigilantism and an “anything goes” culture that will not end well. This, of course, is the ideology behind Stand Your Ground Laws which have already shown that upstanding “law abiding” citizens like George Zimmerman can shoot an unarmed teen because- well, just because- and get away with it.

Reasonable gun owners understand the implication of proposed laws like this one- a gun shop owner from South Carolina commenting on the proposed bill to let anyone who wants to carry a gun carry one without training or a permit. He calls it reckless in the video interview in the link. Yes, it’s reckless. Why don’t our legislators understand this? They, themselves, are reckless when they are afraid to stand up to the gun lobby. What are they thinking? Where is common sense? In the video the gun shop owner said this: “…because I believe incidents will happen through untrained and uneducated people.” Great. Whatever. Does anyone care that “incidents will happen”?

There’s a pattern here, right? You can see it. Can our leaders see it? Or are they so blinded by fear of the corporate gun lobby that they have abrogated their responsibility for public safety to the industry itself whose main interest is profits? Logical?

Occasionally the justice system does work as with this Florida case of a 3 year old who found a gun in her mother’s purse and accidentally shot the mother:

The toddler had accidentally shot Gillilan with a handgun that she’d left in her purse, Davie police said.

Now, nearly three months after the Feb. 2 incident, Gillilan is charged with culpable negligence by storing or leaving a loaded firearm within easy reach of a minor.

Toddler shot mother, police say
Toddler shot mother, police say
Gillilan, who also has a 1-year-old son, told an investigator that the shooting, which happened at a home in the 4800 block of Southwest 59th Street in Davie, was her mistake.

“I should’ve never left the gun in my purse like that! I never do!” she was quoted as saying in a police report. “I’m just glad that I was the one who got shot, and not my boys!”

Gillilan said she usually kept the small-caliber, semi-automatic handgun in the trunk of her car, but she was in the process of transferring items to a new vehicle, according to police.

In front of the children, police said, she put the registered weapon in her purse in a bedroom. (…)

Gillilan is a state-licensed security officer with a firearms license, state records show. She told police that’s why she keeps a gun.

It doesn’t appear to matter that a gun owner is licensed or serving as a security or police officer. (girl shoots sister with father’s loaded service gun). Negligence with guns is happening every day. Without charges brought in order to encourage better gun safety practices, they will continue. With over 300 million guns in circulation or sitting around somewhere, negligence with these lethal weapons is inevitable. Just as with other consumer products, people misuse them and cause injury and death. When a drunk driver kills someone in an auto accident, there are laws intended to hold that person responsible- criminal vehicular homicide. These statutes passed in states all over America are meant as public safety laws to discourage bad behavior while driving cars, not as punishment to those who follow the rules. Legislators used a lot of common sense when passing laws like these.

Some states have Child Access Prevention laws meant to hold parents responsible when a child accesses a gun and uses it to accidentally kill him/herself or someone else. They are often not enforced because of the guilt already felt by grieving parents for a dead child. Further, the NRA has often opposed such laws, believing, as I wrote in my previous post, that their Eddie Eagle program will be enough to stop kids from gaining access to an adult’s loaded gun:

I’m not saying the Eddie Eagle program doesn’t work. I’m saying that to use a totally non-validated safety program as an excuse for opposing CAP laws is shabby at best, harmful and unsafe at worst. The real reason that unintentional gun injuries have declined over the past twenty years is because gun makers have phased in more safety engineering (e.g., floating firing pins) and states now require additional safety features such as loaded chamber indicators and minimum trigger-pull weights. But neither factor invalidates Shannon’s call for more comprehensive CAP laws. If the NRA was really serious about representing all those responsible gun owners, they would welcome laws that require guns to be locked or locked away.

So, where were we? Ah yes. We were discussing the “logic” of the gun lobby’s arguments against gun safety reform. Ironically, their opposition to common sense gun safety laws has contributed to gun negligence because of a gun culture that encourages anyone to own guns without proper training and the known risks of loaded guns in homes and public places. Denying the research and the facts is not making us safer. Loosening gun laws will not do the trick.

This is all part and parcel of the national conversation we need to hold about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Until we face this public health and safety issue head on, without the encumbrance of the second amendment holding us hostage, we will not solve the problem. And solve it we must. Lives are at stake.

Gun rights advocates are wrong about kids and guns

April 27, 2015April 28, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, American gun culture, Cliff Schecter, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, Daily Kos, David Waldman, domestic shootings, Gun Death Tally-Faces of the Dead, kids and guns1 Comment

children shot — From Gun Death Tally- Faces of the Dead

I had a recent exchange with a gun rights advocate on my Twitter feed about keeping kids safe from guns. It all started when I posted this article written by my friend Cliff Schecter for Daily Beast. The article is about a cartoon made by someone at the NRA attempting to get kids to like guns and believe that if only they know some safety rules, a gun will never be used irresponsibly by them or anyone around them. From the article:

Think of it as a Joe Camel for the modern age. With armor-piercing bullets.

Ostensibly, it’s part of their “Eddie The Eagle program,” which instructs kids to run away from guns left lying around because bigger people in their lives still can own a firearm. And own them they do, as well as enjoying the freedom (!) to leave them pretty much any damn place they please. And because of the NRA’s efforts in parts of the South, West, and Midwest, these edified souls can now leave them in more places where a little one can find them—because nursery schools, parks, libraries, airports, and churches just didn’t have the same loving feeling without the guns.

So after creating the situation that puts over 650 in a hospital per annum and killed 62 kids a year from 2007 to 2011, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control (do you see why the NRA suppressed funding for gun studies for so long? For the NRA, statistics are bad), what to do to stop it?

First, they created Eddie The Eagle, who I guess is supposed to be like Smokey Bear, Old Glory, and one of the few animals not yet shot by Ted Nugent all wrapped into one. But now they have him in animated form, where he and his friends sing, dance, play video games, use the phrases the kids use (“like a true fashionista, heyyyy!”) and forget to run away from a gun, but promise the next time they see one, they’ll boogie on out of the room posthaste.

Schecter goes on to point out what is pretty obvious to most- unsecured loaded guns in homes with children are a really bad idea. More from the article:

Which they won’t because—as a piece on ABC News recently detailed—even after being instructed not to touch a gun, kids (who didn’t know they were on camera) will go right for them anyway:

More than 50 teenagers participated in the samePrimeTime experiment and many, including those who had recently received warnings to stay away from guns, responded similarly, agonizing over whether to tell an adult, playing with the gun, and aiming it at one another.

Even warning and educating kids about the danger of guns can have absolutely no effect on their behavior, the ABC News investigation shows. One teenager whose friend was recently killed in a shooting didn’t even hesitate before grabbing a gun.

But hey, in the video—in an effort to show how serious he is about preventing this kind of a tragedy from occurring—Eddie’s friend Officer Wingman tells the kids in quick succession: “You guys made the right decision. It’s always the best choice to get away from a gun. Who wants pizza?”

As the photo above shows in stark reality, way too many small children have been killed by guns just in the month of March of this year. Does the gun lobby care about these mostly avoidable deaths? Does seeing the faces of the actual dead even make a dent in the thinking of those who believe we are safer with loaded guns everywhere we go? How can the man who was arguing with me on Twitter actually believe that just properly training children about guns will do the trick? He has no common sense. Another gun rights advocate chimed in on this Twitter exchange saying that it’s no different than teaching kids not to touch matches and knives as well. As responsible adults, haven’t we learned the hard way that telling small children not to touch doesn’t work? Often it evokes the opposite response- touch whatever it is you have just admonished a child NOT to touch.

You can read the articles about how each of these children pictured above died by a firearm injury if you click on the photo on this Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gun-Death-Tally-Faces-of-the-Dead/552514904768968) page. The fact that we are now keeping track of these deaths is both a good thing and also a reflection of our gun culture. We have it all wrong. Many, if not most, of these deaths could have been prevented with some common sense and an awareness of the risks of guns in the home.

David Waldman who is keeping track of gun deaths and injuries for Daily Kos in a blog called GunFail, has also published a map of unintentional shootings of children 18 and under in 2014. Stunning. Click on the circle on the map for the article. No other civilized country not at war publishes statistics like this. We are better than this.

