You’re the one posting the impossible straw man of people being glad this happened.
My point being, as always, that the blind relentless defense of having guns everywhere at all times is a recipe for death- a recipe written by the N.R.A. with the blood of 9 month-olds.
That would be straw man. Except for the facts linked in my last post.
Can we say that some people are sad that the 9 month old was not properly armed? More guns could clearly have prevented this tragedy.
Do you not get it? Having more and more and more handguns easily available to anyone and everyone with minimal training or requirements will simply lead to more and more and more accidents like this. Guess what? Double the number of handguns in the general population, and you’ll get even more dead kids.
Because people on the whole, taken as a general population, are idiots.
I"m sure this family had guns to “keep the kids safe”. Just like all the other families who lost children the exact same way. Just like all the families who will lose children next year in the exact same way.
Guns don’t kill infants-five year olds with guns kill infants.
What are these minimal requirements? Pulse? Respiration? Because, clearly, registering movement on an EEG is not one of them.
A law abiding CCW holder exercises his second amendment right toshoot a cardiac surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston:
The doctor is in critical condition at this time.
Hell. That’s the same as 11 5 year-olds and look at how efficiently THEY kill.
Insanity. Utter insanity.
Well what do you expect? The guy was a CRIMINAL! He shot a doctor for God’s sake!
We shouldn’t have to restrict gun rights for law abiding citizens, just because of criminals like him. So it’s all good.
ETA: For good measure, this clearly shows that the hospital is at fault, for not allowing doctors to open carry. The doctor would have been OK if he had a gun.
If the surgeon had been armed this would have gone differently.
They should have armed his dead mother too. 
No, because that’s being a smart-ass.
And here we come to it: the sheer contempt held by the elitists towards the intelligence and responsibility of the general public. If that’s how you feel, why do you still believe in voting? Surely the drooling proles are too stupid to make wise decisions about choosing their leaders- society should be commanded for the peoples’ own good by a special class of trained rulers.
That’s right -
We can EITHER have unfettered access to any kind of firearm at all, for any person at any time, OR
Iron fisted rule by the big-brained elitists, who hold the common man in utter contempt.
There is no middle ground.
I guess you always proudly hold that everyone is equally adept at understanding instructions, following rules and knowing how to avoid consequences. I bow before you.
Actually how about if we compromise - we elitists do not want to take everyone’s right to vote away. Just yours. That would no doubt improve our political system quite a lot right there.
Okay, fair enough. I’m as guilty as anyone of observing that the average person has an IQ of 100. (Being smart makes people elite now, apparently.)
Anyway, you tell me: How many dead 9 month olds are you okay with? What is the point, in terms of numbers of dead 9 month olds, at which you would conclude that there perhaps ought to be some restriction on gun ownership?
Because my vote cancels out yours?
It’s not what you think, boys will be boys:
To be fair, I’m sure Lumpy and the NRA would say that we can help prevent the deaths of babies by encouraging people to practice proper gun safety, which would include teaching 5-year-olds how to respect firearms and keeping them locked up in an appropriate safe. Just as we can have attitudes in between “unfettered access to guns for all” and “iron-fisted rule by the elitists,” pro-gun people can have attitudes in between “I feel nothing for dead babies” and “nobody should own a gun.” Lumpy was right to point out the straw man.
The problem, of course, is that encouraging widespread gun ownership will inevitably lead to some dead kids who wouldn’t otherwise be dead, even if advances are made in the adoption of better firearms safety practices. To bring up the much abused swimming pool analogy, we’ve made great improvements in swimming pool safety and regulations over the last, say, 30 or 40 years, but even now if we were to double the number of swimming pools in this country, we’d double the number of accidental drownings of children. Likewise, if we could wave a wand and double the number of households with handguns, we’d double the number of accidental shooting deaths overnight.
Of course, people buy swimming pools knowing that they’re going to be trading a risk of accidental drowning for summers of fun. It’s not a choice I would personally make, but people should be free to make that choice. That doesn’t mean I’m indifferent to drowned children. It also doesn’t mean that the (hypothetical?) pro-swimming pool lobby should feel responsible for those dead children, as long as they publicly made the risks abundantly clear.
The crucial irony is that people buy handguns to protect their children. They do this because they misunderstand the world around them, in part because there’s an intentional misinformation campaign surrounding the benefits and drawbacks of personal handgun ownership.
While I do think it’s a strawman to claim that the NRA and the pro-gun movement is indifferent towards dead babies, I think they need to take responsibility for encouraging widespread handgun ownership without making the statistical lack of benefit and increased risk of harm abundantly clear, and in some cases working to actively discourage that sort of research.
And now to change the topic. “Stand your ground” moron Raul Rodriguez has been granted a new trial. You may remember this guy as the idiot who, in 2010, strapped on heat and walked down the street to confront a neighbor who was having a loud party. He waved his flashlight to get their attention, and when they approached him, began to announce (per his own video recording of the altercation) that he felt threatened, that he was armed, that he feared for his life, and that he was going to stand his ground. He did this for more than 20 fucking minutes, presumably terrified for his life the whole time, before fatally shooting an unarmed elementary school teacher who was, one can assume, “coming right for him!” Fortunately, a jury didn’t buy his scared little bully routine and sentenced him to 40 years in 2012 for not having the common sense to turn around and walk away from the completely terrifying party.
Well now it seems that a jury instruction regarding an interaction with another neighbor earlier in the day in which Rodriguez was seen to be openly carrying a pistol might have unfairly influence the jury, so he gets a new trial! Odds are good that this one will end the exact same way.
Why are guns in a special category separate from any other thing that can harm or kill children if their parents are careless and irresponsible? Or to put it another way, where are the PSA’s warning parents that yes, their children CAN find their loaded guns? We spend more time and money warning parents about household chemicals and electric sockets than we do firearms.
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You can only carry the “epidemiological” model of public safety so far, before attempts to create a risk-free world would stifle life. Look, I get it- guard rails on highways and chlorinated tap water are a great idea, and most people would look askance at extreme-libertarians who insist personal responsibility can substitute for all oversight. But a lot of people think firearms are useful and necessary items, their risks not withstanding. And our society is based on the idea that unless you’re under guardianship, you’re presumed to be competent enough to be entrusted with responsibility and to be held accountable for your actions.
I personally would have no problem with parents facing negligent homicide charges for leaving guns unsecured, and requiring people who do choose to own guns to have to fulfill a consequent duty of firearms training. What gores my ox is the idea that some group of mandarins, some council of philosopher-kings could declare “you don’t deserve to own a weapon”.
Do you feel anyone should be able to drive a car, without license or registration?