From the guns of babes
March 13, 2016 6:45 AM Subscribe

Toddlers were responsible for more gun deaths than terrorists in the US in 2015. Gun rights advocate Jamie Gilt was recently shot in the back by her 4 year-old son, who used a loaded gun she'd left with him in the backseat of the car. These numbers don't seem to include deaths from older children, like the 11 year-old who shot and killed an 8 year-old last year, because she wouldn't let him play with her puppy.
posted by stillmoving (150 comments total) 49 users marked this as a favorite

In related news:

- Iowa house passes bill to let children of all ages handle guns. by Ellen Brait [The Guardian]

A bill that allows children of all ages to handle guns passed Iowa’s house of representatives on Tuesday. Approved by a 62-36 vote, the bill permits children under the age of 14 to have “a pistol, revolver or the ammunition” while under parental supervision. The bill will now head to the state senate.

- Marketing Guns to Children by Anna North [New York Times]

The report, called “Start Them Young” and issued on Thursday by the Violence Policy Center, lists a variety of firearms meant at least partly for children. It mentions the Crickett rifle, a gun made for children by the company Keystone Sporting Arms. Keystone’s website and some of its merchandise bear the image of “Davey Crickett,” a gun-wielding cartoon insect. The company sells Davey Crickett hats, dog tags and pins, as well as a Davey Crickett Beanie Baby, listed as “not for children under three years of age.”

posted by Fizz at 6:49 AM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

That bill is sponsored by the Darwin Awards, right?

Right?
posted by lmfsilva at 6:50 AM on March 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

My First Rifle... pink for a girl, obviously
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:55 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 6:57 AM on March 13, 2016

Also never forget the people shot by dogs.
posted by thelonius at 7:03 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

David Waldman's DailyKos feature GunFail is a sometimes hilarious but mostly depressing periodic review of accidental shooting incidents.

The most popular thing to do by accident with your gun remains shooting yourself with it. By far. Another 21 people did it in the week of January 10th. Second-most popular: shooting kids. Eleven were accidentally shot that week. And 10 people were accidentally shot to death. Nine were accidentally shot by family members or significant others.

In other words: a routine week. Happens all the time.

Most Recent Edition: GunFail CLXXVI
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:28 AM on March 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Guys! Guys! You're looking at this wrong! You know what this means?!

You're clearly winning the war on terror!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
posted by garius at 7:29 AM on March 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Jordan Sargent: University of Houston Offers Teachers Helpful Tips For How to Not Get Murdered:

[T]he school recently presented the following Powerpoint slide that suggests ways in which teachers may reduce their chances of being murdered by their students. It reads:
Be careful discussing sensitive topics
Drop certain topics from your curriculum
Not “go there” if you sense anger
Limit student access off hours
Altering curriculum and reducing the amount of time spent with students doesn’t really seem conducive to the act of “teaching.” But on the bright side, at least professors won’t be the only ones asked to issue trigger warnings?

posted by zombieflanders at 7:31 AM on March 13, 2016 [43 favorites]

"...it comes with a side of nationwide liberal schadenfreude..."
posted by jim in austin at 7:37 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can get no schadenfreude from this, this is straight up tragedy. If it were just idiots hurting other idiots I could give a toss but children are being horribly harmed here.
posted by Artw at 7:41 AM on March 13, 2016 [65 favorites]

Obviously, the answer to this is to arm all children. Problem solved.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:43 AM on March 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Does leaving a loaded gun where your toddler can reach it ever lead to criminal charges, or do they figure that getting shot by your kid is punishment enough?

I like guns but personally I'd like to see people who are so wildly irresponsible with them lose their right to own firearms and, when appropriate, face charges of child endangerment. Our current gun laws are kind of crazy, and one aspect of that craziness is that it seems like there are seldom penalties for irresponsible gun handling and storage.

Gun safes are cheap, and every new gun I have ever bought has come with a free included gun lock -- there is no excuse for this kind of sloppy ownership. Kids are curious and love to imitate what they see in the movies, so the responsibility is on the adults to not let that kind of access happen.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:44 AM on March 13, 2016 [77 favorites]

I will confess that I have trouble feeling one iota of sympathy for Jamie Gilt for two reasons: first, the very obvious "Duh!" Darwin Award reason; and second, but more important, for the psychological damage she inflicted on her kid, who's old bought to know that he's the one who hurt mommy and put her in the hospital. That is 100 percent her fault, and, even more infuriating, was 100 percent avoidable.
posted by holborne at 7:53 AM on March 13, 2016 [59 favorites]

That bill is sponsored by the Darwin Awards, right?

If parents are shot by their own toddler, they are not eligible for a Darwin Award because they have already 'successfully' reproduced.
posted by fairmettle at 8:02 AM on March 13, 2016 [38 favorites]

Does leaving a loaded gun where your toddler can reach it ever lead to criminal charges, or do they figure that getting shot by your kid is punishment enough?

It's a misdemeanor in Florida, where the Jamie Gilt shooting occurred, but who knows if she'll face charges, I can see it going either way.

Tragedy wise, it's somewhat similar to the parents who accidentally leave their kids in a car. Yes, it's illegal, and some do face jail time, but some do not, as the accident itself seems terrible enough.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:04 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

But yeah, I was a ten year old with an assault rifle, once. Now I want way stricter gun laws. Funny how things turn out.

I realize that every child is going to have a different experience but I'm genuinely curious. If you don't mind answering this question (and feel free not to), but did you ever feel pressured to use guns/like guns? Or was it more just about spending time with your family and doing family stuff?
posted by Fizz at 8:17 AM on March 13, 2016

But babies are cute, and terrorists are scary.

These empirical trends (people accidentally shooting themselves with guns, people being accidentally shot by babies/children, and the other way around, etc) help to illustrate very vividly that the loss of life and permanent injury just isn't inherently problematic for many people; the threat of feeling disempowered and intentionally victimized is what scares people, not the possibility of an accidental death. Being mugged or jihad-ed by ISIS, as so many people in America's midwest are at constant risk of obviously, is a scarier idea than the possibility that owning a gun could result in the accidental death of a child.
posted by clockzero at 8:27 AM on March 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

Nobody should have the slightest shred of sympathy for Jamie Gilt. But their stupidity, which I would say amounts to child abuse, has resulted in irreparable harm to the life of a four year old, so "schadenfreude" is a pretty shitty response also.
posted by Artw at 8:29 AM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Having grown up with guns, what's really weird to me is how not-weird that 'My First Rifle' series seems. None of my guns were pink, but my dad took me target shooting in second and third grade. It was fun! I got to hang out with my dad, doing dad stuff! He was so proud of what a good shot I was! He was always very very definite about safety, but looking back, it's strange how normalized it all was. Like taking your kid to get ice cream, I suppose, some special little thing like that.

I agree. The first guns I shot were similar (or maybe even the same brand) single shot .22's, which are probably the safest and easiest guns for a kid to learn on. I loved it but it was also entirely disconnected from the current tactical-style gun culture, which I am not a fan of and I doubt I would have liked any more as a kid. Going shooting with my grandfather, and shooting at cub scout camp, were entirely normalized and got no more special emphasis than, as you say, getting ice cream -- a nice treat, but part of everday life.

But in my case it was wrapped up with an emphasis on safety that seems to be entirely absent in so many of these stories, from the people who leave their guns next to the toddler to the drunk guys who drop their guns in movie theaters. That kind of casual or even deliberately unsafe ownership is utterly foreign to me, but sadly might be more normal than it is abnormal, and our gun laws need to reflect that.

A bill that allows children of all ages to handle guns passed Iowa’s house of representatives on Tuesday. Approved by a 62-36 vote, the bill permits children under the age of 14 to have “a pistol, revolver or the ammunition” while under parental supervision. The bill will now head to the state senate.

Speaking to the normalization of shooting and gun handling, I never would have guessed that it wasn't legal to take your kid pistol shooting anywhere in the US.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:30 AM on March 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

Altering curriculum and reducing the amount of time spent with students doesn’t really seem conducive to the act of “teaching.” But on the bright side, at least professors won’t be the only ones asked to issue trigger warnings?

All this campus carry insanity of the past little while really literalizes the term trigger warning, doesn't it?
posted by cudzoo at 8:35 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was pretty well indoctrinated, I think, up until Sandy Hook. Honestly, the discussion on the Blue in the wake of that probably got me to turn my opinion around.

And it wasn't so much pressure as it was just another part of life. Like going fishing. And hey, here's this thing I'm good at! I'm making my dad proud! That has an appeal, when you're that age.

But in my case it was wrapped up with an emphasis on safety that seems to be entirely absent in so many of these stories, from the people who leave their guns next to the toddler to the drunk guys who drop their guns in movie theaters. That kind of casual or even deliberately unsafe ownership is utterly foreign to me, but sadly might be more normal than it is abnormal, and our gun laws need to reflect that.

Yes, this. It was drilled into my head-- always treat the gun as if it's loaded, and guns live in the gun safe until you put them in the back of the truck, in the gun case, which is locked until you get to the range. Never point a gun at something you don't intend to kill, keep your finger off the trigger, etc, etc. The thought that my dad could be an outlier in this case is horrifying, and I'm even opposed to his ownership at this point in my life.
posted by dogheart at 8:37 AM on March 13, 2016 [36 favorites]

Obviously, the answer to this is to arm all children. Problem solved.

The only thing that stops a bad toddler with a gun is a good toddler with a gun.