The answer is to keep dangerous things away from children in the first place. Should we teach young kids how to use matches responsibly? Should we teach our young kids how to cut apples with a sharp knife?

They’ve got it wrong. Look at the photo. Can we train 3 year olds to use guns responsibly? Of course not. From the linked article:

A 3-year-old boy picked up an unattended gun inside a home and it went off, shooting a 1-year-old boy in the face and killing him Sunday afternoon, police said.

The 1-year-old was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said investigators are trying to determine where the gun came from.

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.

“It’s a sad day for Cleveland,” he told reporters outside the home. “This fascination that we have with handguns, not just in this city but in this country, has to stop. This is a senseless loss of life … and it’s directly related to guns. We need to really take a hard look at the things that we’re doing out there on the state, local, and the national level to get some of these guns out of our communities. Because nothing good ever happens.”

“…Because nothing good ever happens.” We are better than this.

We can’t even train 9 year olds to shoot Uzis correctly. Go figure:

The new report, released by the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday, sheds some new light on Vacca’s death. Among other things, it reveals that the girl said immediately after firing the gun that it was too powerful for her and had hurt her, something that delayed her family from immediately realizing that Vacca had been shot.

Duh! Come on. What adult in their right mind thinks a 9 year old should be able to handle an Uzi? It’s that fascination with guns that is leading to unintentional and sometimes intentional deaths. 8 children a day die from gunshot injuries in homicides, suicides and “accidental “shootings and many more are injured. That is simply not OK and it’s wrong. It’s wrong for so many children to die or become victims of gunshot injuries every day in a country that is supposed to be “exceptional.”

What is wrong with the “responsible” adults here? And can we talk about the dangers of domestic disputes involving loaded guns? Women and children and sometimes entire families are wiped out in just seconds by an angry person with a loaded gun. Guns are not making us safer.

The adults in the corporate gun lobby are busy trying to convince us all that loaded guns should be a “normal” part of our lives. “Law abiding” gun owners should be allowed to carry their guns in places where families gather to play, eat, learn and work. No problem, right? And also to carry these guns openly so we can all get used to armed people walking around on our streets and eating in restaurants where we all assume we will be safe. And so our legislators got deceived and believed them. Did legislators understand that “law abiding” gun owners like this one would threaten coaches and parents at a youth softball game when his granddaughter didn’t get to play?:

Caller: “We’ve got a parent that just pulled a gun at a softball game! He’s leaving the Chandler softball field right now!”

That frantic 911 call came just minutes after a girls’ little league softball game ended in Chandler Tuesday.

Video: Man accused of pointing gun at people during little league softball game

When one Davenport player didn’t get put in during a game in Chandler, police said her grandfather wasn’t happy.

He went to his car, got his gun, came back and pointed it at the children, parents and the coach. Good grief. This could have ended very badly. Was this man held responsible for his actions or did he get off because- because- because- rights? From the article:

“This is not behavior that’s acceptable to any of us — Davenport, or Chandler, or any of the softball leagues in Lincoln County,” Hulsey said. “This is far, far away from what we teach our girls.”

Gibbs was arrested and is facing charges of pointing a firearm and disturbing the peace, but police said he could be facing even more charges in the future.

“This is not behavior that’s acceptable to any of us…” What do we want to teach our children about guns? What was learned at the softball game? That guns solve problems? That a coach should be shot over not playing a child in a game? That’s it’s OK for a man to point a loaded gun around at a park? That children should model adults and when they get old enough to carry a gun, they, too, can bring a loaded gun to a softball game and threaten a bunch of people with it? Seriously. Where is common sense?

Our children are at risk. They are at risk, not mostly from strangers or criminals out to kill them. They are risk from their own families with guns. Take this 8 year Georgia boy, now tragically and avoidably dead at the hands of his own father because he was an angry man with a gun.

This is a scenario played out on a regular basis all over America. And what do we do? We run away from any sensible discussion or solutions. Why? Because… because…because.- rights.

Right. We are better than this. The gun rights extremists are wrong. Guns are a risk in homes and in public places where they are now carried. And what we are getting is dead children. Also dead adults. This does not seem like the kind of communities we want for our children and families. Let’s get to work to change the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. We can change things if we have the common will to do so and if our fascination with guns also includes a fascination with protecting innocent victims from injuries and deaths inflicted by the guns.

UPDATE:

I found this article written by a Harvard student for the Washington Post which confirms what I have written in my post about the gun lobby’s position regarding gun safety and children:

Because of this difficulty, each time the NRA has been confronted with the child-death problem, it has adopted what might be called a “Look—what’s that over there?” strategy. The organization tries to paint media coverage of the deaths as the true problem; when a 9-year old killed her shooting range instructor with an Uzi, the NRA called the outcry “exploitative” and a “trick” by “anti-gun advocates in the media.” Alternatively, spokespeople point to other ways children die, and other kinds of gun deaths, to downplay the seriousness of the issue. The NRA has a habit of suddenly become very interested in bicycle accident statistics when the issue is raised, and Gun Owners of America insists that children are “more likely to die by choking on their dinner,” as if choking deaths is at all pertinent to gun deaths. Occasionally, they go as far as Tennessee State Rep. Glen Casada, who when speaking in support of the state’s new NRA-promoted guns-in parks bill, called these deaths “acts of God,” about which nothing could possibly be done.

Of course, we know one thing that could be done: We could admit that there are too many guns and get serious about reducing their number. These child-deaths are a uniquely American problem; in other countries, simply accepting such an endless string of accidental killings would be unthinkable. And as the child accident statistics have poured in, so have those on the efficacy of gun control: It’s becoming harder and harder to deny that more guns equals more violence. We also know that massive restrictions can have major positive effects. The word “Australia” is verboten among the gun rights crowd now that Australia has succeeded in cutting its firearm death rate by 59 percent after passing sweeping prohibitions on gun ownership. In fact, the Australian case offers such rock solid evidence of the life-saving potential of gun control that the pro-gun side has struggled to offer any response, except to yelp, “But you’re talking about confiscation!” (To which one might reply: “And?”) So there is a way to avoid having our preschools look like a Peckinpah film. It just involves some tough measures. (…) Since they strongly oppose both ownership restrictions and parent accountability, one might expect the NRA to emphasize safety. Yet the prevailing attitude appears to be that even talk of basic responsible ownership is for wusses and Constitution-haters. The NRA has waged all-out war against pediatricians and the CDC for recommending gun safety to parents, lobbying hard for laws to prohibit doctors from even discussing firearms risks with families. They’ve also stood staunchly against any effort to require that guns be kept safely stored out of the reach of children. The massive Nashville conference schedule contains endless presentations on the necessity of an armed citizenry, but apparently not a single event on safety or training. There are all kinds of rousing flourishes about “our role as an Armed American Citizen in the future challenges to our nation,” and how one’s weapon must always be at the ready because “danger can lurk around any given corner.” There are even sessions to discuss new strategies for skirting or dismantling the measly remaining gun control laws.

(…) The tradeoffs between safety and accessibility put the NRA in a bind. Either it must acknowledge that these deaths will be a logical consequence of its policies, or it must retreat from its absolutist position on regulation. Neither seems likely, which is why the organization will spend its time in Nashville listening to Nugent and studying military history, carefully avoiding the one conversation it is desperate not to have.

As I say often, this is the national conversation we must have about the role of guns and gun violence in America.

Guns and mass shootings- as American as apple pie and country music

April 21, 2015April 21, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", "law abiding" gun owners, access to guns, American gun culture, Columbine shooting, common sense gun laws, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, gun suicides, kids and guns, Million Mom March, Sandy Hook Promise, school shootings, Tim McGraw

It’s the land of “milk and honey”. It’s the land of the free. It’s the land of rock and roll and country music. It’s the land of apple pie and barbecue. It’s the land of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. It’s the land of wide open spaces and crowded cities. It’s the land of cowboys. It’s the land of slaves. It’s the land of Native American reservations. It’s the land of plenty and the land of slums. It’s the land of oceans, mountains, deserts and lakes. It’s the land of guns. It’s the land of school shootings. It’s the land of child shootings and gun suicides. It’s the land of domestic shootings and officer shootings. It’s the land of the corporate gun lobby.

