Although I would certianly agree with your conclusions about the media (media drawing as much mileage as possible from tragedy, and all but ignoring good news), I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that the incidence of child gun accidents is so rare, while the the succesful use of guns for justified self-defense is so common.

"The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children aged less than 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than among children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Rates of Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related Death Among Children -- 26 Industrialized Countries," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 46(05): 101-105, February 07, 1997."




"Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home.
Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care. 45(2):263-267, August 1998.
Kellermann, Arthur L. MD, MPH; Somes, Grant PhD; Rivara, Frederick P. MD, MPH; Lee, Roberta K. RN, PhD; Banton, Joyce G. MS
Abstract:
Objectives: Determine the relative frequency with which guns in the home are used to injure or kill in self-defense, compared with the number of times these weapons are involved in an unintentional injury, suicide attempt, or criminal assault or homicide.

Methods: We reviewed the police, medical examiner, emergency medical service, emergency department, and hospital records of all fatal and nonfatal shootings in three U.S. cities: Memphis, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; and Galveston, Texas.

Results: During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

Conclusions: Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense."
http://www.jtrauma.com/pt/re/jtrauma/abstract.00005373-199808000-00010.htm;jsessionid=CohS2VKAO2S2X2mu8hpJ4igofbN1b EWxLCMUmaXAsuSEy73uHwL6!872722892!-949856032!9001!-1

Terry
I was only questioning your assertion that anti-gunners have a conspiracy in plan. You have no facts for that.

They do have a conspiracy---to get rid of firearm ownership.

If you want to quote the Center For Disease Control (CDC) one should include their latest report. First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws

In summary, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence.
Strange that of the 51 different studies they reviewed, none of them were sufficient to determine the effectiveness of firearms laws.

-Chris

Assault weapons, and handguns are the issue. Those firearms resulting in deaths of innocent people, mostly children

I do not want your rifle or shotgun.

But you can certainly continue to throw up the red herring that anti-handgun people want to eliminate all firearms. I do not see much legitimacy in such a claim, but it certainly is useful to scare people away from rational discussions.

Yhea but ubiquity0 are you not just totally sick of the if it bleeds it leads crap. I cant even watch the news anymore. Just last night I tried to watch the news the stories were, a raped 3 year old, a 13 year old kidnapped from her bus stop, a dead 18 year old boy, a clerk shot to death................ It's just gotten F&^%$ ridiculous!

To paraphrase Ted Nugent, "If guns kill people, mine must be defective"

If you are fine with my having rifles and shotguns, why not handguns? My loaded pistol with it's triggerlock is more secure than my empty longuns.

No red herrings here--banning one type of gun makes it too easy to apply the justification for that ban to another type then another. Look at the UK, and more recently Australia.

I know it is cliched, but alot of gun owners in the US are of the "from my cold dead fingers" variety.

Totally agree- I can't watch the TV news any more either. With the ridiculous sensationalist tabloid style stories & the guffawing morons that are selected as presenters I don't see why anyone would.

If the facts show that less children die of gun accidents than swimming pools accidents would that matter?
If the facts showed that more guns results in less crime, would that matter?
Probably not because it isn't really about logic usually. (I don't mean that as a criticism, it's only human. If you proved I'd be safer if you repealed parts of the Bill of Rights I'd still be against it.)
Mix in emotion, some politics and the law of unintended )consequences and you get unexpected results like:
- More deaths (children and adult) after passing the "child proof cap" law for medicines. Adults were lax because they thought the bottles were safe.
- More child deaths due mandating air bags.

-Chris

Chris and Eric

thanks. Yeah I could accept triggerlocks as a means of solving the problem with handguns. I would still like to have local ability to ban assault weapons.

Is there data that you mentioned? Yes, it would matter. There is always a balance to be looked at, and to learn from previous well meanaing restrictions.

The reason I own a gun is so the King of England can't come in my home and start pushing me around. :) ....a little credit to Homer Simpson.

Seriously.....yesterday here in a small county just outside of Nashville, a boy pulled a .45 out and shot his bus driver multiple times because she busted him for having and dipping snuff. They boy was 14 years old. I'm sure that since this happened some politicians will want to ban handguns. It is already illegal for the boy to have a .45 but he got it anyway. Even if we were in a "gun free utopia" the boy probably still would have used a knife, tree trunk, or large jaw bone. Fact of the matter is, we'll always find something to defend ourselves or harm others with.

