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22nd May 2016, 04:54 PM | #1 |
Penultimate Amazing
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5-year old girl shoots self with responsible Dad's gun
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...ng_shower.html
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22nd May 2016, 05:37 PM | #2 |
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They're always "responsible" right up until they aren't. This is so sad.
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22nd May 2016, 06:02 PM | #3 |
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22nd May 2016, 06:13 PM | #4 |
Observer of Phenomena
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Yes, another example to support my contention that America's policy of giving guns to almost anyone who wants one is dangerous.
This guy was a perfect candidate for gun ownership. He ticked all the boxes. And tragedy still happened because he made the elementary mistake of leaving a gun unsecured. When even the best people can't prevent horrific incidents like this, it's time to recognise that your policy of letting almost everyone who wants one have one has failed, and perhaps putting a few restrictions in place is necessary. |
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22nd May 2016, 06:27 PM | #5 |
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22nd May 2016, 06:49 PM | #6 |
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It would be a lot easier to take the anti-gun lobby more seriously if they devoted just a fraction of the energy they do to guns to making drowning deaths less common.
From 2005-2014, there were an average of 3,536 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreation...factsheet.html For every one of these posts about a kid shooting themselves (and they seem to pop up about once a week), there are 70 ignored drowning incidents. Why aren't there ten posts a day here blasting stupid parents whose unattended kid drowned? |
22nd May 2016, 06:55 PM | #7 |
The Grammar Tyrant
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22nd May 2016, 06:59 PM | #8 |
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Well, that is arth's point. The guy was a (disabled) veteran. He was trained in the use of guns. He was very much aware of their danger. He repeatedly stressed to neighbors he knew their danger and that he kept them safely away each weekend his kids were around.
And then this happens. Like RogueKitten said: he's a responsible gun owner until he isn't. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, it's the 94th time this year a minor picked up a gun and shot someone. |
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22nd May 2016, 07:11 PM | #9 |
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OK, when's the last time a politician talked about drowning deaths? When's the last time someone started a thread about an unsupervised kid drowning?
It doesn't happen. People just live with the fact that there are basically two ways kids die accidentally in this country: traffic accidents and drowning. |
22nd May 2016, 07:29 PM | #10 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Yeah. Why aren't boats illegal?? After all, if anyone ever dies because of something, get rid of it! And what's up w/showers? People slipping and breaking their necks. And yet our gov't still permits them
But hurray for another gun rant thread, just don't have enough here...... |
22nd May 2016, 07:30 PM | #11 |
NWO Master Conspirator
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And you keep adding more restrictions until you reach zero accidents or a total ban, right?
And, of course, this applies only to guns and not to the things that cause far more accidental deaths, which of course never get threads here because people don't have such irrational reactions to them. |
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22nd May 2016, 09:30 PM | #12 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Hey look, it's this thread again!
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22nd May 2016, 09:37 PM | #13 |
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22nd May 2016, 09:46 PM | #14 |
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And I've yet to see anyone-police, civilian, military- defend themselves against attack with a loaded swimming pool. They seem to have no utility, yet are responsible for thousands of kids drowning every year.
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But hey, whatever makes you feel outraged, right? |
22nd May 2016, 09:58 PM | #15 |
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22nd May 2016, 10:10 PM | #16 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I would hardly call it "ignoring" in that there are rules and laws in place to increase swimming pool safety. These include laws requiring gates and locked access to swimming pools that do reduce toddler deaths. But kids still die, so any new ideas would be very welcome!
Which brings up the question of if you or Wildcat have any ideas to lower the rate of toddler deaths from guns. Any ideas? Or is the current rate the best we can do and is acceptible to allow others their "Constitutional Right" to have access to guns without annoying inconveniences? Assuming, of course, that we are allowed to try to reduce toddler's dying even out of order from most frequently to least frequently. Otherwise I guess that we will need to allow kids to drown in pools until we stop them completely from dying in car accidents. |
22nd May 2016, 10:18 PM | #17 |
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Ban swimming pools at private residences. That was tough.
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Seems like a no-brainer. Ban residential pools. Agreed? |
22nd May 2016, 10:45 PM | #18 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Apart from the idea that 3,000 kids drown in swimming pools each year is a myth.
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Might be a good idea to do the same with guns.... |
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22nd May 2016, 10:54 PM | #19 |
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22nd May 2016, 11:03 PM | #20 |
Penultimate Amazing
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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871) |
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22nd May 2016, 11:10 PM | #21 |
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You already did the comparison. I stand corrected. We'll go with 100 kids drowning in pools a year.