An article about how America dealt with the Columbine shooting caught my attention this morning. Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of that heinous shooting that seemed to be a marker for all that followed. It is why so many Americans showed up to march on Mothers’ Day of 2000 in the Million Mom March. Americans were horrified that they could watch a mass school shooting on TV and wanted not to do that again. We were hopeful that common sense would prevail and something would change. What seemed to change was the fervor of the gun rights extremists in the face of possibilities to do something about school shootings and everyday shootings. Instead of working together to stop the violence, the gun lobby dug in its’ heels and ever since has become more and more resistant and militant. Their iconic leader, Wayne LaPierre appears to be more unhinged with every passing NRA convention and every mass shooting.

But I digress. More from the first linked article, above:

After Columbine there was a general sense that something had to be done. That kids getting killed at school was a thing we weren’t going to be okay with. “Never again,” as they say.

It wasn’t some fanciful impossibility. The British did it after Dunblane. And so we did that. Everyone got together and passed sweeping gun control legislation and there was never another mass shooting in America.

Except not really. Because the “never again” response—though shared by many—was not shared by all. (…)

Both responses, “never again” and “don’t bother trying,” offer statements about the USA. The former says “America is the greatest country on Earth. We went to the moon. Surely, we can stop kids from getting shot to death at school! If the Brits can do it, so can we. ” The latter says, “No, we can’t. We’re America. The greatest country on Earth and the cost of the liberty that makes us so is that our kids may get shot to death at school.”

Every time there is another mass shooting and nothing happens it becomes a little easier to believe that the “don’t bother” crowd is right.

Don’t bother.

And when someone bothers to do something about our nation’s public health and safety epidemic, it’s not OK with the gun rights extremists. It’s not OK with the gun lobby to suggest that gun safety reform will make us safer without infringing on their “God given” rights to do anything they want with their lethal weapons. Apparently it’s not OK for performers to have the freedom to perform benefit concerts for causes of their choice.

The gun nuts have come unglued over country singer Tim McGraw’s upcoming performance to benefit the Sandy Hook Promise organization. I wrote about this in my previous post but the furor is worse than ever. It’s bothersome that facts don’t matter in this case. Of course the Sandy Hook Promise is not “anti-gun” but that doesn’t bother the gun nuts.

So let’s be bothered by the extremism and myths about gun violence. We should be bothered enough to do something about this national epidemic. Changing the conversation is a first step. Even that would bother the gun extremists. Strengthening our laws to reduce and prevent some of our gun violence would not be bothersome to gun rights no matter what is hyped about it. Let’s make America the land of gun safety reform and the public health of our children and families. That we haven’t bothered to do that so far is a national tragedy.

It’s no accident that the NRA ignores “accidental” shootings

April 10, 2015April 10, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", access to guns, American gun culture, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, kids and guns, NRA, NRA convention, Senator Rand Paul, Ted Nugent, Wayne LaPierre

As a recent article in the Washington Post noted, the NRA has a real problem with their messaging when it comes to the epidemic of child shootings:

As the National Rifle Association’s annual conference hits Nashville this weekend with 70,000 expected attendees, the organization has good reason to be upbeat. For another year, it has succeeded in stalling legislative attempts at moderate gun controls, rolling back existing state regulations and winning media battles. But there’s a looming question that should be seriously concerning the NRA and its supporters: how to reconcile the organization’s agenda with new evidence on the prevalence of gun accidents involving children.

Over the past year, new studies and media reports have documented America’s extraordinary number of child-involved shootings. These occur when a child happens upon a gun, or is left alone with one, and ends up shooting themselves or another person. Such disasters result in hundreds of child fatalities and have made American children nine times more likely to die in gun accidents than children anywhere else in the developed world. These deaths pose a massive challenge for the NRA. They demonstrate fairly conclusively that guns cannot be both safe and ubiquitous; the inevitable consequence of widespread gun ownership is a never-ending series of tragedies involving children. But, desperate to insist there’s nothing wrong, the NRA has proved itself totally incapable of responding to the problem.

It’s not just that the NRA is incapable or in denial. It’s purposeful that the corporate gun lobby ignores the easy access to guns by children. They don’t seem to care and claim that just telling kids not to touch a gun will do the trick. Well, it doesn’t. That has been shown over and over in videos and studies. From this linked article:

Despite harrowing tragedies like Caroline’s death, the National Rifle Association iscommitted to expanding firearm ownership among children. The NRA’s recent convention in Indianapolis included a “Youth Day” to promote firearms for children, an event from which the media was banned. For years, gun manufacturers and the NRA have marketed firearms to children ages 5 to 12, insisting that programs such as the Eddie Eagle Safety Program ensure the safety of children. If they truly believe this, they are mistaken.

The overwhelming empirical evidence indicates that the presence of a gun makes children less safe; that programs such as Eddie Eagle are insufficient; and that measures the NRA and extreme gun advocates vehemently oppose, such as gun safes and smart guns, could dramatically reduce the death toll. Study after study unequivocally demonstrates that the prevalence of firearms directly increases the risk of youth homicide, suicide, and unintentional death. This effect is consistent across the United States and throughout the world. As a country, we should be judged by how well we protect our children. By any measure, we are failing horribly.

And when a 2 or 3 year old finds a gun, the idea that they could understand not to touch a gun is ludicrous. It’s no accident that the NRA ignores this. For when profits come before common sense and saving lives, the result is a nation of children shooting themselves, or another child who is often a sibling. Occasionally a bullet discharged accidentally by a gun held by a child hits a parent as well here and here. (These are just 2 of other examples)

Sure, the NRA has some good programs to train kids to use a gun for hunting but they claim that their Eddie Eagle program will do the trick to keep kids from accessing guns in the home. There is no proof of this. Young kids and guns just don’t go together. And, as the above article suggests, putting the burden of gun safety on the children themselves rather than the adults in charge is a bad idea.

Remember the young girl who was brought by her parents to a gun range to try out a machine gun? It ended with the death of the instructor. What an awful burden for that 9 year old to carry through the rest of her life. What were the adults thinking? When we have a corporate gun lobby that is more interested in making sure the next generation will be encouraged to buy guns than in the safety of that generation, that is what we get. This is just not happening in other civilized, democratized countries.

As a nation, do we have to be hit in the head before we decide to do something about our national epidemic of gun violence? What will it take before the gun lobby joins with the rest of us in truly trying to prevent at least some of the avoidable and preventable shootings of and by children? Guns are dangerous weapons designed to kill people. They are not toys or just an average consumer product. One of the things we recognize in this country is that safety and health measures need to be in place to protect our children from harm. If this means that more people come to understand the risks of having guns in their homes, we may actually manage to save some lives.

But the NRA and others in the corporate gun lobby ignore those risks because their messaging is all about the fear and paranoia of not having a gun in the home or strapped to your waist at all times. Young families with children are led to believe that without a gun in the home, they won’t be safe from whatever the heck people are afraid of. Burglaries? Most occur when home owners are not at home. Gangs?Zombies? The government? A crazy relative? Actual home invasions are frightening for sure and there are people who have stopped them with a gun. These incidents are more rare than children with access to loaded guns shooting themselves or others.

You may remember that I commented in my last post that not one of my readers made a comment about all of the accidental discharges of guns by law abiding gun owners or the access to a gun provided by a parent or family member, presumably a law abiding gun owner. That’s because those in the gun rights crowd want their loaded guns at the ready at all times and if locked up securely where kids and burglars can’t get them, they may not be available at that instant when someone comes to take away your guns or tries to break into your home. Which is the greater risk?

And further problems for the NRA, though they don’t see it that way, is that the term corporate gun lobby is employed by those of us in the gun violence prevention community for a very good reason. Check out the huge check for $600,000 donated by Smith and Wesson to the NRA for employee benefits. Follow the money.

