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One-year-old shot dead by 3-year old in Cleveland home.


Actually, it's still not a fair comparison. The quote I responded to talked about children in cars and compared them to children handling guns.

If we're calling a child someone under under 6, how many children under 6 handle a loaded firearm without supervision? I hope not many, so to compare 10's of millions of children that get in cars or go near pools to the comparative few thousands of children that handle a loaded weapon and try to say that pools or cars are more dangerous isn't a fair comparison.

It would be like comparing children that have a car in the home but never actually drive in it. If we're comparing children that have access to a pool, or drive in cars, we can only compare that to children who actually handle a firearm.
 
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Goshin said:
If you're going to imply I am a liar, then I have no interest in conversing with you. I have questioned your studies, but not your personal honesty or sincerity. If you cannot return the same courtesy, then I don't care for your company.
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Such anecdotal claims are easy to make but impossible to substantiate. In my experience discussing this sort of topic the perception of crime is far greater than the reality of it, and claims like this are made mainly in order to protect the guns and not the people.

No offence was intended
 
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Henrin said:
Using law to change culture is an assholish approach, imho.
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I'm not suggesting that laws be used to change culture, but culture change is often the result rendering the need for the law that started it unnecessary in the long run.
 
Jerry said:
That's what happens when the "child" is in a gang and fights other gangs, fights cops, and commits violent crimes.
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In the US children between the ages of 5 and 14 are 17 times more likely to die from firearms than in the rest of the developed world. I seriously doubt that the majority of those within that young age group are all gang members
 
Let's just call it a late term abortion and everybody will be happy.
 
flogger said:
In the US children between the ages of 5 and 14 are 17 times more likely to die from firearms than in the rest of the developed world. I seriously doubt that the majority of those within that young age group are all gang members
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Oh you want to start quoting numbers now, ok....

You are 24.91 times more likely to simply trip over something and die then to die by any-kind of unintended gunshot.


Sorry, you're not allowed to walk anymore. Wheelchairs for everyone, think of the children!
 
Goshin said:
Yes they are inconsistent, that's why I don't pay them much heed anymore.
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They're really not. It's a matter of odds. To pick an unrelated example, wearing a seat belt causes some people in car wrecks TO die, and protects others FROM dying. We know this, but anyone who's not a fool and wants to minimize the risk of death in a car wreck puts on his seat belt even to go across the street to the store because we know seat belts save FAR more lives than result in deaths.


No, see above.


Sure you can, but there is some objective reality. Just burying your head in the sand and ignoring the evidence isn't actually a reasonable way to determine that.


Some intruders aren't burglars, some are mass murdering rapists. But the odds are fairly low that's who you'll defend yourself against. More likely it's some sad guy with a meth addiction looking for a quick buck, and who will run and go to the next house.
 
flogger said:
Yes yes yes and more die from old age every year too ..... but as long as the guns are safe right ? :yawn:
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Please quote me accurately or not at all.
 



You don't know me, and I understand that is a factor here.

I am an honest man. I do not knowingly speak what I know to be untrue. It is a principle I have kept to most of my adult life, part of my personal code of behavior and morality.

I've been on DP for several years. If I was a habitual liar it would surely have become obvious to the other long-timers by now.

So yes, when I know I am speaking the truth and someone questions my honesty, it does not go over well.


The fact of the matter is I live in a high crime area. It is odd, I didn't realize that it was so until I was an adult; I assumed we were "average". In point of fact we have approximately the same violent crime rates as Compton (a rather bad neighborhood around LA). I was amazed to find this out as an adult... you tend to assume that whatever you grow up with is "normal".

Now out in the countryside, where I live, is not as bad as in town... but of course we go into town a lot. Also in recent years a veritable epidemic of Meth labs and meth use has caused a lot of problems with drug users stealing to get their fix and so on.

Also I'm a former LEO, and in subsequent jobs have spent a good bit of time in "da hood" in town working.


So that is where I'm coming from. It is simply fact that I've had a lot of violent or near-violent encounters in my life where I was glad to be armed. I lost a very dear friend in my early 20s who was murdered in a robbery. I'm currently sheltering a female family member from her ex, who only stays away not because of the protection order but because he knows I will shoot him at need.

So that is where I am coming from. Perhaps it makes a little more sense now.
 