HORSE ***** STEVE...Plain and simple...for years I listened to the NRA cry about how the anti-gunners wanted to get rid of all guns....and I said yeah, yeah, yeah....then the Brady Bill passed and the VERY NEXT DAY an Editorial Appeared by the Editorial Staff of the LA Times...that said ..."That the Brady Bill was a GOOD FIRST STEP and the ALL GUNS SHOULD BE BANNED."

WOW the NRA was right, the Liberal do gooders wanting to protect society from the indivdual do want to get rid of all guns...because they ultimately believe that man is capricious at best and society must be protected from him...THank You thats socialism at best and fascism at worst...

So when the NRA defends your right to an Assualt Weapon, they are defending agianst the slippery slope of give em an inch and they will take a mile...

I say THANK GOD for the progun lobby and the political power they have.... I'm NRA all the way....

This liberal does not support gun control law proposals. Period. For the record.

I have a motor to build but here's what I got Googling:

Pools and kids: Loaded Guns Can Be Good for Kids

More guns, less crime: NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS: No Smoking Guns: Answering Objections to Right-to-Carry Laws

Child proof caps: Rational Risk Policy by W. Kip Viscusi

AIRBAG STATISTICS Deaths in frontal crashes are reduced about 14 percent among right front passengers using their belts and about 23 percent among passengers without belts. However, deaths are about 34 percent higher than expected among child passengers younger than 10.


-Chris

According to your signature you live in CA -- you already have a state wide ban on assault weapons. (Along with some of the most restrictive laws on other firearms too.)

The only difference between an "assault weapon" and a hunting rifle is that the hunting rifle is better built, more powerful and more accurate then the assault rifle. An AK-47 max range is 300 meters. The .308 is still holding a 6" group at a 1000 meters.

The fastest firing pistol is STILL a revolver. Watch a fast draw contest and half the time you never see the man draw, fire and holster the revolver. It takes a slow motion camera to see it.

So, what you are really afraid of is some "bad boy" on the street with a bad looking gun, that has to fire 15 rounds in order to hit something from 5' away. Of course, thats when you hope a trained civilian armed with an 7 rd Colt .45, who only needs 1 rd at 15 meters it hit his target, walks by. Thats what carry permits do. The bad guy never has to worry about the person he is robbing because he already has the drop on him. Its that armed, law abiding citizen, that sees him robbing you, that he has to worry about.

So, stop trying to use the Constitution to solve the crime problem and start supporting longer cell time for the criminals. I've never heard of a bad guy robbing a civilan, while he was in jail.

Terry

The Uniform Crime Report, published annually by the FBI, has never listed "assault weapons" as statistcally significant as used to commit crimes. The anti-gun folks raising a hoopla over these weapons know that. They hope the public does not. Why would this be? Why do they feel they have to resort to deception to achieve their goals? If they are so willing to lie to the public about their current poster child of an "evil" weapon, what else are they willing to lie about?

I support longer jail time, but that does nothing for the the victims of his first offense.

So what is your answer to the bus driver's family? Do nothing?

I say blame it on something you can demonize, say demon tobacco ("wacked out on dip, nicotine fiends") or a minority that doesn't vote. Everyone will feel better (well most everyone) and I'll look like I'm doing something about the problem and get re-elected.
Joe Pol

My favorite part about liberals is that they are so out spoken about guns, the war in Iraqi, poverty, etc........ BUT I HAVE NEVER HEARD A DAMN ONE OF THEM PUT UP A GOOD IDEA ON HOW TO FIX SOMETHING. It is like they think this is supposed to be a perfect world. They just want to be heard that is why so many actors and Celebes are blazing liberal...LOOK AT ME ...LISTEN TO ME.... Why isn't it safe in Iraq yet.....b/c it never will be that safe..... Why would you introduce your kids to shooting sports......b/c it is good to respect something whether it is inanimate or animate.......by is there poverty....b/c that freaking life..... If I could ever meet one liberal who had a really SOLID idea on how to fix something I would shake their hand so quickly......just like John Kerry.......man that guy didn't have a solid idea about anything

Coolbeverage, read more carefully. Either that or quit pointing fingers. Finger pointing because you cannot hear the ideas and suggestions you disagree with will make you seem foolish.

Terry, I don't know which would be more challenging. Hitting something with an AK-47 at 300 meters, or hitting something with a .308 at 1000 meters. both would be nearly impossible shots. For example, if your .308 were sighted in at 25 and 125 yards (I imagine you understand the curved trajectory of a bullet), you'd probably have to aim something like 30 feet above that target 1000 yards away. Or more. I am no ballistic expert and these figures are WAG's, but my point is that a 1000 yard shot is not something that can even be conceived except by an expert, and you'd want to use a gun designed for muzzle velocity like a .222 or 22-250. My grandfather, who was a ballistic expert, was fairly proud of killing a rock chuck at nearly 700 yards, with a .222.