Other things to watch for this week-end:

How will those folks who pack heat deal with the fact that one of the venues for the convention will be a “gun free zone” where NRA lobbyists, leaders and their supporters claim people are unsafe and where killers go to do their shootings?
All of the Republican presidential candidates will speak except one- Rand Paul. He was not invited apparently. I guess he’s too extreme even for the NRA folks having aligned himself with several other more extreme gun rights groups than even the NRA.
Gun violence prevention groups are making sure the media and public know about the hypocrisy and extremism of the NRA.
Ted Nugent, always good for his offensive statements, will be there but Sarah Palin, whose inane speeches have caused some attention at past NRA conventions, has canceled this year. This is from her “memorable” speech at last year’s convention:

“Well, if I were in charge,” she continued, as the audience erupted in applause at the prospect, “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

She criticized the administration for pursuing a national security strategy that, in her estimation, pokes “our allies in the eye, calling them adversaries, instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies.”

Palin also rallied the pro-gun audience to continue protecting their right to bear arms, saying their efforts are “needed now more than ever because every day, we are seeing more and more efforts to strip away our Second Amendment rights.”

Good grief.

There will be fact checking after remarks from politicians and NRA leaders.

Every year the NRA convention highlights the total lack of common sense when it comes to gun policy and our American gun culture. I’m sure this year will not disappoint.

More or less hypocrisy?

April 8, 2015April 9, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, Everytown for Gun Safety, Iowa gun laws, NRA, Wayne LaPierre

More often than not, I find links to articles to support what I am writing. Occasionally, however, information is not accurate and needs to be updated or corrected. I am writing this to correct what I wrote in my last post. Though it has been difficult to assess with accuracy, it does look like concealed carry permit holders will be allowed to carry guns inside of the Nashville Music Center at the upcoming NRA convention. What I learned from my own sources is that guns are not allowed in the music performance center but are allowed in the convention center attached to it. But one can see why there is confusion because this sentence from the security section about the convention says: ” All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed.” Seems like that could mean ALL guns on the floor. But, from one of my readers who presumes to know:

Carry is permitted at NRA HQ in Fairfax by everyone, this is also allowed at NRA Annual Meeting unless it’s prohibited by the venue. The last place that carry was prohibited by the venue was in Charlotte, and that law has since been changed to allow carry at that venue in the event of a future return there.

The article you found only applies to firearms being displayed at Annual Meeting as part of an exhibit, not firearms being legally carried. It is just a common sense safety measure to render exhibit firearms inoperable.

So yes, apparently loaded guns will be allowed inside of the Nashville Convention Center if this reader is correct. That should be fun. Hopefully there will be no “accidental” discharges by any of those “good guys” with guns. There was a recent case of this at a gun range in Florida where armed police officers were training. One of the guns accidentally discharged, killing another officer. It happens. Thus one can see why allowing a bunch of armed people in one place could be a very bad idea. But, whatever. It looks like there is no concern for that at NRA conventions. Except all of those guns on display that will be handled by armed folks need to be unloaded. Why? To prevent “accidental discharges”. Hypocrisy.

(Updated since first posted) Not so fast. I have learned that guns are not allowed in Bridgestone Arena at the Nashville Convention Center. So I guess armed visitors will have to disarm if they want to attend any workshops or events at this venue.

The problem with the idea that ALL permit holders will be safe with their guns and nothing bad will happen is that it’s not true. I write about such incidents on this blog all the time. In my last post I wrote about a man whose gun discharged “accidentally” at an Easter mass church service. It turns out that there’s a lot more to that story. Check it out in this latest report:

Officials at Mount Aloysius College confirmed the same man expelled for having a gun on campus, is the same one who police say saw his gun go off during an Easter mass over the weekend.

On Tuesday, WTAJ obtained a letter to students sent out by the school, letting them know that Matt Crawford, the man expelled from school last week, is now at the center of another gun related incident.

Back in 2010, Crawford was arrested after pulling a gun on a relative during an argument. He faced simple assault charges then.

Shouldn’t the 2010 incident disqualify this guy from keeping his permit? If not, it should because his pattern of gun handling and carrying seems pretty dangerous to me. This one was an accident or intentional shooting waiting to happen. But the gun lobby has pushed legislators into the false premise that permit holders will be safe with their guns and there won’t be incidents like this. As more people carry guns in more public places because of the loosening of gun laws all over the country, we can expect to see more incidents like the this one. This is the hypocrisy of the gun lobby. The thing is, lives are at stake. Public safety is at stake.

And speaking of more hypocrisy, not one gun rights advocate reading my blog commented on all of the examples I gave of “good guys” with guns shooting people intentionally or unintentionally. Why not? Because those incidents don’t fit with the ideas purported by them about more guns making everyone safer. In fact, the lies are still coming and continue to come. Check out this Iowa legislator who made a false claim about a bill but got caught in his hyperbole. From the article:

While critics have argued the measure opens a loophole that would allow some buyers to avoid background checks, Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, told The Des Moines Register it would actually lead to more background checks for firearm purchases.

We rate this statement FALSE.

In a follow-up interview, Windschitl clarified that his statement was an “assumption” and wasn’t rooted in any evidence. In fact, the data necessary to determine how the law would affect the number of background checks performed and firearms purchased aren’t collected and don’t exist.

Windschitl’s prediction is also based on questionable logic. It assumes that firearms consumers will not take advantage of the option to forgo a permit, and that private sellers will go out of their way to perform background checks on prospective buyers.

Sigh…..

And in Tennessee, again, a bill has been proposed to ban squirt guns but allow real guns in school zones :

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill Monday night that makes it illegal to take a squirt gun — but not a real gun — within 150 feet of a school.

The new ban was included in a larger bill that would nix any local laws prohibiting people with gun permits from taking guns to parks.

You can’t make this stuff up. What are people thinking? Real guns are clearly more dangerous than toy guns. Yes, I know that kids have been shot by officers when they have been carrying air soft guns or other toy type guns. But that’s not the point here. If you are going to ban any kind of gun in a school zone, it needs to be all guns. But the corporate gun lobby, of course, is against banning guns anywhere. Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see.

So during the upcoming NRA convention in Nashville, armed attendees will be treated to the usual ridiculous nonsense spewed by Wayne LaPierre, whose over the top rhetoric is meant to inspire fear and paranoia. His speeches are amazing for the content, hardly any of which is true. So a new video produced by Everytown for Gun Safety makes those speeches all the more ridiculous. When children say the words, they come out seeming like the nonsense they are. “Li’l Wayne LaPierres” can say it in a way that adults just can’t. Kids know baloney when they see and hear it and they also sometimes have more common sense than the adults.

And last, as to concealed guns allowed at NRA headquarters, information is not easy to obtain. A friend called NRA headquarters and someone there confirmed that something had changed regarding their policy about no guns inside so apparently now permit holders can carry inside of the building. It’s likely only in the public areas and not in the offices of the CEO and other leaders of the organization. I’m sure they would want to be safe from guys like the Altoona permit holder I wrote about above.

No guns allowed at NRA convention and other gun hypocrisy

April 6, 2015April 8, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", background checks, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, domestic shootings, NRA, Parents Against Gun Violence, research on gun violence, Wayne LaPierre1 Comment

I have updated and edited this post since I first posted it.

Easter is now past and Passover is being celebrated this week. I attended a wonderful church service at a church attended by my son and his family before we had Easter brunch. It was an uplifting, celebratory service in a church filled to the brim as they often are at this Christian holiday. The pastors told several relevant stories of the season based on the Biblical accounts of the resurrection. I looked around at the families and was feeling thankful for this chance to celebrate my own faith with others who believe in similar values to mine.

I would have been horrified to think that one of those folks sitting there with their families was carrying a gun at the church. There are just some places where guns should not be. Church is one. Places where families and children gather are another. And that, actually, makes for most places where the gun lobby has managed to convince too many bought and paid for legislators that guns are “needed.” Facts don’t support this “logic.” But the gun rights advocates tell stories that don’t make sense and are actually unbelievable to instill fear and paranoia into legislators and the potential gun buying public. We need true stories and actual research in order to make informed decisions about important public safety measures such as preventing gun violence.

Before the gun lobby squelched research about the causes and effects of gun violence, here is what was found:

We were collecting information to answer the question of who, what, where, when, and how did shootings occur?

We were finding that most homicides occur between people who know each other, people who are acquaintances or might be doing business together or might be living together. They’re not stranger-on-stranger shootings. They’re not mostly home intrusions.