What, did you all think "The Small Assassin" was fiction?
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:37 AM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is shocking news and we obviously need to do something about these dangerous children, like build a giant wall, perhaps, or export them en masse.

As a parent, I've often thought this would solve all my problems.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:43 AM on March 13, 2016 [23 favorites]

It was drilled into my head-- always treat the gun as if it's loaded, and guns live in the gun safe until you put them in the back of the truck, in the gun case, which is locked until you get to the range. Never point a gun at something you don't intend to kill, keep your finger off the trigger, etc, etc.

I never owned a gun, but we had some kind of Eddie Eagle program in elementary school and marksmanship (bolt action .22s) in summer camp. It stuck we me enough that I get wigged out when my SFX friend starts waving his prop guns around (which, I'm sure, is why he does that.)

So, I have no problem with tweens handling guns under supervision but I think leaving a loaded pistol around should result in your kids being taken from you.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:56 AM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

It seems strange to me that news outlets are reporting Gilt's shooting as an accident. Leaving a loaded .45 next to your toddler who gets "jacked up" by the thought of shooting a gun isn't an accident.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:57 AM on March 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

"In an 1893 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "children under the age of 7 years could not be guilty of felony, or punished for any capital offense, for within that age the child is conclusively presumed incapable of committing a crime." This is followed in many U.S. states."
posted by clavdivs at 9:12 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

My dad never taught me to shoot a gun, but my siblings and I all knew there was one in the house..... surprised the heck out of us when he died that he still had it, because we thought it'd been gotten rid of decades earlier.

We lived in a very small town; there was a state (women's) prison less than half a mile in a straight line (or a mile and a half by road) from our house. One time about half a dozen of the ladies escaped, four of them murderers and the other two attempted murderers. Dad was in the Navy, and due to head back out to sea in two weeks; for specific safety reasons having to do with that escape he taught Mom and one of my sisters to use a handgun. None of the rest of us were to even touch it, and that one sister was only allowed to touch it A) when in his presence or B) in case of actual emergency. We were well-trained kids: oh heck no we never even thought of going after it --- curiousity is strong in kids, but dealing with our Dad when pissed-off was a bigger factor!

The point is, Dad didn't have a gun just to what, prove his manliness or something?, like a lot of the NRA wackos seem to do. And while I'm extremely sorry for the trauma Jamie Gilt's 4-year-old will spend his life dealing with, I am not in any way sorry for her: I consider hers to be pretty much a self-inflicted injury.
posted by easily confused at 9:24 AM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Um, no I seriously doubt Jamie Gilt will face any charges. She's from Palatka, a small and very very poor town southwest of Jacksonville. (Not throwing any shade, I have family that lives there and I've lived there myself-but didn't stay long,) I don't know her personally but I know people that do and they all believe she has no fault in the "accident". Also, according to police reports her son wasn't in his car seat, but was standing in the back seat of her truck. She is a huge 2nd Amendment Rights advocate and has a facebook page that's pretty aggressive about it, with lots of pictures of her son shooting different weapons. Putnam county is rural and nearly everyone owns multiple guns - hunting is a big part of the culture.

Also, my husband's cousin that lives in a large city in Missouri puts pictures of the guns he has lined up by the back door, including the pink rifle his 9 year old daughter shoots. It's getting to be more and more difficult to have conversations with various members of our families.

It's even sadder to us that we aren't comfortable letting our 13 year old son visit with some of them becaue they don't practice what we think are the minimum gun safety standards. My own son in law calls my 13 year old a "baby" because he doesn't want to hunt or even shoot a gun. I'm not saying all gun owners are like this, but quite a lot of them are unreasonable when it comes to their gun fetish.
posted by hollygoheavy at 9:26 AM on March 13, 2016 [44 favorites]

In the past five years, at least six Americans have been shot by dogs
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the past five years, at least six Americans have been shot by dogs.

I'm tempted to make a dog/gun pun of some kind, but it's such a sad state of affairs that I won't do that. There's nothing funny about these preventable deaths. Such a waste.
posted by Fizz at 9:31 AM on March 13, 2016

When a dog named "trigger" shoots its owner, I think the need for any sort of dog/gun puns is obviated.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:36 AM on March 13, 2016 [29 favorites]

Won't someone think of the children?
posted by infini at 9:40 AM on March 13, 2016

Apparently, getting shot by toddlers is a thing...

Here's an update, on the family of The Albequrque Kid, a boy so ornery and fussy about his eatin', he once shot his own parents, for ordering a pizza with ranch sauce: http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/06/us/new-mexico-toddler-shoots-parents/
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 9:41 AM on March 13, 2016

Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.
posted by wuwei at 9:53 AM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

This is just more anti Second Amendment liberal propaganda bullshit.

Guns don't kill people. 4-year-olds kill people.
posted by flarbuse at 9:57 AM on March 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

You're clearly winning the war on terror!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Next up: WAR ON TODDLERS
posted by dersins at 9:58 AM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

Finally, a war for me.
posted by maxsparber at 10:00 AM on March 13, 2016 [17 favorites]

I remember being a child and my mother wouldn't let us have water guns or nerf guns. But gun safety (louisiana) was talked about frequently. What do I do if I find a friend's parents gun? What do I say if a friend wants to show me his parents gun? To never point a gun at people and always assume it was loaded.

My mom was a peds nurse and I assume she saw one to many gun accidents, but it was useful for me.

I'm not sure why they're are so many advocates for child gun access, when we don't allow kids to drink or drive (or both for that matter). We won't let them play in the park unattended, or stay at home alone. All of those things are less risky than putting a lethal wepon in the hands of someone who doesn't understand that death is permanent.

But gun access. Legal right.
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:02 AM on March 13, 2016 [21 favorites]

Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.

Deaths from car accidents and lead poisoning have also dropped, but that doesn't mean we should stop installing seatbelts or regulating lead content in paint and gasoline. Or, to continue the analogy as it pertains to the most vocal 2A proponents, take seatbelts out of existing cars and put lead back into the paint and gas.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:06 AM on March 13, 2016 [50 favorites]

With regard to the accidentally safety/cleaning aspect of this discussion. Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"? There are so many safer options available. Or has the gun community embraced this and I've just not heard anything about it? I'm not a fan of guns either way but a gun that only responds to a particular person's finger-print or palm-print or biometric, sounds a hell of a lot safer than a gun that any kid or stranger can pick up...
posted by Fizz at 10:12 AM on March 13, 2016

Shooting yourself or someone accidentally is the result of a "butt dial" type incident in most cases. But sadly far worse consequences.

You don't know my ex.
posted by beerperson at 10:15 AM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are so many safer options available.

Some examples:

Ægen Technologies CEO Kai Kloepfer, a high school student in Boulder, Colorado, has a working smart gun prototype that uses a fingerprint sensor to unlock the firearms safety. It can be programmed to register a range of fingerprints so that the gun would be able to be used by all the members of a police force. This prototype also promises to reduce risk of accidental shootings.

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)'s smart gun relies on biometric sensors in the grip and trigger that can track a gun owner’s hand size, strength, and Dynamic grip style, also known as (DGR) Dynamic Grip Recognition. The gun is programmed to recognize only the owner or anyone whom the owner wishes to authorize.

Led by Jonathan Mossberg, iGun Technology Corporation has developed 12-gauge shotgun that uses magnetic spectrum token technology, similar in function to RFID, to secure the gun. The shotgun is activated when in close proximity to a ring worn on the trigger hand of the user. A 2013 report by the National Institute of Justice stated that iGun's product "could be considered the first personalized firearm to go beyond a prototype to an actual commercializable or production-ready product." Mossberg trademarked the term "SmartGun".

posted by Fizz at 10:21 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

The most popular thing to do by accident with your gun remains shooting yourself with it. By far. Another 21 people did it in the week of January 10th. Second-most popular: shooting kids. Eleven were accidentally shot that week. And 10 people were accidentally shot to death. Nine were accidentally shot by family members or significant others.

In other words: a routine week. Happens all the time.

Christ.

This reminds me of the first week I was back in the States after living in Spain for a year. I watched exactly one evening newscast and spent the rest of the week convinced that everyone in this country was, just, shooting each other all the time. The entire year I was in Spain there was exactly ONE news story about an accidental shooting (it was the King's grandson, on a hunting trip. He shot himself in the foot). Madrid has close to zero gun violence, and the small pueblo I lived in had even less. Meanwhile I am currently living in a suburb of a suburb that has at least one gun incident per week.

Christ.
posted by chainsofreedom at 10:25 AM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

4 years old isn't really a "toddler", is it? He can at least be tried as a pre-schooler.
posted by thelonius at 10:32 AM on March 13, 2016 [63 favorites]

"as well as a Davey Crickett Beanie Baby, listed as “not for children under three years of age.”"

DaaAaaaavey, DaaaAvey Crickett! Choked on small parts when he was only three~~~

I work in the country in Ontario and there's a big hunting culture - a coworker has a story about her husband who was keen on refilling shotgun shells instead of buying new ones, which is I guess a thing you can do. Anyway he was doing this with the help of their 12 year old son, and one of them went off in their faces, thankfully before they added the shot. He slept in the garage for a while after that one.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 10:32 AM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

He slept in the garage for a while after that one.

The shotgun, the husband, or the child?
posted by Fizz at 10:35 AM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"?