Good to see that the CATO Institute is still the master of misinformation and the over-reaching conclusion. I am an opponent of gun control, by they way, so it's not like I don't favor their overall thrust, but I have read CATO stuff many times over the years and while I have not had the frustration of having to analyze their reports in my current job during the last two years, a click on one of the links above tells me their research methods still resemble a Warner Brothers cartoon. Looks like it's easy to work conservatives into a lather. Sorry if this feels insulting to someone, but if anyone is convinced that loaded guns are better for kids than unloaded ones, or unlocked ones better than locked ones, then you should really look at your own gullibility.

Comparing apples to oranges there Supe. .308 and AK both fire a .30 caliber bullet. Difference is AK is designed to deliver reliable high rate of fire with reasonable accuracy for it's intended purpose, to wound the enemy.

You are right about the relative impossibility of the 1000 yard .308 shot, although the 300 yard AK, again .308, is not out of the question.

You are right about the holdover required for such long shots with lightweight bullets. Here's an example:

.308 180g bullet Mv = 3100fps 500yd v= 2251 fps holdover = 40" @ 500 yds
.224 70g bullet Mv=3399fps 500yd v=1360 fps holdover = >60" @ 500 yds.
I may have told a rock chuck story or two in my day also.
;)

Unless you think that crime fighters can predict the future there is no way to prevent all crime. Thats why there is the legal system and jails.

For that reason the answer for the bus driver's family is to convict and incarcerate that kid.

And to those right wingers that want to turn this discussion into a liberal bashing session, like supe I am also a center leaning lib who is all for the second amendment.

Liberalism is about empowering the individual and self defense is a critical right that everyone should have.

Just because some leftist fools get caught up in the anti-gun scam does not mean being on the left end of the political spectrum and being anti-gun are directly related.

Greed and selfishness appear to be the only properties that appear to be distributed towards one end of that spectrum. ;)

I should have rephrased better. Is there anything that can be done to preclude such instances like this bus driver being killed? Or the wacko with the assault weapon that killed several people in SF years ago?

Since the kid got the gun from somewhere, could we prosecute the supplier, parents, somehow?

Or is this something we throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do?

Is there a pro-gun person with an answer. Your turn , Coolbeverage. Or is there no problem from your perspective?

People have been killing people as long as there have been people.

I am not saying there is nothing that can be done about this problem, but keeping people away from sharp and dangerous objects is not one of them.

If you want to keep people from killing each other you need to fix a lot of things related to socio-economics and our culture, not what kinds of dangerous items people can purchase.

By the time people are ready to kill each other you are already too late and thats the reason why gun bans are futile.

How about a small step? Is there a way to keep guns from kids?

Unfortunately the guns for self-defence idealogy seems to be at odds with that goal. A gun locked away in a cabinet (with ammunition locked away somewhere in a different location) is not much use in defending one's home.

Smart parents, but thats a bit hard to legislate.

Most states have laws that hold parents legally liable for leaving their guns where there kids can get them, so that at least takes care of the borderline parents who will only be somewhat responsible under the threat of potential incarceration.

Now that I have a young child my immediate access to a gun is a bit limited, but given enough time I can get to a ready to use weapon. As an immediate solution I keep a bat at the bedside and front door.

Stevepaa wants to take away my "assault weapons". Can you define them for me? Do you know what the AWB (94) did? Did it work?

Please don't beat up on the AK. I have 3 and dig them. Which ones don't you like? The 47 or the 74? Anyone know the difference? Not accurate out to 300 meters? How about the Dragonov? That one chambers 7.62x54 which pretty much outruns the 308 (7.62x51).
How about the Galil? Considered by some to be one of the finest battle rifles around, but scratch the surface and its an AK. These guns were designed to be cheap to build and run just about forever. You want close tolerances take one of my ARs (just don't get to close to dirt, or water, or sand......you get the idea). I can hand you an AK and you will be field stripping that baby in seconds (almost as easy as my FAL but thats another story) don't try that with an AR......... Will my AK outshoot my Remmy 700 PSS in 308? I certainly hope not but they are different tools intended for different applications.

While we are on the topic anyone who thinks the 50BMG is not an absolutely incredible round has never shot one or been in the vicinity when one is being fired. Whether spit from a ma deuce, an M82A1 or a Serbu......... yahoo.

Molon Labe...........