We also found that there were a lot of firearm suicides, and in fact most firearm deaths are suicides. There were a lot of young people who were impulsive who were using guns to commit suicide.

No wonder the gun lobby doesn’t like this research. It blows a hole in their messaging and story telling.

Let’s look at just a few of the many incidents in the past week or so. It’s impossible for me to get them all into one blog post. Remember- about 80 Americans a day die from gunshot injuries in gun suicides, homicides and “accidental” shootings. I don’t make this stuff up. OK- a partial list:

4 are dead in a Tulsa, OK domestic shooting- a murder/suicide. Good guy with a gun or bad guy with a gun?

A Georgia woman fired shots at her son in an argument. Accidental? Hmmm. Good women with a gun or bad woman with a gun?

“Someone” fired a gun off in an Indiana apartment sending a bullet through the floor into the apartment below. The bullet just missed the resident in the apartment below. Lucky for the person who fired the shot off. Lucky for the man sitting on his couch minding his own business. Good guy with a gun or bad guy with a gun?

A Wisconsin man with a Utah concealed carry permit fired shots at a police officer in Nashville, Tennessee the other day. Good guy with a gun or bad guy with a gun?

Also in Wisconsin, a gun permit holder has twice left her loaded gun in the washroom of her church and not been charged for reckless behavior. I love this quote from the article:

Grieve also represented Hitchler’s husband, Gerald Hitchler. He left his loaded handgun in the men’s room of the Egg Harbor Fun Park in August. Sheriff’s officials and prosecutors reviewed the incident, but did not charge Gerald Hitchler.

Nik Clark, president of Wisconsin Carry, Inc., a gun rights advocacy group, said his group was puzzled why the DA’s office “didn’t re-examine their pursuit of charges after the first charge was dismissed.”

He also said the case “demonstrates the fundamental level of discrimination that exists in society today with respect to firearms.” He said power tools, lighters and poisons all cause more child deaths that unattended guns, yet no one would be charged for leaving those items in a restroom.

Good grief. What is the matter with these people? Are these good folks with guns or bad folks with guns?

Here, now, is an actual bad guy with a gun who allowed access to a gun he shouldn’t have to a 2 year old who shot and badly injured himself in a North Carolina home. This one is a case for “where did he get his gun?” This is a totally avoidable and preventable shooting. And another family is affected by the devastation of gunshot injuries and this incident can be added to the many others involving child access to loaded guns provided by adults.

This is getting long but I’m adding another shooting that just came to my attention. A supposed New York”good guy” with a gun shot his wife, her son and himself because he felt disrespected. That’s a good reason to kill 3 people, right? This doesn’t happen with knives, ropes, or some other methods of death. It’s all too easy with a gun.

And oops- one more. In Georgia a “good guy” with a gun thought he heard a coyote and fired his gun ( he said “accidentally”) but the bullet grazed a 5 year old boy. Is this a “good guy” or a “bad guy”? I’m just asking.

A Pennsylvania man was “test firing” a gun in the basement of his home where kids were gathered. A bullet “accidentally” discharged, hitting a 9 year old in the head leaving him in serious condition. Good guy with a gun or bad guy with a gun?

What kind of “good guys” with guns are these? Or for that matter, any of the incidents I write about in this post today. Did these “good guys” need their guns to defend from “bad guys” with guns? The answer is a resounding NO. Guns are risky business. That is becoming more and more obvious, as if it already was not. But the gun rights extremists who believe in the mantra of “more guns everywhere for everyone” and the fear and paranoia coming from the corporate gun lobby, convince our legislators that passing any law will infringe on their rights. They are telling false stories to keep their power, influence and profit. Do these folks have a right to shoot off their guns wherever they are and get away with shooting someone else or almost shooting someone else by their negligence? Is this the “God given” right we are talking about?

I want to talk about what’s going on in the world of guns and gun extremists. The one that’s making the rounds amongst the gun violence prevention folks on blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds is a quote from a Tennessee legislator when asked what he thought about a bill to allow loaded guns in parks:

Well, in Tennessee there’s currently a push by the state legislature to allow guns in state parks. Prior to an NRA convention in Nashville, state Rep. Glen Casada was questioned about this push in his state and what he would think about a child being struck and killed by a stray bullet while playing in one of these parks. His answer? If that were to happen, those would just be “acts of God.” He also went on to suggest that a child is just as likely to get killed in a bicycle accident as they are by a gun, claiming that if a gun is “used properly” it’s no more dangerous than a bike.

“Acts of God…” Really? I guess if you can’t blame anything else, you can just blame God for those nasty “accidental gun discharges.” I mean, these are the folks who believe God granted them their rights to own guns in the first place. Think about this for a minute or two. And if you do, you will, of course, conclude that is not possible. But I guess thinking through to logical conclusions based on fact is just not part of the discussion for some folks.

Speaking of “acts of God”and gun discharges, a gun permit holder in Altoona, PA “accidentally” discharged his loaded gun while attending a church service. I don’t make this stuff up. The first question about this incident is why the man was pulling his gun out of his pocket while attending a mass in a church? I’m sure God would love to know that people think they need guns while worshiping because……… well, because……… Hmmm. Sorry. Can’t think of one reason why someone needs a gun in church. But what makes common sense is just not part of the discussion for some folks. Good guy with a gun or bad guy with a gun?

There is new information about the man who was involved in this incident. From this article:

The gun owner involved in an accidental shooting at a cathedral in Altoona is the same man who was expelled from Mount Aloysius College last week for bringing a gun inside a classroom. Charges were not filed in the Mount Aloysius incident, and charges have not been filed in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament incident, so 6 News is choosing not to release the man’s name. (…) That man reached out to 6 News and said he has a permit to carry and said the incident at the cathedral was an accident. He also confirmed he was the Mount Aloysius student who was expelled for bringing a gun into a classroom. The man said in this case, his shirt rode up, exposing his concealed weapon, and it was just an honest mistake. Police said he will not face charges for the Mount Aloysius incident, and there is no word yet if he will be facing charges in the church incident.

Excuse me, but, as Rachel Maddow says, “bullpucky”.

Were the people who died, were injured or suffered a narrow miss with a bullet involved in “acts of God”? Because if they were, according to some folks who boldly and falsely make this claim, there is nothing we can do about any of these shootings. And that, dear readers, is exactly what the gun lobby wants you to think. Doing nothing is better than infringing on their “God given” rights. People dying? No problem. It’s the price of a constitutional right. It’s also the price of a gun culture gone wrong.

As you might expect, the bishop of the Pennsylvania church has spoken out against guns in his churches. From the article:

“Many people understandably have questions about what would prompt an individual to carry a gun into the Cathedral,” Bishop Bartchak said in a statement released Monday by the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. “I would like to take this opportunity to state my firm belief that guns have no place in our Cathedral or any of the other parishes in our Diocese. Our churches must be an environment in which all feel safe to worhip the Lord and celebrate our Catholic faith.”

Amen to that. This is just common sense.

We’ve got it wrong in America. We’ve got it backwards. Gun rights are not inalienable. Gun rights come with responsibilities. People who own guns need to be trained and safely secure them from kids and others who should not have them. They should have to go through a background check for every sale to make sure they are “law abiding” citizens. Just like we require training, licensing and background checks for most every other thing going on in our country, guns and their owners or prospective owners should be no different. Do we want to trust our kids at a daycare to just anyone- a felon maybe or a domestic abuser or sexual predator? You know the answer. Background checks are required. Do you trust your financial advisor or accountant with your money and personal financial information? Do you expect that person to be free of a criminal background? Of course you do. Do you expect that people who drive on the same roads as you do to have a license and have had driver’s training? You know the answer. Do you expect the people who teach your kids to be properly vetted and licensed in their field? Do you expect law enforcement officers to be well trained in handling firearms and for the job they do every day to protect us and enforce the laws? Do you expect your lawyer to be trained and not to be felons or sexual predators?

Sigh.

In other gun hypocrisy, the NRA convention is coming up this month in Nashville:

A multilevel security plan went into works not long after Nashville was chosen as the convention destination. All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer, near where the purchaser lives, and will require a legal identification.