ANY sort of control or regulation is vigorously fought against. Doesn't matter if it's reasonable or potentially helpful, absolutely zero control and/or regulation is the goal.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:40 AM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma: "It seems that, for lack of anything better to do, the Oklahoma House has voted to do away with the state's training and licensing requirements for people who want to carry their shootin' 'arns openly."
posted by homunculus at 10:40 AM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't guns have some sort of safety feature? From reading the GunFail link, it seems a lot of guns "accidentally" go off. How can so many of them "accidentally" discharge? Doesn't someone or thing have to actually pull the trigger?

Many guns have safety latches that stop the trigger from being pulled, but they're pretty easy to deactivate.

Notably, many handguns don't -- including the Glock, which is quite popular with American cops and other kinds of gun enthusiasts. These have "safe action" which prevents the gun from accidentally firing if it's dropped or jostled, but absolutely does not protect against somebody (or somebody's dog, I suppose) pulling the trigger when they shouldn't.
posted by neckro23 at 10:42 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I come from an old deep-south Army family. I was given my first gun on my first birthday by my grandfather, which was kept in trust in my Dad's gun safe until I was 18, at which point I assumed ownership. I began squirrel hunting at 12 and target shooting at ten. My dad made me attend two safety workshops, and I was around guns absorbing safety lessons long before I was allowed to handle them. Those lessons are so deeply ingrained in my mind that I even treat my Airsoft guns as if they're real: keep them unloaded, always clear the chamber first thing, never ever point them at another person.

Gun culture runs deep in my family, and my family thinks these people are dangerous fools who shouldn't be allowed to own guns. Responsible gun owners loathe people like Gilt for their reckless stupidity. My dad let his NRA membership lapse 20 years ago because of how extreme they'd become.

I've always wondered if there was room for cooperation between people like my dad and a moderate gun control movement and what that would look like.
posted by echocollate at 10:44 AM on March 13, 2016 [39 favorites]

>Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.

The fact that your source is a pro-firearms lobbying group - so right away your "fact" is immediately suspect by any critical thinker.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 10:44 AM on March 13, 2016 [18 favorites]

Leaving a loaded .45 next to your toddler who gets "jacked up" by the thought of shooting a gun isn't an accident.
***
It would be pretty irresponsible to report it as intentional. I get what you're saying, but, come on. It was a foreseeable accident, but an accident.

The way I see it is the shooting itself was an accident but the fact that the gun was accessible is criminal negligence.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 10:51 AM on March 13, 2016 [25 favorites]

"Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"? "

My impression is that the institutional NRA (that is, the lobbying arm that is primarily about getting money from gun manufacturers) opposes them because a) the technology is primarily owned by start-ups, not big incumbent manufacturers who pay big money to the NRA, and the incumbents don't want to lose profit margin by having to install expensive safety features; and b) they categorically reject any changes in laws or practice that suggest that CURRENT gun safety measures are inadequate, as part of a long-term litigation strategy to protect gun manufacturers from liability and to keep the cost of gun ownership low by avoiding insurance that adequately insures their risks. That's also a big part of why they have blocked federal spending that would study gun-related risks; reliable numbers on gun risks would enable the government, insurance companies, and plaintiff's attorneys to put much more accurate costs on gun ownership.

The ideological wing of the NRA objects to all gun-related mandates just on principle that any intrusion on unfettered gun rights, no matter how minor, is the first step down the road towards fascism because ... reasons, I guess.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:52 AM on March 13, 2016 [27 favorites]

>making the safety mechanisms as complicated as a Tylenol bottle would be fundamentally inconsistent with the entire reason for having a handgun in the first place.

Ok, that's a good point. But then you'd think gun enthusiasts would be happy with some sort of "smart gun" technology. At least then a kid couldn't accidentally shoot someone.
posted by trigger at 10:53 AM on March 13, 2016

"Look, let’s be honest.
"More gun-free zones won’t do a damned thing....
"More background checks won’t do a damned thing....
"Banning the future sales of assault weapons...won’t do a damned thing....
"So what would?
"Well, we make the NRA’s own rules federal law."
posted by otherchaz at 10:56 AM on March 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

Profits are going to be the prime motivator for the NRA, it being a trade organization, and obviously safety is absolute last priority for them. But it also goes against their current ethos which is all about macho swagger and racist bullshit - not about The Man stopping you from tooling up your toddler.
posted by Artw at 11:07 AM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Or what Moonorb said. Basically there is no chance whatsoever of getting them to engage with any real life safety issue when they are off living in a dreamworld of violent fantasy.
posted by Artw at 11:08 AM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

This isn't meant as a derail, but we (should) all know the old saw about statistics. The TFA links to exactly one place to support its title, and it's a Snopes article that concludes "True", however the thesis is (emphasis mine):

Broad counts indicate that 21 toddlers shot and killed themselves or others in 2015; 19 Americans died at the hands of potential or suspected Islamic terrorists.

It contains the caveat:

WHAT'S UNDETERMINED: What constitutes a "toddler," a "foreign terrorist," and which criteria counted toward attaining those totals.

posted by achrise at 11:11 AM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm Canadian, so I have a pretty limited understanding of handguns other than what I've gleaned from binge watching The Walking Dead. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't guns have some sort of safety feature? From reading the GunFail link, it seems a lot of guns "accidentally" go off. How can so many of them "accidentally" discharge? Doesn't someone or thing have to actually pull the trigger? (yes, eponysterical, I know.) How do you accidentally discharge a gun in your kitchen? How do you accidentally shoot yourself in the leg with a gun in your pocket? How do you accidentally shoot yourself while cleaning a gun? Is this a nice way of saying they accidentally pulled the trigger or is something else going on that I don't understand, like the gun malfunctioned?

Yes, usually "it went off when I was cleaning it" is code for "I screwed up big time" (or a polite way to avoid admitting that a person committed suicide, the same way that single vehicle car crashes are reported as accidents even if it was deliberate). Modern firearms are mostly reliable and almost never go off without someone pulling the trigger, though there are a few faulty designs out there (like this video of a Taurus model that fires when shaken vigorously).

Gun safeties exist to help keep people from discharging them accidentally, and are not meant as childproofing and take no more than pushing a switch or lever to access. This image shows the safety mechanism on a Beretta 92 (a common 9mm handgun used by the US military) -- you simply move your thumb up and flip the switch, something any creative child could figure out.

But a lot of handguns do not have safeties at all (neither of the ones I own do, for example) and so don't have even that minimal barrier. In any case, you keep guns away from kids with locks and safes (well, and ideally better laws, but good luck with that). A few handguns (like Smith & Wesson revolvers) have tiny little key-operated locks built in, but I've never known of anyone actually using those and I think they are more of a vestigial remnant of the Clinton years than serious safety technology.

"Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"? "

As others have said, it seems to be largely resistance by the gun lobby people for political or liability reasons, as well as the technology doesn't seem to be quite there yet in terms of functioning perfectly in all weather and all conditions. I'd be interested if they did become available, but I doubt it will be all that much of a panacea given how obviously casual people are with safety. You can already buy biometric and rfid gun safes, so the technology is incrementing closer.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:23 AM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Isn't there a law in New Jersey that requires all new guns to have smart technology a few years after one is introduced to the market? (And as a result, there's a huge effort to keep anybody from selling one?)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:29 AM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

We have to bring these toddlers to heel by any means necessary. any means. And the only language they understand is violence.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:35 AM on March 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

I wonder how much money was made selling toy guns from say, 1936 to date or even in last two years.
posted by clavdivs at 11:36 AM on March 13, 2016

Isn't there a law in New Jersey that requires all new guns to have smart technology a few years after one is introduced to the market? (And as a result, there's a huge effort to keep anybody from selling one?)

Yup
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:39 AM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'd like to see people who are so wildly irresponsible with them lose their right to own firearms...

I'd like to dispense with the notion that gun "accidents" are the result of "wild irresponsibility." Everyone is accident-prone. You don't get to distance yourself from those people. You're not different. If you haven't had an accident with your gun (yet), what you are is lucky.

Maybe, as otherchaz' link suggests, the key is to make people responsible for their "accidents."
posted by klanawa at 11:45 AM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Does leaving a loaded gun where your toddler can reach it ever lead to criminal charges, or do they figure that getting shot by your kid is punishment enough?

There was a case in the news recently that went something like this:

Grandpa leaves loaded gun on bedside table when he leaves the house.

Daughter, grandson, maybe grandma come home. They don't know about the loaded gun.

Grandson of toddler/preschool age shoots self.

Newspaper article about it notes that this has been ruled an "accidental death."
posted by not that girl at 11:49 AM on March 13, 2016

How do you accidentally discharge a gun in your kitchen? How do you accidentally shoot yourself in the leg with a gun in your pocket? How do you accidentally shoot yourself while cleaning a gun? Is this a nice way of saying they accidentally pulled the trigger or is something else going on that I don't understand, like the gun malfunctioned?

Many people store guns with a bullet in the chamber. They often forget about it. The gun may be old and have worn metal parts from years of firing, perhaps having a sensitive trigger that releases the spring-loaded firing pin too easily, even when jostled (which is why so many hunting accidents happen while crossing fences when the gun falls). People may also grab the trigger to remove a gun from their pocket while loaded. Some people practice a live quick draw, like in the movies, and then tell the hospital it was a malfunctioning gun. Perhaps the biggest reason a gun goes off by accident is when the chambered round is deliberately removed for cleaning or handling. The live bullet doesn't come out the way it went in, but the way it leaves the gun after firing. So the handler literally forces the removal of a live bullet by reloading the gun while empty. Many things can go wrong here because it takes coordination with both hands, one of them near the trigger and susceptible to muscle memory when tired. Also, never underestimate horseplay. As a kid I was once shot in the toe with a BB gun by a friend, who insisted it was unloaded and magically loaded itself (it was numb for a week, obviously broken). The point is that some people, especially the insecure or paranoid, are generally childish and full of mischief when emboldened with a gun, basically drunk with power.
posted by Brian B. at 11:51 AM on March 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.

