A Sad Situation-Nobody Wins This

I  saw something Tuesday on twitter about a 4 yo accidentally killing a deputy sherriff’s wife at a cook out. WAIT WHAT?

twitter shooting

So I went in search of the story. The article assumed accident. How could it be anything else.  The child was 4, still in preschool, maybe even pull-ups, 4! And then another story of a similar incident, this time the 4yo shot his brother.

The next line news item was talking to the mother of a 4yo who was shot by a 6yo. She doesn’t blame the kids. Again WHAT? How can this still be happening ? Why are we allowing children to get near loaded guns? When are we going to understand that having a gun around makes you 40% more likely to be shot by it! THIS IS INSANE! I wanna scream at something. This is all so preventable. Why is American so hung up on gun ownership and hand guns and assault rifles for that matter. One of the articles mentioned that 600 people die of accidental gunshots a year while 31,000 die of gunshot wounds. So wait does that mean that the 30,400 others are intentional? That blows my mind and NOT in a good way.

Now before you get your knickers in a twist and want to write a ranty comment, which of course you totally can, I grew up with guns, I’ve used guns and I’ve let my children use guns under the strictest of control. But I don’t own any. There are none in my CITY apartment, I have no need. No wild animal is coming for me. I don’t hunt and I don’t need it for protection. It makes me sad that America is going this way. It’s been 5 months since Newtown and nothing has changed. Assault weapons are still readily available, there are no restrictions on purchase or how many guns you can own. Ten’s of thousands of people a year die and nothing changes, school children, college children, office workers… and nothing changes. How is this acceptable in a civilsed society?

One person puts a bomb in their shoe and we have to remove shoes, belts and jewellery at airports and get subjected to xrays and metal detectors. ONE. We can’t carry a bottle of water on the plane but any idiot can buy a high capacity magazine off the internet, hell you can buy guns and have ’em shipped to your fucking house! It’s crazy. I have great respect for sporting shooters, those who have guns for hunting, but hunting with a semi automatic rifle with a high capacity magazine is hardly sport. It’s not like Bambi can fight back.

Why are we so concerned about one plane full of people when that many die every single day of gun related incidents?

There must be a change, we must protect our community from the carnage, accidental or not. You think these children will recover from this? They’ve killed someone, that’s never going away, regardless of whether they understand yet or not.

All this is so preventable and I just wish someone had the balls to stand up, change the laws and make it a safer environment for all.

It seems that this is still not the time.          It’s just so SAD.

photo source :

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyTheNRA

http://momsdemandaction.org/

Comments 17

  1. It is so sad and so common and so infuriating. I’m not against gun ownership but if you’re going to own one, you better be a responsible f-ing person with it. In no way should kiss have access to these loaded guns nor should they be allowed to hold one unless the parent feels they should AND it is in a controlled situation. So sad.

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  2. I’m going to get all ranty. Or maybe not. I grew up in a hunting family. We owned hand guns at home. I don’t carry one myself and we don’t keep them here at the house, because I don’t think the risk is worth the benefits. I could never forgive myself if something happened to someone I loved. Not worth it. Period. I carry pepper spray if I feel I need to. And another thing. The only people who need assault weapons are military. There is no rational reason to own one. Sport. I get it. Recreation. Maybe. But we lock up other dangerous items like medicines and poisons to protect our children. Why don’t we use the same mentality with guns?

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      I did too and on a farm and the rifle lived in the dining room corner with a magazine sitting on the side board…. it was just there but it was a no go zone. However we weren’t little, and we learned how to use them and respect them and understood that they were a dangerous weapon. I don’t think people are treating them with the proper care and that is clearly causing this unnecessary carnage

  3. I hope the gun owners in all those situations get charged with murder. Not manslaughter or reckless endangerment, MURDER. I would never let my son on someone’s property if they owned a gun. This is NOT the Wild West; we DO NOT NEED GUNS. Maybe if enough people subscribed to my policy, the gun owners whose kids can’t have any friends over would start to get it? Maybe? I don’t know.

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  4. I don’t understand why people are so irresponsible with their weapons. I don’t think that guns should be taken away. I do think it’s necessary for someone to have to be put through the ringer before buying a gun. Yes, yes, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. However, since it’s people buying these guys and shooting people with them, that argument just falls apart for me.

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      See that argument is hard for me to swallow too because guns are made for one thing and one thing only… to KILL, therefore guns do kill people. There is a disconnect with the ability to be responsible and own a gun. You can’t just drive a car, you must be licensed and tested and governed and watched and fined when you make mistakes. Guns… not so much. Thank you for stopping by and commenting.

  5. Law-abiding citizens with guns should not be suffering because of criminally insane people or irresponsible gun owners. If you don’t like guns and don’t feel you need them, don’t.
    Yes, people use guns to kill people and that is a horrible and devastating thing. But it’s not the guns. They can’t pull their own trigger. Just like a car can’t drive itself and crash into someone, just like a knife can’t jump out of my kitchen drawer and stab me, and just like my kids’ baseball bats don’t fly out of my garage and bash someone in the head running by my house.
    Let me ask you this… If you were home alone with your little children and several very large and strong men broke in, would you want to be just waiting for the police to get there and holding pepper spray, or have a loaded gun in your hand when they opened the closet door you are all hiding in? Which one do you think would be more effective? (You should watch the movie “The Call” with Halle Berry.)
    I won’t even go on my rant over the infringement of our 2nd amendment rights. How would you like it if the government wanted to mess with you’re right to vote? Or mess with your right to say what you wanted in your blog?

    Molley, I respect your opinion and how you feel. How passionate you feel about this subject is how passionate I feel but from a different perspective. Thank you for this post, though. I am always interested in how others feel and why they do when it comes to things I don’t. : )

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      I am not against law abiding gun owners having weapons. I am however, against high capacity military style assault weapons. There is no place for those in modern society. They are people killing machines. If you feel you need a weapon to protect yourself that is your constitutional right but my constitutional right to freedom and liberty and safety should not be hindered in the process. Having said all that, these particular incidents are a perfect example that something must change because unfortunately there are ordinary people in the community who don’t have enough common sense or gun safety knowledge to be responsible gun owners. As for the 2nd amendment, times change and laws of the land must also change to govern in the current times. It’s a hot topic, it has complexities, and that’s why healthy discussion is good. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion in a thought provoking and respectful manner.

  6. I agree with what you are saying. I just don’t understand how as adults we can become so careless. I am not a fan of guns at all, I am not stupid enough to buy into the whole guns kill people argument because well that is just absurd. Stupid careless people kill people.

  7. I’m having trouble with this too. Why are kids getting anywhere near guns? I get the need to arm yourself out in the country. If there’s a bear coming at you, you need to be able to stop it. But aside from that, I kind of feel the only people that need to carry firearms are military and police. People who are TRAINED in how to safely use them. Just my opinion.

  8. I have spent more than my share of time worrying about people who own guns but are not responsible with them. We live in an area of the United States where many people hunt, and therefore own guns. I worry about my own children going into a house where there might be guns. If you own a gun, KEEP THEM LOCKED UP! Put the ammunition locked up in a separate place, and neither anywhere where young children might be playing unattended.

    I also worry about accessibility to the high powered assault rifles. I’m with you-why on earth would anyone need something like that? How can something like that be available to the general public (police and military excluded of course)? I don’t like living in fear any more than the next person. These need to be banned.

    It is a scary time. Children are not replaceable. Let’s keep them safe.

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