This organization is pushing guns at the rest of us in places where we hang out to shop, learn, eat, work and play ( playgrounds, parks, etc.) but not in their own convention? Come on. I don’t make this stuff up. What are they so afraid of? I thought they loved their guns and loved to carry them around with them everywhere they go. Is it that they aren’t afraid of other people like themselves? Is it that they actually understand that if a whole bunch of gun carriers are walking around in one place, safety will be compromised? It is because someone might get angry at one of the many “illustrious” speakers like Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, Mike Pence, and others and take a shot? Or what is it? I’d love to know. In addition, they are telling people they will have to pass a background check in order to buy/order guns at the convention and pick them up at a federally licensed firearms dealer near their home. Really? I thought that was terribly inconvenient for these folks.

Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see. There is absolutely no common sense when it comes to the gun lobby’s safety policies for themselves and their total resistance to the same for the rest of us. In fact, there are no loaded guns allowed at gun shows. Occasionally an “accidental” discharge occurs in spite of this safety measure. Like here or this one. Did you know that guns are not allowed for visitors to the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia? Yes, it’s true. Who don’t they trust? Staff can carry but anyone else, no. So this organization pushes for visitors to schools, malls, hospitals, college campuses, state legislatures. national parks, etc. to carry guns but at their own headquarters? Nope. From the article:

She told me that the security guards at the front desk were unarmed, but that visitors were not allowed to bring weapons into the building (except to their posh firing range, which has a separate entrance). Doesn’t that leave the visitors at a bit of an disadvantage, I asked, and we had a bit of a chuckle about that. I was too chicken to ask her whether that policy was inconsistent with the NRA’s present philosophy that seems to encourage shoot-outs.

So there you have it. The NRA staff is armed, while visitors are disarmed.

Well, There you have it. People are being shot every day by “law abiding” citizens intentionally or unintentionally and the NRA claims that more guns make us safer. And then they don’t allow guns in their convention or at their own headquarters.

Let’s look at one of the most hypocritic of quotes from Mr. Wayne LaPierre of the NRA made after the Sandy Hook school shooting. Below is a video of this now famous speech:

This Facebook page (Parents Against Gun Violence) is keeping tracks of the shootings every month and the reasons for the shootings. Please read (below)and then raise your hand if you agree with Mr. LaPierre ( above) that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”:

On the Facebook page you can see links to the actual stories about these incidents. No one made them up. So there you have it. The hypocrisy of the corporate gun lobby and the gun rights extremists is “alive” and well. Meanwhile, too many Americans are not alive thanks to gunshot injuries or are suffering the long term affects from gunshot injuries while the gun lobby opposes any and all measures to reduce the carnage. It’s well past time to do something about this national public health and safety epidemic. Please join me in efforts to keep our communities safe from devastating gun violence.

Happy April Fools’ Day- Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", ASK campaign, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, Everytown, gun lobby and money, gun suicides, guns in schools, guns on college campuses, kids and guns, NRA, risks of guns in homes

It’s April Fools’ Day. Let’s not be fooled by the corporate gun lobby. They have fooled our nation and our nation’s elected leaders for far too long.

Yes, guns do contribute to our economy, no question about that. This article reveals some very large profits for the gun lobby’s most profitable group- the NRA. They also contribute to deaths and injuries- many of which are avoidable. And that is no joke. There is, as it turns out, a lot of hypocrisy that comes with the money and power of the corporate gun lobby. Is there a cure for that hypocrisy? Action, changing the conversation, making sure our elected leaders are dealing with facts, organizing the public who is already in favor of doing something about gun violence and much more.

Money buys power and influence. When it comes to the gun lobby, the big money is there to stop reasonable measures to prevent gun deaths. Even common sense measures that won’t affect their own members are resisted fiercely. The majority of Americans and even gun owners agree that we should, at the least, support requiring background checks on all gun sales. But that, of course, won’t prevent all gun deaths. That is understood.

But some common sense about the risks of guns in the home would lead to fewer gun deaths. The gun lobby does not adequately address the risks and instead pushes for more people to own guns and have them at home, loaded and ready for whatever action people mistakenly believe might lead them to have to shoot someone. Instead, those very guns are used to kill someone in the home in a domestic homicide, or a child who finds a gun and shoots him/herself or someone else or a teen who is distraught and has a bad day, or an adult with severe mental illness whose actions may be suicidal. The list goes on an on and so does the carnage from guns.

Let’s take a look at the hypocrisy pushed by this well funded gun lobby. In Florida, the same state pushing for guns on campus and K12 schools to supposedly make students safer, there is an outcry over requiring helmets for girls’ LaCrosse team members. From the linked article above:

Boys’ lacrosse teams nationwide have worn hard-shell helmets for many years. Girls, who play by vastly different rules that generally forbid contact, have historically spurned most protective gear. In Florida, where lacrosse is a new sport, state officials instead reasoned that all lacrosse players are at risk for head trauma and defied the sport’s traditionalists by mandating a soft form of headgear for everyone in a girls’ lacrosse game or practice. (Goalies in girls’ lacrosse have worn helmets for several decades.)

But in a volatile example of how thorny and tangled the debate can become as communities nationwide implement new rules to protect the brains of young athletes, Florida’s mandate has created a combative firestorm that has reverberated across the country. (…) But proponents of the rule point to data that shows that girls’ lacrosse has the fifth-highest rate of concussions in high school sports — only football, ice hockey, boys’ lacrosse and girls’ soccer rank higher. As the Florida High School Athletic Association board of directors was deliberating on whether to approve headgear, it heard emotional testimony from a mother whose daughter had sustained a devastating head injury while playing lacrosse.

OK. I guess everything has two sides. But it is in the interest of safety for our kids that these proposals are made in the first place- not to harm anyone or make things difficult. My son played LaCrosse as a club sport while in college. Helmets were required. There was no questioning whether or not players should wear them. LaCrosse is a contact sports with injuries coming with the game. My son once had an injury that sidelined him for a month- not to his head, thankfully.

But back to the gun lobby push for more guns where kids and teens live, hang out or go to school…..

According to this article, 20 children ( up to age 18) a day are hospitalized for gunshot injuries. About 8 of these die every day from intentional or unintentional injuries.

How many kids and teens are hospitalized every day from sports injuries? It turns out, according to this article- about 8000- a significant number. We all know that traumatic brain injuries from concussions are a real concern for both kids and adults when it comes to sports injuries. A lot of attention is paid to this issue and in fact, one promising NFL player has announced that he is leaving the game because of fear of permanent disabilities from potential head injuries. This is serious stuff and we owe it to our children to pay attention and keep them as safe as possible while playing sports.

How many kids and teens die from sports injuries every year? It looks like 39 in 2011 according to this article. So many more kids and teens suffer from sports related injuries than from gunshot injuries. But guns are lethal weapons and they actually kill many many more children per year than sports injuries. About 2920 or close to 3000 kids and teens die every year from gunshot injuries.

What are we doing about sports injuries? Making sure kids wear the proper protective gear. Examining the rules of the games to keep kids from hurting each other such as no checking from behind in hockey which has caused a good number of terrible injuries ( one recent one right here in Minnesota). Also coaches receive a lot of training about injuries and rules of the games to make sure kids are safe.

What are we doing about gun injuries and deaths? Good question. Gunshot injuries take the lives of thousands. And yet, we sit in the stands and watch instead of cheering for preventive measures. The gun lobby should not be the loudest voice in the arena of gun safety reform and gun violence prevention.

What is the cure for the hypocrisy? One obvious one is to keep kids and teens from easy access to guns in homes and on our streets. Gun suicides account for the majority of gun deaths and teens are among the highest age group for death by gun suicide. From another article about teens and suicide:

Twelve or more U.S. case control studies have compared individuals who died by suicide with those who did not and found those dying by suicide were more likely to live in homes with guns.

For example, Brent and colleagues studied three groups of adolescents: 47 suicide decedents, 47 inpatient attempters, and 47 psychiatric inpatients who had never attempted suicide. Those who died by suicide were twice as likely to have a gun at home than either of the other two groups:

                                    Adolescent                 Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients

                                    Suicides                Attempters            Non-attempters

Firearm in home:            72%                              37%                        38%

And further, from the article:

Ecologic studies that compare states with high gun ownership levels to those with low gun ownership levels find that in the U.S., where there are more guns, there are more suicides. The higher suicide rates result from higher firearm suicides; the non-firearm suicide rate is about equal across states.

