Poll: Safety is Job one.

[ileus]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165605/personal-safety-top-reason-americans-own-guns-today.aspx

Americans who say they personally own a gun were asked this open-ended question in Gallup's Oct. 3-6 annual Crime poll. These 309 gun owners were allowed to provide up to three reasons they own guns.

After personal safety and hunting, general mentions of recreation or sport are third (13%) among the reasons gun owners chose to own a firearm, with 8% citing target shooting.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only a 390 person sample but it's a good start, it shows firearm owners are pretty tuned in to the fact they have to provide for their own safety (and that of their family) first before anything else matters.

As I always say....Safety first, willing victim later.

[Scuba]

1. Safety may be job #1 for gun owners, but they're failing at it.

[Niceguy1]

2. not really when you look at the total numbers

Of ownsership versus accidents.

[Scuba]

3. How many annual accidental deaths are acceptable to you?

[Niceguy1]

6. not much more than pools,

Cars, bicycles, sports, etc. Life has risks. Amd we have laws ro reduce it but it can't be eliminated even I'd we try to wrap everyone in bubblewrap

[Scuba]

7. Really? Do you have data to support that accidental gun deaths are "not much more than pools"?

[Niceguy1]

8. according to the cdc:

Motor vehicle
Suffocation
Drowning
Poisoning
Fire/Burns
Falls
Sports and recreation

Sorry, I was wrong. Above it the top list from the cdc.

Ohther places had accidental shootngs at #5 or more often lower on the list.

[GreenStormCloud]

17. Easy. Go to CDC web site.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

Accidental firearms deaths, all ages: 613

Accidental drowning deaths, all ages: 3,443 (Does not divide into pools, lakes, ocean etc.)

Accidental pedistrian deaths, excludes vehicle related, all ages: 1,338

Accidental poisoning deaths, all ages: 29,846

Accidental suffocation death, all ages: 5,997

Accidental, Natural/Environmental, all ages: 1,449

[DonP]

19. How uncomfortable - you actually answered the question with facts

That's not nice. But asking for statistics/proof down here in the Gungeon is like a high fast ball right over the plate.

I guess, since the poster didn't demand a ban on backyard pools and 5 gallon buckets, the poster isn't quite as concerned with the 9.4 children drowned every day as they are about the one a week that are accidentally shot?

Maybe they have petitions going on banning backyard pools and 5 gallon buckets and are just too shy to mentions it?

[Eleanors38]

4. Do you have data showing child accident rates-by-gun over time?

[Scuba]

5. How many are OK with you?

[Eleanors38]

9. None. How many are "okay with you?" (Have that data, yet?)

[Scuba]

10. Sorry, I don't accept homework assignments from anonymous bloggers.

But I read about a child dying from a gun accident almost every day. That's way too many for my definition of "safe".

[gejohnston]

11. there were less than 50 children

851 all ages.
What you might be reading about are kids who get caught in the crossfire of gangsters and drug dealers. Those are not accidents nor "collateral damage", that's just fucking murder.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf

[Scuba]

12. So you're good with about one a week then?

[gejohnston]

15. no, but I'm not good with laws that

would prevent people from defending themselves either. The CDC claims that 100K people use a gun to prevent them from being crime victims. Many criminologists put the number higher, much higher.

So, how do you feel about kids drowning and being killed in car crashes?

[Straw Man]

18. No.

So you're good with about one a week then?

Nobody is "good with" any. Spew your calumny elsewhere.

[oneshooter]

13. But you are more than willing to hand them out.

[Eleanors38]

16. "Anonymous bloggers:" Everyone on DU?

[AtheistCrusader]

20. Would you feel better if the media reported on those deaths in proportion to the number killed?

You'd pretty much never hear about an accidental shooting then.

[Scuba]

21. I'd feel better if there were no accidental shooting deaths.

Wouldn't you?

[AtheistCrusader]

22. I would, but by proportion, I would feel much better if there were no accidental drowning.

Let's say I had the power to snap my fingers and eliminate one problem or the other.

I'd get rid of drowning. I'd save a LOT more lives that way.

[Scuba]

23. So as long as drowning top shooting deaths, you're advocating we just ignore the shootings?

I'm not clear on what you're advocating by pointing out that there are other causes of death. Do you not favor universal background checks? Do you not favor gun owners being legally bound to keep their firearms out of the hands of children?

[AtheistCrusader]

24. Nice strawman you're constructing there.

You seem ignorant of the measures gun owners go to reduce those deaths. Measures that have been incredibly effective, if you go back and look at accidental shootings in the '50s, versus today.

I favor universal background checks.
I favor holding people criminally liable when they leave firearms accessible to children.
I favor universal registration.

I am pointing out there are other causes of death, because your interest in this issue seems disproportionate. Do you post various places encouraging water safety? Building exclusion fences around pools? Mandatory safety training/swimming courses for schools? Liability insurance for water features like pools/fountains/watertight buckets?

