General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn just seconds, a boy, a gun, a death, then grief
(CNN) -- It happened in just seconds, by all accounts.
A pistol in the hands of a 4-year-old boy went off Saturday, killing Josephine Fanning, the 48-year-old wife of Wilson County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Fanning.
The tragedy has shaken the town of Lebanon, Tennessee, a community just east of Nashville beside itself with grief.
Days after the Tennessee shooting, the intersection between children and guns emerged again, this time in Toms River, New Jersey.
A 4-year-old boy shot another boy, age 6, in the head with a .22-caliber rifle Monday night. They were playing in a yard, police said. The boy is alive, in stable condition at a hospital.
As the gunplay persists, lawmakers in Washington wrestled this week with the divisive politics of firearms....
Read More: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/us/tennessee-gun-death/index.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)another responsible gun owner?
Personally, I'm in favor of confiscating guns. That's what the NRA and various others accuse us of wanting. Me? I want it to happen. What is it about the connection between guns and death (or wounding and maiming) that the gun apologists don't get?
Do you think only police and military should have access to guns then?
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)children killing themselves or others is a good thing?
Or even an acceptable price to pay? What if your child, your mother, your best friend gets killed or maimed because a four-year old finds a gun.
Oh, I'm sorry. The right to own guns is absolute and nothing else matters, least of all the slaughter of innocents.
One of Many
(101 posts)simple question based on your statement that you think all guns should be confiscated. Just wanted to know if that included law enforcement personnel considering the fact that the father mishandling the gun is a deputy.
To answer your question if my child or anyone I know was killed or injured because an adult left a weapon where a 4 year old could find it I would be sure to go after that adult with all legal means at my disposal.
Rather harsh trying to paint me as advocating the "slaughter of innocents" don't you think?
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)justifications for unlimited gun ownership. I did not advocate taking guns from law enforcement, so to pretend I mean that is setting up a straw man.
It's astonishing to me that other countries manage quite well without a heavily armed citizenry, and we don't read of the kind of constant gun deaths elsewhere.
And if your child or anyone you know is killed or injured because a gun was left out, then going after them with all legal means at your disposal is a little late, don't you think? How about we start by severely limiting access to guns in the first place?
1st I never pretended you meant to take guns from law enforcement, I just asked the question.
2nd other countries aren't this country and I'm sure there's a great deal you don't read about what's going on in other countries. You hear the heartbeat of national news, our national news not theirs.
Lastly, why in the world would I seek to punish and remove enumerated rights from all those that didn't harm my child or other loved one because one person was negligent or criminal. How in the world does that make sense to you?
I didn't go on a rampage in a theater or a plaza or a school. What justification do you possibly have to limit my rights even further?
What I am calling for is a focus on the problem and that is NOT "guns" It is violent and/or negligent behavior. Go after the person that actually did shoot someone. Go after the person that let a 4 year old wield a pistol.
Why is it that you feel that limiting my access to a weapon via the confiscation you've advocated is some sort of actual solution to the root problem? The gun isn't the problem it's the person using or misusing the gun that is the problem. Target them, not me.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)We have essentially unlimited gun access in this country. And every single day how many people are killed with guns? And how many more are merely wounded, crippled, or maimed?
If you consider those number acceptable then okay for you. But I don't. And it's simplistic to say, target the person using the gun. So long as we have unfettered access it's not possible to target the gun user, except after the fact. Meanwhile, another person is killed. And another. And another.
I do not think your access to guns justifies that. If you do, then I think you need to accept the responsibility for the 30,000 people each year who die from gun violence. You can't shrug it off by mumbling something about responsible gun owners. Nope. If there weren't so many guns out there . . . well I'm beginning to repeat myself.
Keep your guns. But also keep responsibility for all of the gun deaths and woundings that occur. You don't get one without the other.
issues can and should be dealt with requiring transfers or sales go through an FFL. I support that and I don't buy or sell without having such a check.
While no one in the echo chamber is proposing it, I also support steep mandatory sentences for those involved in any crime involving a gun as I've stated elsewhere in this thread. The punishment needs to be very severe to have a deterrent effect. Making the risk of using a gun or stealing one so great that it outweighs rewards will go a long way towards curbing criminal use of guns.
As for your statements that I can keep my guns but by doing so I have to accept responsibility for all gun deaths that's ludicrous. I accept 100% responsibility for my guns and any other property I own under my control. I do not have control over other people's guns and therefore cannot and should not be held accountable for how they are used or misused.
By your logic I'm accountable for all traffic deaths since I own a car or all deaths that occur in a home because I own a home.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)crimes involving guns, but all gun owners should be required to carry serious liability insurance. If a gun is stolen from you, you're still responsible for it.
And there's a fundamental difference between traffic deaths, and deaths that occur in homes. Guns exist for one purpose. To harm and to kill. Every single gun owner considers himself or herself to be responsible. Good for you for keeping control over your guns, but thousands of gun deaths occur because an awful lot of people leave their guns out where they can be picked up by anyone at all.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)never mind; we know
Enlighten me on what you know about me.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)
Get rid of them all.
One of Many
(101 posts)that's a vote for a total ban and confiscation then? No tubular powder projectile firing devices on the planet at all owned by individuals, police, military etc.
TimberValley
(318 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)
avebury
(10,952 posts)irresponsible gun owners. I am 100% in favor of prosecuting irresponsible gun owners. Responsibility must go hand and hand with ownership. The right of an INDIVIDUAL (not society) to own a gun must end at the point were irresponsible behavior results in the death or severe injury of innocent people. When will society learn to start holding these idiots responsible for their actions?