For example, one study (Miller 2007) used survey-based measures of state household firearm ownership (from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System) while controlling for state-level measures of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, and other factors associated with suicide. The study found that males and females and people of all age groups were at higher risk for suicide if they lived in a state with high firearm prevalence. This is perhaps most concrete when looking not at rates or regression results but at raw numbers. The authors compared the 40 million people who live in the states with the lowest firearm prevalence (HI, MA, RI, NJ, CT, NY) to about the same number living in the states with the highest firearm prevalence (WY, SD, AK, WV, MT, AR, MS, ID, ND, AL, KY, WI, LA, TN, UT). Overall suicides were almost twice as high in the high-gun states, even though non-firearm suicides were about equal.

I don’t know about you, but there is pretty strong evidence that restricting access to guns by kids and teens can save lives. Another cause of gun death is young children shooting themselves or others after gaining access to guns. This appears to be happening on a more regular basis all over our country. Either that, or the media is reporting on what’s happening out there so we are aware. It’s pretty sobering to see the actual numbers of incidents. A study by Everytown for Gun Safety has collected data and revealed the problem quite graphically:

About a third of American children live in homes with firearms, and of these households, 43 percent contain at least one unlocked firearm. Thirteen percent of households with guns contain at least one firearm that is unlocked and loaded or stored with ammunition.6 In all, more than two million American children live in homes with unsecured guns — and 1.7 million live in homes with guns that are both loaded and unlocked.7 Children in these homes are at elevated risk of being injured or killed in unintentional shootings.8 Studies have shown that a majority of unintentional gun deaths of children occur in the home, and that the highest numbers of unintentional child shootings take place in the late afternoon hours, when children are home from school but their parents may still be working.9 Parents underestimate the extent to which their children know where their household guns are stored and the frequency with which children handle household guns unsupervised. A Harvard survey of children in gun-owning households found that more than 70 percent of children under age 10 knew where their parents stored their guns — even when they were hidden — and 36 percent of the children reported handling the weapons. Thirty nine percent of parents who thought their child was unaware of the location of the household’s gun were contradicted by their children, and one of every five parents who believed their child had not handled the gun was mistaken.10

I don’t know about you but this seems like strong evidence that restricting access to young children by gun owners will save lives. We need much more discussion about this. In Texas, after a rash of child gun deaths due to easy access, this article was written:

This should never, ever happen. There are some simple gun-storage rules that, if followed, would all but eliminate the risk of unintentional child shooting deaths in this country. If the gun is loaded, it should be on your person. Otherwise, it should be in a gun safe. It is never OK to leave a loaded gun on a table, or under a bed, or on a high shelf, and simply assume that your kids won’t find it, or that they know better than to touch it if they do. That’s not just bad parenting; that’s willful self-delusion. Anyone who has ever spent more than three minutes around kids knows that kids don’t know better, about anything. They lack the self-control, life experience, and emotional maturity to reliably stop themselves from making bad decisions.

Parents should know better. And when they don’t—where gun storage is concerned—they should be held responsible. Some states agree. According to the nonprofit Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 28 states (plus D.C.) have passed child access prevention laws (known as CAP laws), which make it a crime to store firearms in a way that makes them readily accessible to children. While there isn’t much data to draw from, the data that exist suggest that strong CAP laws correlate with declines in child-shooting deaths in those jurisdictions.

“Houston, we have a problem.” I could write reams about this and should. We should all be focusing our attention on this national epidemic as well as sports related injuries. Let’s do what makes the most common sense and make sure guns are stored safely away from the hands of children and teens and ammunition is stored in a separate place from the guns. Why don’t we? Good question. Too many people purchase guns for self defense and don’t have any training about how to use or store them. The gun lobby promotes guns for everyone everywhere. When that is the national gun culture, we will continue to see children and teens dying needlessly from avoidable and preventable gun deaths. Until we adequately address the actual risks of guns in homes, we won’t be doing enough to protect our children and teens from avoidable deaths and injuries.

This is insanity. We can do something about this but we don’t. Why? The national gun lobby has undue influence on our culture and our elected leaders. For years, theirs is the mantra we hear. “More guns make us safer” or “only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.” These things don’t make any sense given the actual numbers of gun deaths and injuries and proof that in states with high gun ownership, both gun suicides and homicides are greater than states that have strong gun laws and fewer guns. The proof is there.

But what we get from the corporate gun lobby is proposals like these:

In Alabama- allowing kids under 18 to own and carry guns.

In Illinois- teaching young kids to shoot guns at a gun range.

In many states- pushing guns in schools and college campuses

North Dakota and Montana have rejected the guns in schools idea showing some resistance to ideas that make no common sense given the actual facts of the matter. I wrote in my latest post about what a Michigan school district has concocted to deal with an armed visitor to a school.

Here is one common sense measure that everyone with kids and grandchildren can take- ask if there are guns in the homes where kids play( ASK campaign). One mother wrote this about the ask:

That question I would ask over and over, “do you keep guns?” ended some friendships before they ever began. A couple of old friends were motivated to buy gun safes. It was as if the possibility of something bad happening had never occurred to them before the question was asked. Parents believe that because they have told their child not to touch a gun, that they won’t. But studies say that simply isn’t true.

Once, when Chloe was in second grade, a mother called me apologizing before I could even get out hello. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “Alex would never harm Chloe, I just want you to know.” I had no idea what she was talking about. But it turned out that her son, Alex, had been teasing another girl in the class, and Chloe had told him to stop. “I’m going to shoot you dead,” 8-year-old Alex had said. “I know where my grandfather keeps his gun, I’m going to bring his gun to school tomorrow and kill you.” Chloe had come home and never mentioned it to me, but she had ratted Alex out to her teacher, who had mentioned it to the mom. The school never called me.

Another is to take a public health approach to gun safety reform. This gun owner has some good advice when it comes to that- do what the NRA did- change the conversation but change it back to making this about public health and safety as it should be. From the article:

At the same time that public health researchers argue that the risks of guns outweighs the benefits, the NRA pushes the opposite point of view. And while research clearly supports the public health position on gun risk, the NRA continues to use a bogus telephone surveyby Gary Kleck and some thoroughly-discredited statistical nonsense from John Lott to sell the idea that guns are essential tools in protecting us from crime. Using the fear of crime as a justification for guns is a master stroke of marketing because a majority of Americans now agree with the pro-gun point of view.

Know why the NRA and its allies have been so successful selling the positive utility of guns? Because they have adopted a public health strategy for convincing the public and the lawmakers that what they are saying is true. First, identify the disease, which in this case is harm caused by crime. Then identify how the disease is spread, in this case contact with a criminal. Now develop a vaccine, i.e., the gun, and immunize as many as people as possible with concealed carry, now legal in all 50 states.

The problem in trying to sell the public health solution to any medical problem, as David Hemenway reminds us, is that unlike medicine, “the focus of public health is not on cure, but on prevention.” This usually requires a long, comprehensive strategy combining research, education and laws. Recognizing that most people aren’t usually responsive to solutions which don’t immediately work, the NRA has fast-tracked the process. The real problem in the gun debate is that the side which is totally resistant to an honest, public health approach to guns has shown itself remarkably adept at turning that same approach on its head and getting exactly what it wants.

Mike is right. It’s time to turn the conversation in the right direction. Gun rights and gun safety reform are not mutually exclusive. Don’t be fooled into thinking so. Even though the corporate gun lobby tries to make us believe the opposite, don’t believe it. Evidence comes down on the side of public safety and common sense. Please join me in changing the conversation and changing gun laws to make our communities safe from the devastation of gun violence that affects far too many. If we can pass laws about LaCrosse helmets and rules about checking from behind, we can pass reasonable gun laws for our own good, safety and health.

Gun deaths and injuries are nothing to fool around about.

Love affair with guns

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 commongunsense"accidental shootings", access to guns, alcohol and guns, back yard shooting ranges, conceal carry permit holders, corporate gun lobby, guns and argumenets, guns and hunting, guns in schools, kids and guns, Michigan gun laws

This is cross posted at commongunsense.com.