This is a positive trend, if it is real. There are good reasons to reserve judgment regarding the NSSF's reporting, however, that have nothing to do with hysteria or tendentious ideology.

First of all, the NSSF identifies itself as "...the trade organization for the firearms industry." There is an inherent conflict of interest in their work collecting, analyzing, and reporting data on gun safety: they are basically a marketing, lobbying, and public relations-based organization for the products that we're ostensibly meant to think they're unbiased about. By itself, this doesn't prove that they're deliberately misleading anyone, but it should make us skeptical of their claims about gun safety, because their job is to help sell guns. It's quite straight-forward.

Secondly, their actual data and reportage raises some red flags, in several ways:

-They cite themselves as the source of data in many places without explaining where the figures actually come from (e.g., public records, reporting from public agencies, etc.)
-Their state-level reporting lacks data from twenty-seven states; so they're basing one of their boldest claims in part on incomplete information, which may render their conclusion utterly false but we have no way of knowing
-They constantly compare gun-related accidents with a litany of unrelated activities in a transparent attempt to make guns seem safe by comparison, which seems like sophistry when the question at hand is more like "how safe are guns, really?" than "do more people slip and fall than accidentally shoot themselves in America, typically?"
-There are a number of miscellaneous problems in their reporting: for example, the "Fatalities in the Home" chart on page 4 has 4,800 "Other" fatalities listed, which seems to indicate a lot of missing data when the sample is 60,600
-All of the NSSF's data is characterized as "preliminary" and "subject to change" three years after initial reporting, so they're literally telling people that they could easily be wrong

Finally, one of the biggest problems here is built into the data analysis itself: they focus exclusively here on unintentional firearm deaths, neglecting the fatalities arising from self-inflicted violence as well as intentional domestic violence. Every year, hundreds of women are gunned down by current or former intimate partners, for instance. Equally worrisome is the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, at least 33,599 people were killed by firearms in the US in 2013, so even if the NSSF is correct that "only" 600 people were unintentionally killed by firearms in 2011, gun violence is still wildly, drastically more prevalent in the US than in most places that aren't literally warzones.

I urge people to take a good look at the data collected by the CDC and presented at everytownresearch.org on gun violence. We cannot continue blithely giving credence to lobbyists and belligerent gun enthusiasts, as though they are reliable sources of information about the facts of gun violence in America.
posted by clockzero at 11:55 AM on March 13, 2016 [62 favorites]

I'll just leave this here.

Gun Violence Archive

Make of it what you will.
posted by Max Power at 12:02 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'll let someone else answer about the shit that happens while cleaning bc that is one I don't understand.

"It went off while cleaning" is a euphemism for "They committed suicide, but we don't want to tell the children/public that."
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:07 PM on March 13, 2016 [19 favorites]

On the safety / smart tech front, it's easy for those of us outside that culture to underestimate just how many people have bought into a slippery slope argument where any acknowledgement of safety risks will lead to mass confiscations.

There was a bit of news last year when a nearby gun shop decided to simply carry a smart gun and was deluged with angry messages and death threats:

But after hundreds of protests on his store’s Facebook page and online forums — a repeat of what Oak Tree faced — Raymond released a long video on the Facebook page saying he had received death threats and would not sell the gun. He apologized and took responsibility for the decision. He had sold none of the smart guns and would not, he said.

This hit the characteristic dark humor of modern conservatism when many of the people decrying this on Facebook, comments sections, etc. also claimed to be big on letting the market decide.
posted by adamsc at 12:14 PM on March 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Mefi thread on that.
posted by Artw at 12:16 PM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Following #GunFAIL for a while will hammer home just how "no true Scotsman" all of the pro-gun arguments are. Was a child killed this weekend by a gun? Yes, of course, you don't have to go very far back. To top it off, an entire family was injured at a gun range.

So many responsible gun owners, until they shoot somebody. Then they weren't responsible, unlike all the other people wandering around with a gun. You can trust THEM.

I feel sorry for this woman who felt the need to post on Facebook that her right to protect her child with her gun overruled everyone else's fear that she would do something stupid with it—only for the protected child to shoot her with it. But obviously, it's just an accident, couldn't be prevented, just like the other thousands of gun incidents every year that are evidently the price we pay for the NRA's brand of gun fetishism.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:19 PM on March 13, 2016 [16 favorites]

This hit the characteristic dark humor of modern conservatism when many of the people decrying this on Facebook, comments sections, etc. also claimed to be big on letting the market decide.

Scratch a free-market fundamentalist and you'll find someone who thinks human life is utterly expendable, and not just in the abstract.
posted by clockzero at 12:20 PM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Snopes.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:29 PM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

These empirical trends (people accidentally shooting themselves with guns, people being accidentally shot by babies/children, and the other way around, etc) help to illustrate very vividly that the loss of life and permanent injury just isn't inherently problematic for many people; the threat of feeling disempowered and intentionally victimized is what scares people, not the possibility of an accidental death.

This phenomenon is just yet another example of the society costs we all pay for the decades of conservative/right wing gaslighting vis-a-vis statistics, science and objective reality in general. It's also evident in mass failure to distinguish facts from opinions and to choose to rely on one's own beliefs and certainty than whatever pointy-headed experts might say. See also: global warming, U.S. exceptionalism and trickle-down economics.
posted by carmicha at 12:42 PM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

the past five years, at least six Americans have been shot by dogs.

Following that article and its links, it looks like, in the last 10 years, at least 10 Americans were shot by dogs while only one shooting by a cat was reported. That's right; you are 10x as likely to be shot by your dog (which you claim is "loyal") than your cat (who you claim is an "asshole"). I think we need to reconsider this.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:56 PM on March 13, 2016 [61 favorites]

Guns: The only problem for which the solution is even more of the problem.
posted by tommasz at 1:06 PM on March 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

Cats don't need guns to kill you.
posted by beerperson at 1:11 PM on March 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.

When a preschooler shoots his mother while she's driving, I'm going to be a little bit hysterical about the situation.
posted by hollygoheavy at 1:16 PM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

It was a foreseeable accident, but an accident.

Sorry, but I see this as part of the problem. (I work in safety...) Preventing death and injury is made more difficult by claiming that some events are "accidents", because that really means "here's a class of event that is a) unpredictable, and b) no one's responsibility". Part of how we've been able to reduced injuries in workplaces over the last 50 years* is by formally stating "There is no such thing as an accident". Conversely, all incidents have a cause, which we can analyse. It's also possible that someone should have done something to prevent this incident, but we need to avoid fault-finding until we've analysed the cause. The objectives are to gather information, and to prevent the people involved from saying "It was an accident, therefore there is no cause" or "that person was responsible, and they bear all the blame". Those are mechanisms to ignore our own responsibilities to try and foresee risky situations based on our knowledge of the past, or to identify a culprit and assume that the problem is solved. Both of them prevent us from using our memory and intelligence to understand how things work.

I can see how this approach might be seen as counter to the narratives of some segments of society.

*Ok, I live in Canada and I know Americans' relationship with OSHA is complicated by notions of Freedom and economic Liberty.
posted by sneebler at 1:19 PM on March 13, 2016 [40 favorites]

I've always wondered if there was room for cooperation between people like my dad and a moderate gun control movement and what that would look like.

What if, hypothetically, it looked like most of the genuinely responsible gun owners in the country (eg. all of those who don't have an actual need for guns which can't be dealt with by some other means) voluntarily giving up their guns for the greater good? Is that something you could ever see yourself learning to accept? It's definitely not fair that we can't all 'have nice things' because not everyone can be trusted to use them responsibly, but we accept that reality for plenty of other things. I don't know why guns are so different.

I live somewhere where you can't own guns without jumping through certain legal hoops (hoops which I can't be bother with, frankly, even though I agree that guns are fun, in the abstract). And I'm glad, because fun or not, jeez those things are dangerous.
posted by Soulfather at 1:20 PM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

but did you ever feel pressured to use guns/like guns?

Nope, it was a rite of passage that marked the end of being a little kid and the beginning of training to become a productive member of my extended family. In the spring when I was 5, my parents asked me if I was ready for a BB rifle. I was all sorts of excited until they said i would have to treat it just like a real rifle. No BB gun wars with the Pennsylvania Dutch kids.

That fall they told me I had proved I wouldn't do something stupid on purpose and could start learning to hunt (without a gun for a year) and start shooting a single shot .22 rifle. At first I couldn't carry it to where we plinked, or load it, then I could carry it with the bolt open. Still later I load and shoot under supervision. 7 or 8 years later, I could choose when and who I was going to hunt with and what I was going to shoot, rifle, shotgun or pistol. I had been basically promoted to journeymen hunter.

Decades later without a single negligent discharge and one accidental discharge where the bullet went into the backstop. I don't feel a bit "lucky"about my or the rest of my family's safety record. (Family defined as any descendent of my great-grandparents)
posted by ridgerunner at 1:42 PM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

>I'd like to dispense with the notion that gun "accidents" are the result of "wild irresponsibility."