When's the last time someone posted about it? When's the last time some politician talked about it? We can ban pools and save 100 kids a year. Why don't we do it? Why don't you support that? |
22nd May 2016, 11:21 PM | #22 |
Penultimate Amazing
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What's wrong with the suggestions I made up thread? Making sure that they are locked up and not accessible to children when not in use, teaching children to swim, making sure that children using them do so under adult supervision, and that they are never left alone with them. Do you have any objection to those rules?
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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871) |
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22nd May 2016, 11:41 PM | #23 |
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I refuse to engage, but I must comment, because when I read this story it made me physically ill--yet another innocent kid dead because of the insanity of gun worship in this country. And for what? Seriously--for stinkin' what??
I am older than this 'responsible' dad--I've lived in and near major cities my whole life, walked the streets and rode the subways late at night in some of the roughest neighborhoods around, and not once have I felt like I was in danger because I wasn't carrying a firearm. Yeah, I know, it's your 'right' and you feel safer because of it. Well, as a consequence, you have the blood of this five year old on your hands. Despicable. And for the last time, it is not a stinking swimming pool, chainsaw, boat, car...I will likely not return to this thread, because I know how it will unfold...same way every other thread on the subject unfolds. I'm just registering my outrage. |
22nd May 2016, 11:42 PM | #24 |
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23rd May 2016, 02:19 AM | #25 |
Observer of Phenomena
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So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
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23rd May 2016, 03:06 AM | #26 |
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Good morning. Why have I never seen a thread about this?
http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=9236 Isnt it time we do something about Nick Cage? |
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23rd May 2016, 03:07 AM | #27 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Because everything children do carries a risk, from trampolines to cycling and there are deaths and injuries ever year from these activities.
But swimming pools, trampolines and bicycles are not used by gangs to kill each other, they are not taken out during drunken arguments to kill, they are not used in college massacres, they are not flowing across the border with Mexico to help fuel the drugs wars. I can picture children laughing and playing in pools, on a trampoline, with cycles and I would happily join in. I cannot picture giving the children real, loaded guns and watching them play. Can you? Do you see the difference now? Bringing swimming pools into the gun control debate is like Wildcat's lying about others wanting to ban guns totally. It is a spoiler to stifle debate and keep the status quo used by the less intelligent. |
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Audiophile/biker/sceptic |
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23rd May 2016, 03:34 AM | #28 |
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It should be noted that gun safety includes keeping guns away from people who shouldn't have them such as having them securely locked up in gun lockers instead of leaving them out in the open or even hidden in cloth drawers.
This isn't just to prevent kids from shooting their brains out with them but also to keep burglars and other thieves from stealing them. |
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23rd May 2016, 04:04 AM | #29 |
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Just as there is now. Unless, of course, you are going to contend that anyone in the US can own any type of weapon. What I argue for is that the line be re-drawn, as it was in Australia 20 years ago. Do I need to remind you that there hasn't been any mass firearm killings here since then?
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23rd May 2016, 04:49 AM | #30 |
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23rd May 2016, 05:11 AM | #31 |
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23rd May 2016, 05:13 AM | #32 |
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23rd May 2016, 05:21 AM | #33 |
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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23rd May 2016, 05:22 AM | #34 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Audiophile/biker/sceptic |
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23rd May 2016, 05:23 AM | #35 |
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You can't ban everything that could cause death. you need to look at the cost benefit. In a typical month 18,500,000 people swim in the USA and around 10 kids die.
A similar number of kids are killed by guns. How many times do the public defend themselves against attack with a gun in a typical month? |
23rd May 2016, 05:25 AM | #36 |
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23rd May 2016, 05:30 AM | #37 |
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It's completely reasonable to prohibit non-violent white-collar criminals from owning guns (even-though they'd probably not even want to) while at the same time allowing rural red-neck militias, that dream of becoming martyrs by fighting the federal government, to keep huge arsenals of semi-automatic rifles.
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We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden. - dann |
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23rd May 2016, 06:16 AM | #38 |
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23rd May 2016, 06:30 AM | #39 |
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Over 1500 people drown in pools every year, which is more than triple the number that die in firearm accidents. And there are only about 13 million pools in the USA, compared with 300 million funs. A skeptic would note that makes accidentally dying in any given pool nearly 70 times more likely than accidentally being killed by any given gun.
Only irrational fear explains why there is a call to have more control on guns than swimming pools, because the math doesn't lie about which item causes more accidental deaths. The laws on pools can't even be enforced, and they're out in yards in plain view. So how on earth do your intend to enforce such a law on guns? Not to mention your solution would require amending the Constitution, since such laws have already been struck down by the courts. |
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23rd May 2016, 06:32 AM | #40 |
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