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)Your gun kills someone, you face the music.
My ex-wife had an unregistered gun that she kept in her car's glovebox (I didn't know it was unregistered, nor did I know that she kept it in such a stupid place).
It was stolen one night, and all she could think about was that she might get in trouble when she reported it because it wasn't registered.
Of course, she was white, affluent, and related to someone in law enforcement, so she got nothing but sympathy from the police.
My point, though, is that it never crossed her little gun-loving mind that the gun could (and probably would) easily be used in any number of crimes, possibly including murder. It was the furthest thing from her mind.
In a just world, she would have been held accountable for her recklessness.
One of Many
(101 posts)Where a young set of hands can find it is one thing, blaming the victim of a theft is quite another.
I believe in targeting the criminal and have advocated VERY stiff penalties for any crime involving a gun including theft. Steal a gun and get 25 or more mandatory atop whatever other sentence you're facing. Use a stolen gun in a crime, 25 right on top. Use a gun for any criminal act whatsoever .. congrats on your mandatory 25 years.
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)First of all, her gun was ILLEGAL. It was a handgun with no serial number. Had I known that before the theft, I would have read her the riot act.
Secondly, she very negligently left it in a place where she couldn't possibly maintain control over it. She may have been a victim, but I guarantee you that the people who ultimately had to stare down the business end of that gun wouldn't much sympathize with her plight.
She was criminal in owning the gun, and she was criminally negligent in leaving it somewhere that it was so easy to take.
One of Many
(101 posts)or no serial number? No serial number means it the numbers were filed off in which case she is/was a criminal.
That said I don't agree with your implied requirement that gun owners must "maintain control" over a weapon that is out of sight hidden away on her property. When we did not have kids my wife and I kept a gun in various places within our house. Out of sight, not subject to someone accidentally finding it, but easily accessible by either of us. Any suggestion that I am to blame for the future violent acts of a criminal that breaks into my house (or my car) and steals my property makes no sense to me.
I believe the consequences of the original act (theft) and any subsequent violent acts by that criminal need to fall on the person that made those choices. Not the property owner that was victimized in the first place.
We should be asking ourselves why we're so willing to accept theft as SOP in the first place. I just don't get it as I was raised with a real simple maxim that kept me away from it outright. "If it isn't yours, leave it the (^$&*^% alone."
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)I'm pretty sure it had no serial, but it's a federal offense for the handgun not to have been registered, too. So she was criminal in owning it either way. But she faced no penalty. I can't understand that for the life of me.
The confines of an unlocked glove compartment, even if the car was locked, is far from secure storage. Vehicle break-ins were pretty common where we lived at the time, too, so to leave a handgun there is criminally negligent in my view.
Your home is a different matter. If you keep your handgun in a lockbox in your home, you've at least gone to some reasonable effort to secure the weapon.
I do apologize for my dismissive tone in my first reply to you. I get agitated because a lot of people (not you, to be clear) are more than willing to declare a gun owner "responsible" in the face of numerous facts to the contrary.
One of Many
(101 posts)We may disagree a bit on the "secure storage" issue, but such is life. I absolutely despise a thief and would rather we address that problem and its apparently growing acceptability directly to make such an act as vile to society as possible. Truly the act of cowards.
On registration, there is no federal requirement for handguns though. Many states have such laws but not the fed. No serial number is a big deal though at the state level and likely at the federal level. I'm admittedly ignorant as to whether or not there is a federal law regarding serial numbers.
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)In Georgia (the state we were in) you don't have to register a handgun. Wtf.
beevul
(12,194 posts)That statue applies to NFA weapons, not non-automatic handguns.
Registration of firearms at the federal level, outside the NFRTR which registers NFA firearms/destructive devices, is prohibited by the firearm owners protection act of 1986.
TroglodyteScholar
(5,477 posts)I owned up to my mistake, probably as you were writing that post.
Part of the problem IMO. I think I should have the right to know who owns guns and where so I can avoid them and their "mental health" incidents.
One of Many
(101 posts)Is security theater .. it doesn't solve any problem unless the problem is a lack of useless paperwork.
I certainly wouldn't support a publicly accessible database of those who own guns. We've seen what that leads to with some of the recent ill-advised disclosures of gun ownership in NY.
Aside from that, the property I own, assuming it's legal, is really nobody's business by my own.
Robb
(39,665 posts)Oh, right. Nothing. 
Response to avebury (Reply #4)
One of Many This message was self-deleted by its author.
agree wholeheartedly
geomon666
(7,512 posts)Thanks to the huge increase in gun buying that has been going on since Sandy Hook.
malaise
(268,960 posts)Ah the responsible adults around these children
baldguy
(36,649 posts)But for some reason it never works that way when guns are involved. Why is that?
Logical
(22,457 posts)malaise
(268,960 posts)Sickening
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 9, 2013, 08:27 PM - Edit history (1)
To do such a thing would be heresy.
One of Many
(101 posts)living document that can, should and has been questioned, amended and re-amended over the years.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)One of Many
(101 posts)That it can, should and has been modified. I just don't think the 2nd amendment need to be modified. There are man, many other ways to implement new laws and to prosecute based on existing laws that will achieve the goal of reducing violence including violent acts perpetrated by individuals with guns.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)