No. Keeping a loaded gun in the backseat of your car along with your toddler or keeping your shotgun in an unlocked closet within reach of your children is the very definition of wildly irresponsible and, in fact, criminal. Such people need to be locked away and their ability to obtain firearms eliminated because they are a danger to their children and society overall.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 2:02 PM on March 13, 2016 [14 favorites]

but did you ever feel pressured to use guns/like guns?

Nope, it was a rite of passage that marked the end of being a little kid and the beginning of training to become a productive member of my extended family.

How is that not pressure?
posted by signal at 2:14 PM on March 13, 2016 [8 favorites]

Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"?

Smart Guns Are Here, But No One Wants To Buy Them
posted by homunculus at 2:14 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Guns are embedded in American history, DNA, films, tv shows, etc. What seems nearly unknown is that when there are references to militias in defining our so-called constitutional rights, the militias were armed whites who patrolled and searched for runaway slaves.

The Slave-State Origins of Modern Gun Rights: The idea that citizens have an unfettered constitutional right to carry weapons in public originates in the antebellum South, and its culture of violence and honor.
posted by homunculus at 2:31 PM on March 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

Over the years I was taught certain concepts about handling firearms. Assume it's loaded until you check yourself, never point it at anyone unless you want to shoot them. Simple stuff, easy to understand.

But learning the idea and internalizing the safety drill are not the same thing. Check the safety, drop the magazine, open the breach or draw back the bolt and inspect the chamber. I hate it when someone hands me a weapon without doing this. They know better, but they don't have an ingrained habit to make them use the drill. Similarly, certain accidents happen if a weapon malfunctions--stacking rounds in a chamber, a live round in the chamber that "cooks off" when you open the bolt. Gunshot injuries during the cleaning of a weapon are the result of negligent handling. If accidents are linked to intentions, then I guess you can call shootings such as the ones we are talking about "accidents," because nobody meant to hurt anybody. So shootings will either be intentional or unintentional. An unintentional shooting cannot happen except when some one or another safety procedure has been overlooked. Somebody is responsible for the accident. That's my take.

Safety issues: biometric safeties, and whatever still won't keep a weapon out of the hands of a moron who doesn't understand muzzle control. I argue, further, that a weapon that's keyed to a single shooter may be less safe than one with a visible safety device, because (1) it will be probably centuries before all the older weapons are out of circulation, and (2) If you believe it's impossible for you to fire a weapon you will be less likely to observe other safe practices, such as muzzle control....I mean, what could go wrong?

I cannot get anywhere near understanding how this child and that handgun were put together in that situation. I believe it's prudent to distinguish between the careful shooter and the asshat who thinks taking a simple course in putting the bullet into the correct end of the weapon makes him a safe shooter. Making blanket statements about gun owners is equivalent to littering the field with straw men, on the same level as NRA shills and their running dog lackeys who trade on fear and ignorance.

A friend of mine, a former SEAL, teaches weapons safety and combat shooting. His curricula are well presented. He seems to be thorough, and safe handling marks all his courses of instruction. While I don't buy the underlying philosophy that I need to be armed to feel safe, I believe his courses cover the ground as far as safety goes. It's also a plus for a shooter to enter into a combat action course for reasons I don't really want to defend here. What I don't believe is that these course necessarily build up a set of reflexive drills that all his students will keep together as time passes. These courses, naturally, don't account for the majority of the gun owners, who, like drivers of automobiles, owners of barking dogs and owners of kicking horses, don't realize how ill-informed they are, and how low their skill index really is.

Nobody in my family, as far as I know, has ever had an "accidental" discharge of his weapon. Okay, well my brother (now passed on) was a young man in the 1930's, in rural Oklahoma. He once went coon hunting with a few of his buddies, at night of course. Their dog treed a coon, which ran up a skinny pine tree--climbing to safety, the coon kept on the side of the tree away from their lights, because coons are not stupid. It carefully moved around the tree as they circled with their lights. After a while my brother and his fellow rocket scientist hunting buddies decided to send one of their number up the tree to flush the coon around where the rest of the them could get a shot at it. So up goes (let's call him) Merle. Merle goes up the other side of the tree so the tree could protect him when they shot. Just before Merle got to the coon he broke one of the smaller limbs he was standing on and slipped, reflexively grabbing around the tree with both arms--yeah, I guess you saw that coming. Anyhow everybody fired, and Merle got about 15 #4 shot in both arms, doing only minor, if painful, damage. The coon got away.
posted by mule98J at 2:40 PM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Imagine being that toddler, though. Imagine being that kid that shot their brother before they're old enough to really understand what that means. Imagine the lifetime of guilt.

Poor kids.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:49 PM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

How is that not pressure?

First I was asked if I wanted to take on the responsibility of following all the gun safety rules and resisting the pressures to join in with my friend's BB gun war games.

Secondly, shooting was "a" rite of passage, not "the" rite of passage, not every hillbilly enjoys hunting nor is it gender specific. Learning to ride well enough to help round up livestock on horseback was a big deal, graduating from helping raise food in the gardens to working in the fields is another way to pay your dues on the way to adulthood. You would probably shit a brick if you knew how young I was when I started driving a pickup in granny-low while my older cousins loaded the hay wagon.

These and more were all things I wanted to do. The enforced extended childhood of high school is why I got my GED at 16. It took my grandmother a year to talk me in to going to college instead or working.
posted by ridgerunner at 2:53 PM on March 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

In order to insure safety, weapons should be unloaded and the weapon and all ammunition should be placed in a locked gun safe, with the key placed in a secure place out of the reach of those not qualified to handle weapons.

In order to insure safety, weapons should be loaded and the weapon placed near to hand, either in the night stand or by an entry point to facilitate owner access.

Here's a bit of cognitive dissonance for you. I can't tell you how many people believe that both of these statements should be true AT THE SAME TIME!!!!
posted by BlueHorse at 2:57 PM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

I grew up around guns, and was shooting from a young age, first with a BB gun, then pellet, then rifle. I owned my own handgun for a hike, and would go shooting with my husband and friends. I stopped shooting some time ago, but have a husband that keeps up gun ownership as a hobby.

And it's getting hard for me, because I don't like them anymore. In isolation, it's just a tool. But living in a state that is trying its best to become gun crazy, I feel increasingly unsafe around them. In fact, one of the reasons I stopped shooting was that I didn't like the way I saw other people at the range handling their guns. I don't feel safer knowing there are people with concealed guns around me; I feel less safe. And this includes police officers with guns. I'm a white woman, falling outside the demographic that is usually shot and killed by police. That doesn't make me immune from it.

And it doesn't make me immune from the morons with hero complexes or poor gun safety. I've been out with people who are generally pretty safe around guns, and I've been with people that go out drinking and shooting over the weekend (once, that was too much to repeat). I've seen some really poor gun handling that shocked me no one ended up injured.

The question I keep asking myself is how come the feeling of safety for gun owners trumps my own feeling of safety? I won't feel safer owning a gun. If anything, it will act as a constant reminder of just how perilous living in the US is.

My husband and I got into a bit of an argument some months ago. A former mutual friend had become mentally unstable. I was concerned because after a threat of violence years ago, he had been trying to reach out to me. Later he used a suicide threat to reach out to my husband. I was upset, because I feared any engagement could be enough to turn his attention our way. My husband's solution was to offer to keep a gun out in case he came to the house. I had to explain that having to keep a gun at the ready doesn't make me feel safe and is just as likely to be used against me. I got more upset just thinking about having to try and keep a gun handy.

And with the number of women who die at the hands of men with guns, I have a hard time not seeing gun control as a feminist issue. Guns are yet another way woman are harmed by society. I can't imagine the number who are also intimidated by a significant other with a gun, just by virtue of a gun being in the home.

I'm sure there are some women who love their guns and feel empowered by them. I once was one. I now see them as a threat to women and the numbers back me up.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 2:59 PM on March 13, 2016 [40 favorites]

And to echo the sentiment above- everyone is a responsible gun owner until they are not. It's one true Scotsmen all the way down.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:00 PM on March 13, 2016 [15 favorites]

moron who doesn't understand muzzle control.

Yes. To be fair that is the hardest part of gun handling to comment to muscle memory. Lots of practice is needed.
posted by ridgerunner at 3:06 PM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

>moron who doesn't understand muzzle control.

Yes. To be fair that is the hardest part of gun handling to comment to muscle memory. Lots of practice is needed.

Seems to me that once taught, it's a habit you have to fall out of. I haven't handled a real gun since I was a teen, and I am super aware of muzzle discipline whenever I'm around one (or even realistic fakes.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:21 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unintentional firearms deaths have been dropping for years, but don't let those facts get in the way of hysteria.

To add to clockzero's comments above, it's not clear what that trend is telling us (even if it is real). For example, the crude rate of unintentional firearm injuries in 2013 was 5.33 per 100k people. (source CDC, here) From 2001 to 2013 that rate was 5.51, about the same, with 7 of those years higher than 2013 and 5 years lower, and a range from 6.53 to 4.59. Possibilities:
- We are getting to the hospital quicker (because cellphones) and are less likely to die when injured.
- Trauma care has improved.
- Typical shooters are becoming less skilled.

But don't let these facts get in the way of a good snark.
posted by Killick at 3:34 PM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

trigger: "Also, is the safety lock so easy to open that a four year old could do it accidentally?"

