Tennessee Gun Report

We had three accidental shootings this week, plus a whole passel of gun cray. In light of yesterday’s action by the state Senate to approve open carry/no permits required, public safety has just taken a turn for the worse here.

Here’s your weekly gun report:

• April 8, 2014:

A Nashville man came home from work to find a burglar inside his house. He detained the man until police arrived, and he didn’t even need a gun to do it. Amazing. NRA talking point FAIL.

Here’s the thing I don’t get with you gun loons: your only argument is, “I have a right to protect myself and my property,” ergo you need to keep your guns with you at all times and in all places. But you never explain why the only way you can protect yourself and your property is by killing someone. Stealing your flat-screen TV is not, at this juncture, a death penalty offense. And there are a whole bunch of ways that people can protect themselves without a firearm.

There are way too many tragedies because someone went off half-cocked and blew an innocent person away under the mistaken idea that they were protecting themselves. Thinking of Ronald Westbrook, Johran McCormick, Carl and Garrick Hopkins, this unnamed 14-year-old Colorado girl, and, of course, Trayvon Martin. The people who chose to use deadly force where it wasn’t warranted will have to live with their tragic mistake for the rest of their lives. You can’t bring dead people back.

At some point we’re going to have to decide what we value more: peoples’ lives or their property.

• April 7, 2014:

1- Greeneville, represent! Congratulations to 62-year-old Donnie Franklin, who accidentally shot himself in the calf while “messing around” with a .25 caliber gun. You are Greeneville’s 7th accidental shooting in the past 12 months.

Y’all are waaay too tiny a town for this much GunFAIL. Just sayin’.

2- A Chattanooga couple decided to shoot up every single room in their house, including their childrens’ toys and their furniture, trying to eradicate imaginary lizards and snakes. Yes, meth was involved. At some point a neighbor collected the couple’s children and took them out of harm’s way. I don’t think they’ll be seeing those kids for a while.

3- A road rage incident in Murfreesboro resulted in one driver pulling a gun and pointing it at the head of another driver.

4- Also in Murfreesboro, some men who crashed a party and started smoking in the host’s apartment turned violent when they were asked to smoke outside. They attacked residents and one pulled out a handgun and started firing.

5- And again in Murfreesboro: shots were fired at the Haynes Manor Apartments, though no injuries were reported. However, children live in the apartment directly above the one that was shot at.

Murfreesboro regularly appears in the Gun Report (and the daily news) for gun violence and gun lunacy. The sheer number of shootings happening down there on a daily basis is alarming. Again: wtf, people?

• April 6, 2014:

1- A Davidson County man accidentally shot his wife in the leg while trying to shoot an “aggressive pit bull.” Yes, that would be the definition of “fail.”

2- A North Chattanooga man fired seven rounds into another man’s door “to scare him.” Just as the Founders intended.

• April 4, 2014:

1- The Monteagle police chief accidentally shot and killed his friend while turkey hunting.

2- This story has gone underreported in the Tennessee press: four Greene County teenagers have been captured in South Carolina with nine guns (including an AK-47) and over 200 rounds of ammo. They were wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of Greene County’s Robert J. Blanchard, father of one teen involved in the shooting. Two of the kids are age 15, the others 16 and 17. And I think WTF where did kids this age get their hands on this kind of arsenal and also, y’all can shut up now about rural American being so much better than big cities.

Holy hell.

3- Time to check in with the TSA blog! Well, lookie here:

Agents found a live flash bang grenade in a checked bag at the Memphis airport. Also in Memphis, a loaded .45 caliber handgun with a round chambered was found in a traveler’s carry-on bag on March 29. Meanwhile, a traveler forgot about his or her loaded 9mm left in their carry-on at the Nashville airport on April 3.

I repeat: you lose the right to call yourself a responsible gun owner when you forget where the hell you left your guns. End, full stop.