How much effort are you investing in much more common causes of accidental death for children? How do you choose to allocate your time?

[Scuba]

25. Hey, if you want to start a drowning safety thread, I promise not to pollute it with ...

... stuff about other causes of death.

Why don't you extend this same courtesy?

[AtheistCrusader]

26. You started out by claiming that gun owners are 'failing at it' WRT safety.

Considering guns are directly designed to kill, or are derivatives of weapons designed to kill, but used for other 'putting holes in things' purposes, and there are 300+ million guns owned across 90+ million Americans, I say your contention was bullshit.

I need only compare guns to pools, to show that gun owners are doing an AMAZING job of preventing those deaths. Especially considering nowhere near as many people own pools, let alone buckets.


Perhaps if you had started out with 'what can we do to further reduce accidental firearm related deaths' you'd get a much different response. As this thread went, your entire premise seems to be based on unrealistic expectations.

[Scuba]

28. If you feel it's unrealistic to further reduce gun deaths we have nothing to discuss.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. Strawman. That's not what I said. Try again.

[Jenoch]

34. So, you're not willing to accept 'homework' assignments,

but you are will to assign them?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

35. How many drunk driving deaths are you OK with?

Battered spouses? Cases of Cirrhosis? Sexual assaults? Cases of fetal alcohol syndrome? Addiction? Childhood poisonings?

[Scuba]

36. Whoa, look over there!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

37. Aren't they, by your logic, all preventable if

we simply remove the underlying substance from access? Ban the thing and the disease, crime, accidents and addicitons just *POOF!* go away.

Right?

[Scuba]

38. Well, if we take away all the guns, all the gun deaths will end.

Of course, NO ONE IS PROPOSING THAT!!!!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

40. No one? That statement won't survive as far as the GD forum let alone a google search.

Since you're so adamant that guns are legal for people to have perhaps you will share for the assembled how you personally felt the USSC made the right call in recognizing Otis McDonald's right to not be prosecuted by the city of Chicago for owning a gun to defend himself.

[Scuba]

41. OK, no one who matters.

Never heard of McDonald or his case.

By the way, I'm a gun owner. Three shotguns, two rifles and a handgun.

[oneshooter]

42. As such you also have the blood of the victims on your hands.

[Scuba]

43. Go suck an egg.

[oneshooter]

44. What!!! You mean that you are above the rest of us!

Why don't you confess to your part in all of the killing.

Or even better, disarm. Destroy all of your killing machines, that way you can have a clear conscious.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

45. You're just going to have to learn that

some animals are more equal than others.

[NYC_SKP]

14. Hmmm.

I would have answered with "Protection"; "2A right"; and "passed down from family", since I don't hunt or target shoot.

[BeyondGeography]

27. Yeah, ok

I feel safer without one.

[jimmy the one]

30. trumpeting a weak note

Only 5% said they owned a gun because it was a '2nd amendment' right, which means about 16 people of the 309 are ultra super cool gunnuts believing in the 2nd Amendment Mythology.
A big 1% (one percent) said 'other' reasons for owning a gun - about 3 people of the 309 sample. Wonder what that might entail? assuaging ego, sex toy, spite, masochism? how about some insight?

Greenstormcloud: Accidental firearms deaths, all ages: 613
Accidental drowning deaths, all ages: 3,443 (Does not divide into pools, lakes, ocean etc.)
Accidental pedistrian deaths, excludes vehicle related, all ages: 1,338
Accidental poisoning deaths, all ages: 29,846
Accidental suffocation death, all ages: 5,997
Accidental, Natural/Environmental, all ages: 1,449

Credit gun control states with stricter 'accident prevention' laws for lowering the accidental firearm death rate more than pro gun states - gunnuts getting reflected glory.
And children contribute moreso to some of those other accidental deaths, than to accidental gundeaths, children aren't gunowners.

But hey, how many MURDERS do swimming pools cause every year? a couple dozen? How many murders are caused by all those other means? not on a par with gundeaths, only a small fraction.

All in all, you all trumpet a weak note.

[gejohnston]

31. inanimate objects don't cause anything

because they have no soul nor can they send mental waves. Such superstitious rubbish among "enlightened atheists" I find rather amusing.

Unless you have evidence of safe storage laws caused the drop in accidents, there is a problem: Those states never had high legal gun ownership to begin with, so how could California and New York have that great of effect when most of the guns are in places like Wyoming, Colorado, and Vermont?
But then, why does UK have more gun murders than Finland or Iceland, which has more guns per capita than Florida? That is even before you peel away the Home Office from cooking the books.

[ileus]

33. mean ole guns....always killing people.

[NYC_SKP]

32. Why is it that you never ever whine about poisoning deaths, or suffocations?

Not that I suspect a reasonable answer.

Mind you.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

39. For the same reason they don't trumpet their weak note

about banning alcohol to prevent crime, disease, accidents and addiction which harm more people by orders of magnitude but serve no useful purpose and have no constitutional protection.