Pretty tough. My three year old set and subsequently used a password on an old windows machine I had setup for her with a blank password. And it was a strong password resembling line noise because she couldn't spell yet and therefor wasn't tempted to use a week password.

trigger: "Should it really be easier for a child to shoot a gun than open a bottle of Tylenol?"

Also not something my 2-3 year daughter had any problem with.

GenjiandProust: "Following that article and its links, it looks like, in the last 10 years, at least 10 Americans were shot by dogs while only one shooting by a cat was reported. That's right; you are 10x as likely to be shot by your dog (which you claim is "loyal") than your cat (who you claim is an "asshole"). I think we need to reconsider this."

Cats are just smart enough not to go into the bush with the kind of guy who gets shot by his own dog.
posted by Mitheral at 4:01 PM on March 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

The question I keep asking myself is how come the feeling of safety for gun owners trumps my own feeling of safety?

Because a lot of them are deeply insecure*, and only think about safety in the most extreme terms, e.g., "Am I feeling physically threatened and/or humiliated at this moment?" They don't think about safety as being a characteristic of a community, or a city or a country. They think about control and security, and they think about it mostly just for themselves. A lot of them, I suspect, like the fact that the very thing which makes them feel strong and in control makes other people feel a bit intimidated and fearful.

So, I would say the answer to your question is this: because they say so, and they're the ones holding the guns, so what are you gonna do about it, huh?

*Not just insecure in the common sense of feeling less-than-confident, but probably also insecure in other, material/empirical ways.
posted by clockzero at 4:42 PM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

Typical shooters are becoming less skilled.

I don't believe there is a typical shooter, there's very little in common between a guy poaching rabbits for food using a .22, a pheasant hunter with a $35k shotgun or a 3 gun competitor. Here's what the Department of Conservation says about hunters in general.

WHY DOES MISSOURI REQUIRE HUNTER EDUCATION?
Hunter education has reduced hunting accidents and deaths by more than 70 percent since it became mandatory in 1987. For this reason, we recommend all hunters become hunter-education certified...

And MO is using taxes on guns and ammo to provide St. Louis area women free pistol craft training. I'm a big fan of both of these programs, mainly because I'll be long dead and my ashes scattered before any law interferes with hunting around here, or the number of guns in the U.S. Is reduced.

I have a hard time taking any gun safety advocate group seriously when they won't even try to come up with a better program than Eddy Eagle.
posted by ridgerunner at 4:47 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Why hasn't the gun community embraced the idea of the "Smart Gun"?

I can't speak for the entire gun community, but because I'm seeing a lot of guesses here that don't really go along with what I or people I know feel, I'll take a stab at it.

First and foremost: a gun that can only be fired by me loses a significant portion of its value to me, even in everyday situations. I don't want a gun that can be fired only by me. That means I have to buy two or three times as many guns, and guns are really fucking expensive. I want a gun that someone in my house or a visiting friend can go hunting with. It's a safety feature that defeats what I want in a gun. And it's an expensive safety feature, which means I'd be paying more money for a gun that I would then be paying more money to a gunsmith to take the damn thing off.

Secondly: Guns, for me, are a lot like jewelry, in the sense that they are very expensive objects that hold their value and are in some cases a convenient way of storing money. If I die, I want my kids to be able to use my guns. If my kid is broke and I am broke and they need money, I want to be able to choose my least favorite gun and say "go sell this bad boy". Smart guns are not transferable easily, which kind of defeats the point. I don't want my kids to have to ponder whether to dig mom up to access her decaying finger or whether to shit several thousand dollars down the hole.

Thirdly: How many of you guys have iPhones? How do you feel about the fingerprint readers? How do they work when your fingers are greasy? What about in rain? What about if your finger doesn't cover the whole slot? What about when you're in a rush? We are talking about a technology that isn't even close to being perfected, much less during difficult conditions.

Fourth: This is not currently a problem for me. I don't worry about what happens if my kid cracks into my safe and grabs my gun. I don't worry about what happens if she grabs her own .22, which I will note she would be fingerprint coded for anyway under this idea, because she is very safe with a gun and really only wants to shoot eggs and chortle when they explode.

If you have a toddler, you need to be as vigilant as a German Shepherd owner who is carrying a steak around, because weird finicky shit with movable parts is what toddlers live for. I grieve for this woman's tragedy, but not leaving your gun-purse in the back seat with your toddler is kind of a no brainer for everyone I know. But that doesn't mean Smart Guns are a good idea. It means Idiots are a bad idea.

I really wish this shit would get de-culture-warred, because having a bunch of irresponsible assholes shooting because they politically think they should do so is kind of awful. Unfortunately, the more this gets into a fight, the more people who have never held a gun before will think of it as a way to stick it to the man, and that way lies tragedy.
posted by corb at 5:23 PM on March 13, 2016 [13 favorites]

No. Keeping a loaded gun in the backseat of your car along with your toddler or keeping your shotgun in an unlocked closet within reach of your children is the very definition of wildly irresponsible and, in fact, criminal. Such people need to be locked away and their ability to obtain firearms eliminated because they are a danger to their children and society overall

Bit disingenuous to pretend that exceptional cases of stupidity represent the norm. And up until a week ago she would have said exactly what you're saying now. Everyone's a responsible gun owner until they're not.

Same goes for people who leave their kids on a car on a hot day, or forget to turn the gas of on the stove. I hope you never find out what it's like to be on the other side of that line. But many previously responsible people do every day.

Of course there is one thing that reduces the odds of an accidental shooting to zero: not having a gun.
posted by klanawa at 5:39 PM on March 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

These courses, naturally, don't account for the majority of the gun owners, who, like drivers of automobiles, owners of barking dogs and owners of kicking horses, don't realize how ill-informed they are, and how low their skill index really is.

You have to get .72 on the Dunning-Kruger Test to get your firearms certificate.
posted by sneebler at 5:42 PM on March 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just found out that one of the local technical colleges has a built a very nice gun range for their law enforcement classes, but they open it to the public four days a week. I'm happy about this because for as hard left as I am, I still enjoy shooting, I just don't do it because I loathe the culture that exists in any private range I've been to in the past decade.

But interestingly, one of the things they offer there is beginner shooting courses. I've been seriously considering volunteering to teach some of these, because I've got years of experience, and I'd love to be the hyper-anti-NRA super liberal guy teaching new shooters about the importance of gun safety and not believing any of the stupid rhetoric they'll invariably hear if they keep up with the hobby.

For instance, I'd love to explain that, while it might technically be legal to leave a "condition-one" firearm in their car where it could be reached by a child, doing so is not just irresponsible, it is an absolute affront to everyone anywhere who handles firearms responsibly and should be a source of shame and embarrassment to anyone found doing it. (and I'm talking pre-getting-shot-by-your-kid here. Just engaging in the dumb behavior is enough to openly mock these people as firearm amateur who can't be trusted with the safety or responsibility of gun handling.)

And I can promise you this, there are few greater insults to someone deeply immersed in gun culture than calling them an irresponsible poser wannabee.

And that is a wildly entertaining pastime; getting in to a... barrel measuring contest with some Hard Right NRA type about what a complete joke they and their weapons are, because as the super-liberal in the room, yours are better. You've got more experience, more training, more historical knowledge, more hands on time with the expensive stuff. And you have done all of this because it is just fun as hell and not because you feel the need to deify an object. You don't need a gun to make you feel powerful, because you're so powerful that a gun is really just a way to handicap you.

Holy fuck do people hate that. Brinkmanship is one thing, but losing to someone who isn't even playing is just the worst.
posted by quin at 5:55 PM on March 13, 2016 [12 favorites]

Smart guns are not transferable easily, which kind of defeats the point.

Surely that's precisely the point.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 6:05 PM on March 13, 2016 [6 favorites]

Smart guns are not transferable easily, which kind of defeats the point.

The models I've seen promoted have basically an RFID system and a bracelet that you wear. You know that you don't have to get the chip implanted, right?
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:11 PM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

I figure the rfid approach is more viable than biometric, in large part because of that transferability and reliability. I have wondered if that will be led by police departments who are worried about officers having their guns taken in fights and then make it into the civilian market.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:16 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

quin, if you or anyone else in this thread ends becoming the instructor, I hope you'll play the same game with your students that my instructor played with me. The "is it loaded?" game where the gun is inspected, making sure it isn't loaded. Then the gun is set down, the instructor finds some excuse to make the student turn their back on it for a minute or so. Then when they return to the gun, ask again: "Is it loaded" with any answer other than "yes" being incorrect. The assumption must be that any unattended firearm is loaded with one in the chamber and handled accordingly.

My instructor really drilled that into me. I don't keep my pistol loaded and it doesn't come out of the safe often. But when it does, I always assume it's loaded and do a quick inspection so I know its current status. Probably the most helpful thing he ever taught me. I think this one simple habit would probably eliminate the majority of accidental shootings.
posted by honestcoyote at 6:27 PM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

You'd think manufacturers would be all over technology that wouldn't let people transfer the goods easily one to another. Make people buy guns retail!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:28 PM on March 13, 2016

I cannot get on board with ha-ha snark about this subject. If you want this to initiate change, treat it respectfully like the tragedy it is.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:34 PM on March 13, 2016

How, exactly, is it a tragedy? Gilt is alive, and she's not in jail. There are a thousand other stories that are real tragedies. And if she'd been black, maybe dealing a little dope...

