I was curious about this too:
Hmmm. Mexicans?
Hey, the dult didn’t just let him near the gun, it was a fuckin’ loaded Uzi!! What the fuckin’ hell? An 8 year old with a loaded submachine gun is like straffing an oil refinery: it’s a fucking miracle that many people weren’t killed. Morons! Idiots! Murderers!
The irresponsible and obviously completely incompetent people responsible for “supervising” this event killed him.
I hope the authorities come down on their gun club like a ton of lead. People who’d let an 8-year old handle loaded full-auto weapons demonstrably do not possess the judgment needed to be around loaded firearms.
You do realize, don’t you, that any parent dumb enough to allow their kid to handle a weapon clearly beyond a child’s capabilities is dumb enough to allow their kid to all kinds of potentially fatal things, don’t you? Shit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZHPg3tTiFc If a kid dies like that, is it better than being killed by a firearm?
(And no, I don’t own a gun, and have never fired anything more powerful than a BB gun.)
No, your point is that nobody should have been firing that weapon.
ETA - which you know, seeing as you edited your post.
There will never be a point in time when we do not have idiot adults. To think otherwise is pure fantasy. So, Illuminatiprimus is correct. People like this 8 year old boy are the ones paying for our collective right to own, bear and full auto rock and roll with firearms. Just like the 9 year old boy who shot his twin brother with the household handgun last week in the township next to mine. They paid the bill for your right, so make it worthwhile, I suppose.
Crying out post hoc that these are simply accidents due to careless or stupid adults is ignoring the obvious fact that we can predict with absolute certainty that there will be careless and stupid adults tomorrow as well.
I don’t know why I’m suprised at the anti-gun rage that comes out every a time we see a thread like this, but I am.
Seriously, the numbskulls that were using the weapon are the problem here, not the weapon.
On the other hand, I suspect that no one at a bicycling club would have endorsed the idea of dragging an eight-year-old kid behind a van for an x-treme stunt video.
Of course there will be stupid and careless people. If we take your position to it’s logical conclusion, we should all lock ourselves in padded rooms until we starve to death, because the human race clearly can’t be trusted to breathe. :rolleyes:
It’s clearly true. Where there are firearms, there will be accidents, and children will die. Where there are any kind of dangerous tool, there will be preventable accidents, and children will die.
Saying that is kind of meaningless, though. What has meaning is whether the cost of allowing such tools to be available outweighs the benefits. The tragic death of an 8 year old is without doubt a cost. But it does not, on its own, make the case for gun control a slam dunk.
It’s not that the gun shouldn’t exist, it’s that stupid fucking cock-flopping shoot-o-fests with fully automatic weapons who fucking anybody, including kids too young to know how to tie their fucking shoes yet, can pick up and fire at shit newspapers aren’t allowed to mention shouldn’t exist.
You didn’t take shit to the logical conclusion. Hentor made a thoughtful post in a pit-thread, one asking gun owners to carefully consider their own personal right, and the benefit it brings them, compared to the cost it bears on others.
Nothing about that conclusion is logical. It is more of a hyperventilating emotional rant than a logical conclusion.
First you say it is meaningless, but then you rightly get straight to the meaning. The question is very much does the cost outweigh the benefits. I don’t think these anecdotes make the case a slam dunk. I think the evidence in the aggregate makes a reasoned argument.
Just to make clear, it was me, not Rapier42 that made the comment you quoted second…
The reason I said it is meaningless (and that was probably the wrong word - incomplete would be better) is that listing only the costs doesn’t allow a cost-benefit analysis. The costs can be very high, and a public policy still justifiable, if the benefits are higher (assuming CBA is the method appropriate for such a determination). Bad things happen with all dangerous tools. But the bad things, even in the aggregate, are not sufficent to determine if the costs outweigh the benefits.
Yes - sorry, I forgot to go back and tuck your name in the quote tag.
I agree. I have, however, seen studies that find the odds ratios of legitimate use versus familial deaths to not favor gun ownership, which accords with my anecdote-based biases.
Nod.
ETA - thats not snark, I agree 100%. How would you go about preventing said shoot-o-fest, without impinging on the rights of responsible weapon owners?
You’re accusing me of a hyperventilating emotional rant?
Ok.
When will people learn that the M4 is perfectly suited to young children? Fools.
Yes, I’m serious.
The problem is, those studies, if I remember correct, count “legitimate use” as discharging a firearm in self defense against a criminal, but don’t include many instances where a persons life/property/personal integrity may be saved without the gun being actually fired.
I’d probably be on board with a statement that the cost of accidents like this is sufficient that 8 year olds should not be firing fully automatic weapons at gun shows, supervised or not. I don’t think there is a fundamental right at stake there, and I don’t think the benefits of allowing such a thing are significantly high. But I also admit I don’t fully know the costs involved - how many times this practice occurs, and how often it results in tragedy. My gut is though, that with benefits this low, there don’t need to be many accidents before restriction would be justifiable.
When will people learn that the M4 is the proper firearm for young children? Fools. With the adjustable stock and the mild recoil, things like this are far less likely. What a shame.