Pete, no i am not a gun person, so I would leave the definition up to people who know more, but maybe you have a solution without gun control?

But the gist of the pro-gun lobby is that the causes for that kid killing the bus driver are socio-econmic and cultural, and there is not a thing that we should do regarding guns to prevent the same thing happenign tomorrow. Except to arm everyone with guns.

They need to offer something better, if they want anyone to take them seriously.

Define "kids".

Why should we "keep them away"? How do you "keep them away" from sex for instance?

Maybe as suggested parents start acting like parents and take some responsibility. I have been shooting since I was very young and I got my first gun when I was 10 or so. On the other hand, I was never allowed to have a BB or pellet gun nor even a "cap" gun. Apparently my father wasn't real keen on me learning to point a "fake " gun at anyone so that wasn't a habit I had to unlearn when I had the real thing.

I don't have kids but I still secure my weapons properly regardless. I don't leave the keys in my ignition either. Gun ownership is a right , but with that right comes an enormous responsibility I am still wondering why those two things don't always go together.

"Gun ownership is a right , but with that right comes an enormous responsibility I am still wondering why those two things don't always go together."

I agree, but sometimes we need to put restrictions on people because through experience we learn that they do not take responsibility.

Did you hear a few weeks ago about how high school kids were polled and it was realized that a large percentage actually favored censorship of the media? This group of senators got together and declared that there needed to be better education here. I agree, but now replace the replace the 1st amendment with the 2nd and I wonder if there would be an outcry.

I am no more "pro-gun" than I am "pro-free speech". They are both rights guaranteed by our constitution.

Sometimes tools are misused. Cars are driven by kids that kill people and destroy property, but we seem to accept that as an acceptable risk.

There are loads of laws on the books concerning guns currently, we need to start by enforcing the laws we have. That would be a start.

My personal feeling is that once the liberals eliminate the legal ownership of guns they will find some other way to protect us from ourselves. Better to let them fight the freedom battle in the gun use arena than to find yourself unable to license and drive your car on the road because it has the capability to exceed the speed limit or some other nonsense.

"Lighten up, Francis........"

So if that kid had taken a gallon of gasoline from his parents garage and had murdered half the students on that bus (in an extremely gruesome fashion -- burning them alive), would you then suggest that the parents or supplier be prosecuted?

Let's stop blaming inanimate matter, or people who have nothing to do with the commission of the crime, and start teaching lessons on individual responsible. Of course, individual responsibility is precisely what most liberals are against. Their argument is "everyone is responsible for everyone else."

Hardly, though the 1000 meters with a (Winchester).308 is quite difficult.

No, we are each responsible for our actions.

So the only answer is prosecute the kid? So you think we should apply capital punishment to him?

It is pretty far fetched to consider some kid, dragging 10 5 gallon gas jugs along to burn the bus?

So if he had used sarin, you would still say it is only his fault and not take means to preclude others from doing the same?

So how would you reach these wacko kids and teach them responsibility?

Right now the only thing we can do is prosecute the kid. Kill him or lock him up for life -- makes no difference to me, just as long as he's not walking around free where he can harm me or others. (He's clearly demonstrated that he's a threat; I don't give "second chances" in such matters.)

One gallon of gasoline could easily fit in most kids' school backpacks -- that's more than enough to have killed a large number of children on the bus.

About "sarin" -- now you're presenting a "pretty far fetched" idea.

I'm not particularly interested in "reaching" wacko young adults and "teaching" them anything. I am interested in being able to protect myself from them.

Consider: Everyone on the school bus was prohibited by law from having a firearm; the law didn't stop the criminal, but it did stop the bus driver (and any other adult on the bus) from being armed. The situation could have been very different had the driver been armed.

We as a society really can't reach these kids. Their parents have to do this. Many parents have abrogated their responsibilities in this area and now expect day care or schools to do the job of socializing their kids for them. I rarely had a babysitter growing up and I turned out... Well maybe that's not a good example. :D They say there are no bad dogs, just bad owners and I think that applies to kids to a large extent as well. Sure there will always be a certain small percentage of kids that are truly bad (defective?) but in general I think the number is about the same as it's always been. The rest of the "bad" kids are made as a the result (IMO) of insufficient parenting.

I detect a natural and commendable desire to solve this problem. This is going to sound like I'm being condescending, an old fart or both but as I've gotten older, experience has taught me that many human problems are much subtler and more difficult to understand and fix than I would have thought when I was younger. I think child violence (and violence in general) is one of the problems that is going to resist simple solutions that are applied after the formative years.

-Chris