I (a female) was given a .22 for my tenth birthday (Red Ryder BB gun before that) and went to the shooting range with my dad. My brother and I had gun safety beaten into us, LITERALLY.

How culture-warred is this thing? Last week, a guy left his knit cap on the bus and I grabbed it, calling to him. The handgun he had tucked in the hat clattered to the floor. He--a white, middle-aged dude--picked it up and exited the bus.

When I posted about this on Facebook, my brother broke his six-year ignoring of my feed (scary biopsy, losing my home, pets with cancer) to LEAP to the defense of the "responsible gun owner" who forgot his handgun, arguing that guns NEVER go off unless "someone pulls the trigger."

My brother is a cop. Let that sink in for a minute.

The biggest feeling I have (other than gratitude that the gun didn't discharge killing me or the middle-schooler who was behind me) is that if this had been a black parent on the bus or leaving a gun where a kid could get it: JAIL. But every time it happens to white folks, LAWD WHAT AN UNFORSEEABLE TRAGEDY. Those poor parents have been PUNISHED ENOUGH.

Fuck treating this "respectfully." People have lost their damned minds.
posted by SockPuppetOfShame at 6:54 PM on March 13, 2016 [49 favorites]

I cannot get on board with ha-ha snark about this subject. If you want this to initiate change, treat it respectfully like the tragedy it is.

I do think it's a tragedy -- for the child. For the idiot who left a loaded gun in a car with a four-year-old, it's no more a tragedy than it would be for a guy who knocks back a couple martinis and then drives home because he thinks he's a far-above-average driver. And you know, we somehow managed to effect a dramatic cultural change with respect to our view of drunk driving without wagging our fingers at people and telling them they should feel bad for the guy who just killed four people because he was positive that he drove better when he was drunk.
posted by holborne at 6:56 PM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

Quinn

Looks like you are in luck in your state:
Examples of these organizations include the National Rifle Association, the National Association of Certified Firearm Instructors, the Utah Dept. of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Identification, the Minnesota Dept. of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and others..

You wouldn't believe how many states have only one named certifying organization... the NRA.
posted by ridgerunner at 7:00 PM on March 13, 2016

SockPuppetOfShame I can relate, I have a cousin who is an absolutist in regards to gun rights.

His last line of defense was always "It's to stop our tyrannical government from trampling our rights!"

He stopped talking to me when I pointed out that he, a police officer, is a direct representative of our government and the most likely representative of our "tyrannical" government that most people will ever meet.
posted by Max Power at 7:19 PM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]

So.

The 4 year-old was not strapped into its car seat and there was a loaded gun on the floor. Said kid "gets jacked up to target shoot".

Could anything go wrong in this scenario?
posted by bendy at 7:40 PM on March 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The "is it loaded?" game

Our version is one person distracts the kid and another puts an empty .22 case in the rifle's chamber. It shocked the shit out of me the first time I cracked the breach and saw brass in a chamber I knew I had cleared. :)

Unfortunately, I whined in front of Grandpa, " That's not fair!" Oh my, that was one of maybe 5 times he gave me an angry lecture: " Fair? Life ain't fair. Water Moccasins ain't fair. Tractors ain't fair. Guns and livestock ain't fair. Your either careful or your gonna get somebody hurt or kilt. What's it gonna be?" I still do the same thing to kids.
posted by ridgerunner at 7:53 PM on March 13, 2016 [11 favorites]

I just think it was a little cowardly to shoot her in the back is all. Times have changed.
posted by parki at 8:59 PM on March 13, 2016 [7 favorites]

How, exactly, is it a tragedy? Gilt is alive, and she's not in jail. There are a thousand other stories that are real tragedies. And if she'd been black, maybe dealing a little dope...Fuck treating this "respectfully." People have lost their damned minds.

I wanted to feel sympathetic to her, at first. I really did. But the truth is that this incident demonstrates very clearly how crazy this sub-culture has become. Gilt literally taught her 4-year-old to fire guns, and then she left a loaded, unsecured gun in the backseat with him. If somebody did that with a 4-year-old in a Mad Max movie, it would be critiqued as inexplicably reckless.
posted by clockzero at 8:59 PM on March 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

The RFID bracelet is probably the most likely to have any buy-in, but it still comes upon a problem that I forgot to mention above - which goes back to cost and cost of maintenance.

Right now I own a few guns. In all honesty, I can only really act as a home gunsmith on one of them - but if I need gunsmithing done on the other ones, I can take them in and it's honestly pretty cheap to repair almost anything on the firearm. I have yet to have to pay more than $100 to fix anything. But with smart technology, my concern as a gun owner would be that I would no longer be able to fix my firearms at home, and the local gunsmith would have to start charging an arm and a leg to fix them. This is kind of like how car repairs got more expensive once they started putting more computerized features in them.

So if I have a choice between a gun that doesn't have fancy features, but I can drop in the mud, clean it off, and make it work again myself, and a gun that does have fancy features, but I have to take it to a specialist when something goes wrong, I'm going to choose the former. I'm not a rich woman, and these have to have more value than cost.

In terms of use, though, the problem I see with the RFID bracelet is that you aren't going to want to wear an RFID bracelet around everywhere, and if you store it at home, you're going to store it with your gun in the safe, so what's really the point?

What I would like to see actually, now that I'm thinking about it, is tax deduction incentives to buy tech like that, or gun safes, or what have you. There's no way in hell I'm buying a SmartGun - but if I can have the price of it taken out of my taxes, it goes to "Well, maybe..." And the same for people for whom the $500 safe sticker price is a deterrent.
posted by corb at 10:08 PM on March 13, 2016

There's been discussion lately about why Chicago's murder rate is 3 times higher than NYC's. I think that a good part of it is because IL's gun laws are more lax than NY's.

In the states with looser gun laws that I've visited , many businesses have decals on their doors/windows saying that they are not allowed inside.....when I went to Taos someone wrote a letter to the editor about how they witnessed a drunk in a restaurant who ignored this and waved his gun around; there was no mention of his being made to leave.
posted by brujita at 11:32 PM on March 13, 2016

My brother and I had gun safety beaten into us, LITERALLY.
[...]
my brother broke his six-year ignoring of my feed (scary biopsy, losing my home, pets with cancer) to LEAP to the defense of the "responsible gun owner" who forgot his handgun, arguing that guns NEVER go off unless "someone pulls the trigger."

Sounds more like you were just beaten than having anything beaten into you. This is why a lot of us don't trust the whole 'training makes you safe' argument - maybe it made YOU personally safe with guns, yes, but that clearly does not hold for the general 'you'...
posted by Dysk at 2:02 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm Dutch, so I learned my gun safety when I was in the army - and although that's now 25 years ago, it's so deeply ingrained that when the company I work with was going laser gaming a few weeks ago I caught myself doing the gun safety drill when I was handed the kit, which of course won't work out quite the same way, but still. It was a weird feeling there for a second...
posted by DreamerFi at 3:28 AM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

guns NEVER go off unless "someone pulls the trigger."

No guns in this house but when I had a farm I had one of these I'd been out after pheasant and the phone was ringing when I got back so I leaned it against the couch. It fell over in such a way that not only did it click the safety off- IT FIRED! My ventilated office chair in the next room was spinning. I would probably be dead.

This is a very popular model with a severe design flaw. I googled around and it does happen.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:45 AM on March 14, 2016

He stopped talking to me when I pointed out that he, a police officer, is a direct representative of our government and the most likely representative of our "tyrannical" government that most people will ever meet.

Whether he's right or wrong is irrelevant to how he makes his living.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:45 AM on March 14, 2016

"I think that a good part of it is because IL's gun laws are more lax than NY's. In the states with looser gun laws that I've visited , many businesses have decals on their doors/windows saying that they are not allowed inside"

Illinois was known as having the STRICTEST gun laws in the nation -- we were the only state without concealed carry, for example, until the Supreme Court imposed it on us. (Because ultraconservatives only believe in states rights when states do what conservatives want, but whatevs.) We only got the signs after concealed carry was imposed a couple of years ago. They're new and I hate them, because now instead of knowing that nobody's carrying a gun at the craft store because I live in a sane state where that is illegal, I have to repeatedly explain to my children why there are "no guns" signs everywhere we go.

Apparently we are 8th-strictest. NY is more strict, but not by much. I think Chicago's particular problem, as compared to New York's, comes in three parts: 1) The way drug gangs were busted in Chicago left a power vacuum that's been filled by turf-war-related violence ever since; 2) the CPD's deep corruption and total lack of interest in policing minority neighborhoods; and 3) Chicago is RIGHT NEXT TO Indiana, which has extraordinarily lax gun laws. You can WALK to Indiana from parts of Chicago, and "Indiana supplies crime guns to other states at a rate that is more than double the national average. Indiana exports more than three times as many crime guns as it imports." (cite) New York City does not have a similarly convenient and accessible supplier. There are a number of Indiana gun shops who set up JUST across the border deliberately to sell to Illinoisians attempting to acquire guns that they are not legally allowed to purchase or possess in Illinois, without licenses or background checks. It's a lucrative business for those dealers and they know they're selling guns to be used in the Chicago drug crime trade. Indiana has no interest in cracking down on this or assisting Illinois in cracking down on this. 60% of Chicago gun crime is committed with out-of-state guns, the largest share of which comes from Indiana. And, again, Indiana specifically refuses to assist Illinois in enforcing Illinois's laws or cracking down on dealers who sell guns that are illegal in Illinois specifically into the Illinois market on purpose. In fact, Indiana has made its laws LOOSER in recent years, especially for the types of gun frequently used in crimes, increasing the problem in Illinois.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:47 AM on March 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

(Indiana is also the largest supplier to Illinois of illegal-in-Illinois fireworks that people use to blow their fingers off. I like the state itself and lived there a whole, but they are REALLY BAD NEIGHBORS with a long and proud tradition of helping Illinoisians evade the law, way back to letting shady men get marriage licenses without syphilis tests back in the day.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:50 AM on March 14, 2016

There are a number of Indiana gun shops who set up JUST across the border deliberately to sell to Illinoisians attempting to acquire guns that they are not legally allowed to purchase or possess in Illinois, without licenses or background checks.

