I don’t think the child would have come to harm because of his actions, I think the child would have come to harm because his parents would place him in more dangerous situations more often. One of the really tragic things about all of this is that gun safety is not rocket science. It is fairly easy to master the basics: Always assume the gun is loaded. Never point at anything you don’t intend to shoot. Always control the muzzle so that IF the gun goes off, no one will be injured.

Put a child and a loaded gun together and eventually something bad will happen. Not because the child is stupid but because the child is ignorant. He doesn’t know and cannot appreciate the danger of the thing he holds.

All of the events I was referring to involved parents (you know, those who are supposed to be responsible) leaving kids in dangerous situations or allowing a dangerous situation to exist. Kids aren’t allowed to buy guns for a good reason, we deem them unable to take the basic responsibilities necessary to safely possess and use a firearm. But we assume, since they’re of legal age, that adults can and will act responsibly when owning guns.

If you took this any other way, I’d seriously consider giving back any advanced degrees you hold as something obtained under false pretenses. If you didn’t understand that the children mentioned in all of this were essentially innocent bystanders, then, yeah… Hello, Rosanna Rosannadanna.

Seems like a strange context for a pun, so I’m guessing you meant “filed”.

There’re the accidents, then there is also this:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199208133270705

You’ll end up with outright bans in some parts of the country, with lax requirements in neighboring parts (California/Arizona springs readily to mind).

DC, for example, has some spectacularly inane laws (for example, you can’t buy a gun in DC, you have to buy it out of state and have it transferred in through a licenses FFL transfer dealer of which there is exactly ONE in the district) and San Francisco has attempted to downright outlaw all firearms for anyone who isn’t law enforcement, security or active military on not one, but two occasions – repealing the second amendment would likely result in an outright ban on all firearms ownership certainly in LA and SF counties, if not throughout the entire state (and you can probably add DC, Illinois and New York to the outright ban list).

Are people who like to hunt or otherwise shoot recreationally just supposed to surrender thousands of dollars worth of legally owned firearms because one year someone managed to get the 51% of votes necessary to completely outlaw the things? Or better yet, just because the legislature decided to bow to the political pressure to outlaw the things?

Until people can have a rational debate about firearms without getting overly emotional either way (something this thread proves is not the case), we need the protections that the Constitution provides.

But, I’ll toss this into the pool: teaching gun safety and regulating guns are good ideas. We don’t let people own cars without proving they can operate one; why are we making an exception for guns? Because our founding fathers wanted to be sure the populace could protect itself from tyranny?

OK, protection from tyranny. Got it. But nowhere in there does it say that we shouldn’t require some education and licensing of gun owners, does it? If so, I missed it and would love to be further educated on it. If not, then why can’t we TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO USE GUNS RESPONSIBLY?

Seriously, I’ve been a gun owner all my life. I’ve never accidentally shot anyone, I’ve never shot by accident at all. It’s called “being responsible” for my weapon. And I never forget that a gun is present, that I need to be sure it’s secure from others, that I cannot for a minute take for granted anyone else’s safety. That’s what I was taught.

Why can’t we require that everyone learn these lessons? We don’t let people cut someone’s hair without training; why are we pretending it should be different for guns?

And now I’ll put on some less flammable clothing…

Of course pools should be regulated to ensure safety. So should roller coaster rides. But even if they were completely unregulated, anyone who wanted to avoid dying on a roller coaster could easily do so. I can choose to stay away from roller coasters, and swimming pools, and chain saws. How do I make sure that guns stay away from me and mine?

Come to think of it, it might be kinder to, as a society, identify the stupid people whose children are going to come to a bad end anyway and euthanize the poor things before Mum leaves them in the garage with a chain saw running. What do you think?

Greg, you are generally more civil in your discourse. I haven’t been called a motherfucker in print in a long time but I’m proud to wear the badge. Or is this a Rosanna Rosannadanna moment for you?

Hahahahaha. Fuck you.

At this point, you’ve totally missed why I think you are a motherfucker. I did quote you and respond to the quote. Let me whittle the quote down a bit more and see if I can be more clear:

… a child .. shot himself in the head … tragic …. But I think that child would have come to harm sooner or later.

Greg, you are generally more civil in your discourse.

Is he?