Mr. Jerry is our Keeper of Gun Stats, perhaps he will post some for us and we'll see if people want to accept or ignore them.

Me, I go more by my experiences and the experiences of people I know. My experience says it is well to be armed.
 

I think you've mistaken me for someone else. I haven't pointed to child deaths, except perhaps that I don't have any problem whatsoever with a physician talking about gun safety and the risks firearms pose with young children in the house, and think it's boneheaded stupid to ban such discussions with a state law.

We might disagree on what "with as little restrictions as possible" means, but I am not an advocate for any kind of gun ban.

Some number of children are going to die from electrocution this year, that doesn't mean we need more electricity code.

That's the price you pay for living in the modern world.
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I don't know if we need more code or not - I doubt it at this point - but if you've got a toddler, you should probably be aware of the risk of her chewing through a cord and make an informed decision if you decide to drape the cord for the fan across her crib and hang her pacifier from it.
 
JasperL said:
Just burying your head in the sand and ignoring the evidence isn't actually a reasonable way to determine that.
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I see you like evidence. I like evidence, too....

Sources used in the video:



 
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Don't go ignoring that research now :2wave:
 

The point I keep trying to make isn't to compare the numbers of deaths from certain activities to other activities, but how preventable deaths are from activities relative to the need to partake and the assumption of risk relative to the benefits. Most of what you've listed are illnesses of some type where the actions needed to prevent them, if they can be prevented at all are worse than the risk we take if we get them.

Responsible firearm ownership may inconvenience the owner slightly, but when compared to the risk, especially to those that had nothing to do with the decision to handle the firearm in the first place (in the case of this thread that would be the 1yo that got shot) it seems acceptable that society asks this of firearm owners.

The problem is that any form of capitulation is perceived as a slippery slope that ends with the Government confiscating firearms from everyone. Given the national debate where both sides can overstep their bounds the hysteria on both sides continues and 1 year old's are shot by their 3 year old siblings because the adults in this country can't find the middle ground.
 
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Then tell us what legislation would have surely prevented this incident.
 
Jerry said:
I see you like evidence. I like evidence, too....
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Is there a point somewhere? I haven't advocated for gun control. And I watched 3 minutes of the first video - what he says is violent crime has dropped significantly - thanks EPA for the ban on lead!!! - and most crime is in big cities and in particular neighborhoods in big cities. So why the push to buy guns and to carry them? We're safer than ever and yet more and more people are buying more guns, more ammo and getting carry permits? That makes no sense to me, but it's also irrelevant to any point I've made in this discussion, which doesn't include any suggestion for more 'gun control.'

What I've said is the evidence is that if you buy a gun for 'protection' the odds are you have made yourself and your family less safe and more likely to die, generally by suicide or the hands of a loved on or acquaintance. If you've got a study that contradicts that, maybe we can discuss.
 

How many children go near the pool unattended? How many children play at other children's houses that may have swimming pools?

How is a swimming pool any different than a gun to a child, when they both seem to kill pretty indiscriminately?
 
The gun-owning community is hanging this woman out to dry over this incident. So let's just be clear from the get-go that this is not ok.

When I had a toddler in the house, I also had a gun in the house; in my right front pocket, to be exact. It was either in my pocket, or in the safe, no exceptions. While in the safe it was unloaded and trigger locked, because redundant levels of safety is the way to be.

You can't legislate personal responsibility. If you can't trust a person with a gun, then you can't trust them with a child, or a car, or any meaningful job, or even a box cutter.

When a nation passes a handgun ban they're saying they can't be trusted with anything.
 


So on the one hand you're saying having guns increases risk, yet you're saying we're so safe we don't need guns.

Yet the number of guns in the hands of citizens has gone way up over the past decade or two. Seeing a contradiction?


And no you haven't advocated any specific gun control... but you seem much more inclined to argue against gun ownership than for it, don't you?
 
flogger said:
No. Just that the more recent stats are more relevant to the discussion
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:lamo

You ignored and declined to address any of the stats or studies Jerry posted.

As predicted.
 
Goshin said:
:lamo

You ignored and declined to address any of the stats or studies Jerry posted.

As predicted.
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Those stats are well out of date as illustrated and addressed. You are hardly in a position to censure anyone on ignoring studies :roll:
 
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