If they are licensed federal firearms dealers, there will be a background check. (The only way to bypass this is a private person-to-person sale, except in the couple of states that now require background checks for those, though that is totally unenforceable as far as I can tell.) If you don't have any felony convictions, the background check is not a barrier at all. I bought a gun recently and the background check was computerized and took less than ten minutes to be fully processed. So all you need to do is send in a friend or family member to the gun store in Indiana (or Virginia if you are in New York), have them buy the guns and pass the background check, and voila, your local strict gun laws have been effortlessly bypassed but with a legal background check. (Well, legal except that one of the questions is "are you buying this gun for anyone else?" so the buyer would have to be aware that they are committing a crime, of course.)

That's pretty much it. There is no greater gun salesman than a democrat president. I worked with a guy who was an avid gun collector and he said there was a nine month waiting list at his local shop for an AR-15. In fact, he could have gotten nearly triple the price for his own AR-15 selling it privately. "Get it before it's gone" was the mantra there.

There was a chart recently showing how daily gun sales spiked after every speech Obama gives that mentions guns. He should be being paid by the gun manufacturers, because he sells guns for them like you would not believe.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:10 AM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

That article ascribes that effect to people buying guns because they are worried that Obama would take them away, but I'm not so sure.

Yeah, there's two things driving that and both of those are what for lack of a better term I'll call "ban speculation."

When a president starts making noises about stricter gun control - most particularly, about type-of-weapon-bans - the stores practically sell out of that type of weapon. I've only been a gun owner for a few years, so I can't really speak to too many historical arcs, but I know when people were afraid Obama was going to create an assault weapons ban, our guns doubled and sometimes even tripled in value.
posted by corb at 6:26 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sorry, metafiltering via phone. Anyway, so two groups of people are gun buying at that time - people who worry guns will be banned and they won't get to have any unless they buy now, and people hoping to sell guns to those people at a higher price point than they are currently buying, post ban. You always want to buy before the rhetoric peaks, and sell the day before it becomes obvious the ban is falling through. If you buy in enough bulk, you can become rich like that. Three years ago $10 30-round magazines were selling for 40$, for example, so people were buying them out all over the country. Now the price has normalized, so the speculators who bought then are hoping for the rhetoric to go up so they can sell them at a profit.
posted by corb at 6:32 AM on March 14, 2016

Obama should say that smart guns are terrible and should be banned, then.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:56 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Three laws could cut US gun deaths by 90%, study says
posted by zakur at 7:02 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

The scariest gun statistic I've seen is the third figure down on this page. Since Obama became president, gun sales have skyrocketed, nearly doubling since 2008 - even as the number of gun-owning households have held steady or even decreased. That implies a smaller group of people are doing a lot of gun stockpiling in a way that makes me very uneasy. That article ascribes that effect to people buying guns because they are worried that Obama would take them away, but I'm not so sure.

I'm a data-point of one, and I have no doubt that the conclusion that people are stockpiling is best explanation, but I can also say that I've bought several firearms during Obama's time in office. But that's because under his administration, I was able to find better employment, and some of our health care costs were more under control, so I had a bit of extra money in my pocket that I never really had under Bush.

I actually kind of wonder how many prepping-for-the-inevitable-minority-uprising-and-subsequent-race-war-under-the-anti-gun-Kenyan-"president"-types have been able to buy more for the same reason.

Also; I like the three laws zakur linked, and really, they'd make a huge difference (although the logistics would be tough on the ammunition one), but more than anything else, I'd want to mandate some kind of training classes. I've bought more than a few guns where I gave no indication whatsoever as to my experience with firearms when I picked it up, and at no time did anyone ever ask me "Would you like some training on that?". "Do you know how to store that safely?". "Here is some free range time with an instructor so you know how to use that." or any one of a hundred other ways firearm safety could be introduced at the point of sale.

In my world, firearm sales would be treated not totally unlike what we have with bars right now; if a bartender keeps serving you after you are clearly impaired, and you get into an accident, that bartender shares partial blame. If you buy a firearm, and it is implicated in an accident within, let's say, six months of purchase, the store is on the hook for some of the damages.

There is no way this could be considered an infringement on the 2nd Amendment, the stores would have to much more scrupulous about sales, and free training for the customer could actually go a long way towards cutting at least some of the accidents.

If nothing else, it would bake in a bit more safety into the gun culture which pays a lot of lip service to responsible handling, but too often shows a complete lack of actual precaution.
posted by quin at 8:35 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

It would be pretty irresponsible to report it as intentional. I get what you're saying, but, come on. It was a foreseeable accident, but an accident.

No, it is negligent. That is different. Not sure how it might be worded with a child, but with adults there is now such a crime as "negligent discharge of a firearm" and it is being used more often.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:07 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

If it's just fear of a ban, why is the spike in sales after Obama took office so much larger (easily 2x) than the spike when Clinton took office? Seriously, that chart is frightening.
posted by dialetheia at 10:13 AM on March 14, 2016

dinty_moore: Imagine being that kid that shot their brother before they're old enough to really understand what that means.

A couple of years back, a friend's son shot his little brother with a BB gun and it lodged behind his eye. Cue (entirely valid) hysteria. Mom's a vocal gun control advocate now, bless her.

When I was little (ten years old?), my dad taught me to shoot with a .22 rifle. In high school I was on a JROTC shooting team. I have let my sons go to Scout events where a qualified instructor gives a lesson and then closely supervises some shooting. (They go again next month, in fact. I wish I could get their sisters the same thing.)

Why? I want them to be trained and safe and a little scared: know the rules, be cautious, and remember clearly how you were able to blow holes in stuff instantaneously with just a twitch of the finger. Then...don't pick up guns!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:49 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Three laws could cut US gun deaths by 90%

Even Hemenway said that study's BS and I've never heard him criticize a pro gun control study before.

According to the study, the nine laws associated with increased gun deaths included:

requirement for the dealer to report records to the state for retention, allowing police inspection of stores, limiting the number of firearms purchased, a 3-day limit for a background-checks extension, background checks or permits during gun shows in states without universal background-check requirement (ie, closure of the gun show loophole), integrated or external or standard locks on firearms, a ban or restrictions placed on assault weapons, law enforcement discretion permitted when issuing concealed-carry permits, and stand-your-ground.

I'm not even sure why this study was submitted for publication. Seriously, background checks at gun shows increases gun deaths?
posted by ridgerunner at 12:27 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Imagine being that kid that shot their brother before they're old enough to really understand what that means.

I once knew someone who was asked to baby sit a toddler-age brother when he was twelve, and somehow the toddler brother got outside the house and into the family's pool and drowned. He didn't push the brother into the pool or anything, but this still was fucking him up nearly 30 years later.

I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if it had been a shooting.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:47 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Gun control study's dramatic results 'implausible', say leading researchers (Guardian)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:56 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Putnam County Sheriff's Office is pursuing misdemeanor charges against Jamie Gilt. State Attorney's Office must decide how to proceed.
posted by zakur at 7:38 AM on March 25, 2016

That article actually makes the whole thing seem much more plausible as a honest mistake - a fuckup, but not as egregiously irresponsible as previously thought. If she put the gun in her purse and put her purse under the seat, that's a location I could see thinking was secure. I had previously thought she had put it in the backseat with the kid. However, it's still a serious mistake - every time you get in a new car, you check the mirrors, right? Similarly, you shouldn't assume that your husband's truck is going to work just like yours and have a bar under it.

I kind of like the compromise of a misdemeanor charge, though - serious enough to have bite, but also not a felony, so it won't negatively impact her life for decades.
posted by corb at 1:56 PM on March 25, 2016

If she had been by herself and stashed the gun under the seat that would have been fine, but if I had a loaded weapon and my toddler in the car I would want the gun in my sight at all times. I think her attitude was unforgivably cavalier.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:11 PM on March 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, I mean - it's a genuinely hard choice. Do you put it in the glove compartment so you can lock it? Better hope you don't get pulled over by a cop - if you open the compartment and he sees a gun, you'll get shot. On the seat next to you so you can see it at all times? Way easier for a toddler to grab from the back. On your lap? Interfering with the steering wheel. Under the seat? Out of sight. In the central dash? Doesn't lock and still reachable from the back. And while men often prefer body holsters, they don't work so well for women. So what do you do? Where do you put it that is perfect?
posted by corb at 2:43 PM on March 25, 2016

In a locked container, as many states require.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:40 PM on March 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the locked glove box, and you inform the cop that there's a weapon in there before you even make a motion towards it. Or how about the trunk? This isn't real hard.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:46 PM on March 25, 2016

(The snark is directed at Gilt, not you, corb)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:28 PM on March 25, 2016

(Thanks, I appreciate the clarification!)
posted by corb at 5:15 PM on March 25, 2016

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