I know that my views on the subject of guns and gun violence do not mesh much at all with the gun rights extremists or those who believe in the fear created by the corporate gun lobby. Yes, of course, many people own guns for self defense and for hunting and enjoy them for sport. It becomes a family affair to go hunting every year and my family also did that. I grew up around hunting and hunting guns. I didn’t grow up around fear and paranoia or in a neighborhood where a lot of crime happened. No one in my house talked about needing a gun for self defense. But the violence that comes when some who own guns for self defense in their homes use them for murder has affected my family. I do know that fear. I know the fear of losing someone close to me because of someone who feared others. I know the pain of a phone call telling me that my only sister had been shot to death by her estranged husband, someone who loved his guns.

It’s a culture in America- the gun culture- not seen in any other country in the civilized world. People love guns. They love their power. They love their accuracy when they shoot at targets. They love the protection that they believe guns can provide. They love using them to hunt and some love to collect guns. I know many of these people. But I don’t know very many gun owners who ascribe to the corporate gun lobby’s mantra about guns everywhere and for everyone and anyone. The gun owners I know support gun safety reform.

An author, Susan Straight, wrote this piece about her husband’s love of guns and what that did to her family. I like this piece because it expresses the differing views about guns that exist all around us. We seem to live in two different worlds and can’t agree on what we should be doing to keep our communities safe from gun violence. One side, represented by a minority, believe that guns everywhere are safe and there should be no restrictions or, apparently no common sense when it comes to lethal weapons. The other, the majority of us, believe that gun rights and gun safety reform are not mutually exclusive and that we can save lives with reasonable reforms. We also believe that having tough conversations about the risks of guns in homes has to happen. One example, that could have been helpful to the writer of the article above, is to ASK if there are guns in the homes where your children play and hang out. I wonder how Straight’s husband would have reacted had that question been asked of him? Would he have stored those guns more safely away from his own kids and their friends? Maybe. It’s luck that his daughters didn’t handle the many guns in their home.

From the above linked article:

We had three children, and suddenly he had 10 guns. I didn’t feel protected. I felt like I was living with a different man, one who didn’t play basketball and read Sports Illustrated like before, one who baked his guns clean and read Guns & Ammo. Our house and garage and vehicle, my spouse, carried instruments of death. The 9 mm handgun on the dresser, shockingly heavy to me, could have been picked up, dropped, fired, by fingers smaller than mine. And I couldn’t forgive that.

This love affair with guns has led to a push to “normalize” the shooting and carrying of guns in public places. It is not really about self defense. It’s about an agenda to get the rest of us to approve of guns everywhere. What we have now is back yard shooting ranges in residential neighborhoods like this one in Florida that is apparently legal. And even though, on the face of it, this is a very stupid and dangerous law, or lack thereof, because it is legal, nothing can be done- until some innocent child or adult is killed by one of those bullets that is bound to go astray. Where is common sense?

In Michigan where the gun extremists managed to get a law passed allowing guns in schools, a local school district has had to concoct a flow chart for how to deal with people with guns in their schools. No, I am not making this up. Check it out for yourself and see if you think this is the definition of insanity:

A visitor spotted with a holstered handgun — a pistol or revolver — would be taken into a designated area and asked the purpose of the visit, according to the chart.

Should a visitor have an unholstered pistol or any long gun, such as a rifle or shotgun, there would be announcement of a lockdown and the building principal and law enforcement would be called in.

Craig McCrumb, Durand schools superintendent, has said the guidelines and protocol have been discussed so the district is proactive on the issue, with safety in mind for the students. The guidelines are not yet approved.

“We still see ourselves fine-tuning the document. It could stay the same or it could still yet be tweaked,” he said.

Below and to the right is the flow chart, which comes from the above linked article. If you think this is the way our schools should protect the safety of our children, raise your hand.

And if said visitor with a holstered ( or openly carried) gun means bad intent, what then? It’s too late. How will the school know who is whom? Is the gun carrier a “good guy” with a gun or a “bad guy” with a gun? This is ludicrous and unnecessary. There is no need for guns in schools. To think that a parent or visitor with a gun just may be at the right place at the right time to stop a school shooter is like whistling in the wind. The chances are slim to none. And even if they were, the chances of being able to stop a shooting before it happens are also slim to none. But if a school administrator has to stop and ask a potential shooter ( because they won’t know one from another) a bunch of questions, time is lost in locking down the school or trying to prevent the person from entering.

A minority of gun owners believe themselves to be potential heroes however so this is what we get. Either that or they find every place they go to be so dangerous that they can’t be without their guns. The truth of the matter is that more kids are shot in their homes than in schools. And that, mostly, with legally purchased guns by law abiding citizens. Never mind the facts. When you are having a love affair, facts don’t matter. From the linked article:

However, fewer than 2 percent of student homicides — whether by gun or any other means — take place at school, on the way to or from school or at a school-sponsored event, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. From July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011, the most recent year for which data are available, 11 of the 1,336 homicides (0.8 percent) of school-age children happened at school. While that number fluctuates each year, it has remained below 2 percent since the Indicators of School Crime and Safety annual reports started in 1992.

The CDC estimates the odds of a student age 5 to 18 being a victim of a school-associated homicide at about 1 in 2.5 million.

Nonfatal gun violence occurs in schools only sporadically. According to a 2013 report from the Bureau of Justice and Statistics, most nonfatal gun violence (across all age groups) occurs at the victim’s home (42 percent) or in an open area, on the street or on public transportation (23 percent). Less than 1 percent takes place in schools.

In other words, despite the significant hours children log at school and despite a rise in active shooter situations in and outside schools, children are more likely to be shot at a friend or relative’s house or in a parking lot or garage or shopping mall than at their school.

“Schools are safe,” said Larry Johnson, the president and director of public safety of the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officials, which oversees school security programs. “I think people are forgetting the fact that schools are sometimes safer than the homes.”

Further, because of our love affair with guns, it is now legal in some states like Michigan for a visitor to a school to carry a loaded gun around where children gather to learn and play. So who will get fired or be in trouble if someone on the staff, presumably an administrator, questions the visitor with a gun? Because these folks don’t want to be questioned about carrying guns around and when stopped, they challenge the person who stopped them. It’s just a matter of time before a school principal will be sued because he/she questioned the legality of a gun carrier in his/her school. This is the definition of insanity.

Every day I am sent or run across a large number of articles about real shooting deaths that happen on purpose or by “accident”. This one caught my eye because of the stupidity of what happened. A woman who was arguing with her new husband over who was going to drive the car home tried to put the loaded gun in a “safer” place in the car and the gun discharged somehow killing her own niece. She was sentenced a few days ago for the shooting that occurred last April. Now the lives of a whole lot of people are forever changed because a loaded gun was somewhere within easy reach and combined with drinking alcohol, an innocent person is dead. The whole thing was avoidable and irresponsible. But when we have a love affair with guns, this is the price we pay.

There is no common sense when it comes to gun policy in America. It is based on fear, hyperbole and the influence of a very well funded and fierce lobby sponsored by the gun industry which encourages more guns everywhere. It doesn’t have to be this way. We are better than this and can change the conversation about guns and gun violence as well as pass some reasonable gun safety laws to stop some of the daily shootings. It’s well past time to do this and time to get to work.

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commongunsense

Blogging for gun safety reform and changing the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Common sense gun laws and gun safety reform and gun rights are not mutually exclusive.

“accidental shootings”

Guns as available as candy

Armadillos and the targets of bullets

The irony of the gun lobby “logic”

Gun rights advocates are wrong about kids and guns

Guns and mass shootings- as American as apple pie and country music

It’s no accident that the NRA ignores “accidental” shootings

More or less hypocrisy?

No guns allowed at NRA convention and other gun hypocrisy

Happy April Fools’ Day- Hypocrisy as far as the eye can see

Adolescent Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients

Suicides Attempters Non-attempters

Firearm in home: 72% 37% 38%

Love affair with guns

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Adolescent Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients

Suicides Attempters Non-attempters

Firearm in home: 72% 37% 38%

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