Jesus. Even when they’re trying to be safe and responsible, they’re not:
Elyria Police Lt. William Pelko said Nicole Gillette, of the 500 block of Baldwin Street, was putting a 9 mm handgun back into a safe when she dropped it. Gillette tried grabbing the gun before it hit the ground and it fired and a bullet grazed her calf, Pelko said.
Gillette’s toddler daughter was at home when the accident occurred, Pelko said, but she wasn’t harmed.
Gillette, who was fully alert and conscious following the accident, was transported by LifeCare to University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center. Pelko said Gillette wasn’t seriously injured and she and her daughter are lucky something worse didn’t happen.
“She was out running some errands and came home,” Pelko said. “She has a CCW permit and was putting the gun in the safe because she has kids there. Somehow it fell out of her hand and fired. Thank goodness that’s all that happened.”
“Somehow” it fell out of her hand. Yeah, that’ll happen. “Somehow” she got the dropsies, which we all get, but we’re not all holding loaded firearms when that happens.
No charges will be fired because, stuff happens. And, you know, give Gillette credit for at least trying to be safe. But Jesus, shit happens. Guns get dropped, they fire accidentally, and she’s lucky the bullet didn’t hit her kid. There’s just no way for them to be safe, ever. Shit happens.
So here’s the cautionary tale for you gun-humpers: here’s how gun loons see themselves:
And here’s the reality:
Southern Beale 
Is there a sort of multiple choice, “Cause of stupident” block on the police report?
Something like:
A. Protectin mah stereo record player.
B. Guardin agin shopliftomooslims.
C. Other freedumbs.
What an idiot. The only time that gun was safe is when it was locked in the safe. As soon as it is out in the open it becomes potientially highly lethal, as we’ve seen over, and over, and over, and….
I don’t know anything about guns. Do they normally fire when dropped? If so, doesn’t that make them a defective product?
It depends on the gun and how it’s carried. Some guns are more prone to accidentally firing when dropped and others are less prone. Some guns have actual drop safeties that are designed to prevent the gun from firing accidentally when dropped.
The big point that I keep hammering on with these negligent discharges is that any gun can be carried in more or less safe ways. A gun with a round chambered is far more likely to fire accidentally than one with a loaded magazine but no round chambered. The problem is that a lot of concealed carry nuts expect to need their guns instantaneously when trouble crops up, so they carry them with rounds chambered to avoid the momentary delay of racking the slide. That does make them faster to use if needed, but it also makes them an accident waiting to happen. Whenever you hear about this kind of accident, it’s a very good bet that the idiot involved was carrying their gun that way.
To your point, when did it become okay to walk around with a round chambered? I thought the first rule of being a safe and responsible gun owner was that you didn’t do that. It takes two seconds to chamber a round, it’s not like you’re risking death by keeping your gun clear. There’s no way these “tragic accidents” would happen if people didn’t have rounds chambered.
SB–
In fairness, if you’re open carrying in a park in Cleveland, and the police pull up, you may not have two seconds to chamber a round before they shoot you.
There are two next steps to try. I think both will push the tipping point even further, if we can manage them, but they aren’t easy. The first ideally should be based on strong statistics, but I don’t know if any one has cross-sorted the victims of gun violence over a reasonable time, six months or a year — and I am including victims of mass shootings, individual shootings, ‘accidents’ and even suicides — by the type of company or occupation they have.
Then try running ads based directly at corporations and industries, showing how much they had to pay out — hospitalization, replacement, temporary or permanent, for people injured and unable to come to work — or even jailed — as well as those permanently and fatally injured, new security measures, paid therapy for employees traumatized by witnessing shootings, or at the loss of their colleagues — as many different factors as legitimate and possible.
“Gun violence, accidents, and lack of controls costs YOU money.” I think you’d be surprised at the number of companies, business owners, even corporate executives who would reach ‘the first stage of political enlightenment’ which is simply saying ‘Y’know, I never thought of it in THAT way.’ (And without that statement, you’re back to the Kabuki dance, where everyone makes the statements they always make, then the responses expected, and every debater feels great about himself — and doesn’t notice that NOBODY’s mind actually got changed.)
The second idea is to actually get people who were shooting victims to run, or even endorse candidates running, against ones supported by the NRA or worse, GOoA. (And I still wish people had followed Mark Kelly’s call for rejecting any candidate supported, with words or money, by Larry Pratt.) As always “X is not an issue in the election until someone makes it an issue.” We can hope Democrats in general will be making it an issue everywhere, but this heightens it, especially in STATE elections. It is a big thing to ask, but maybe some victims will be willing.
Then, about putting out that book-length collection of “2nd Amendment Heroes…
I comment like do above, and then I read about today’s tragedy — the New Mexico ‘road rage’ killing of a four year old. It marks the one problem with much of your — and my — comments. For so many of the stories you run, snark, and sneering is the absolutely appropriate response, especially if the ‘hero’ manages to harm no one but theirself, But when we are dealing with deaths like these, children shot for no reason, not as an accident caused by an unsafely secured gun, something more is needed..
Does anybody think a followup to some of the ‘accidents’ might be warranted — asking the gun owner some real-world questions a couple weeks later? Like, are you still a gun owner… do you still feel that guns are in and of themselves safe… do you still feel as confident in your own skills… is owning the gun so important to you that even with the already demonstrated risk of accident you will continue to put your child in danger? Or are you simply a squirrelly nutbag who never got beyond the 9th grade?
That’s a great idea. I’d like to know why some of these gun negligence incidents are prosecuted and some are not. There was a case out of Georgia (of course!) this week where a 3-year-old shot herself with a gun left on a bed. Not prosecuted; dad is a sheriff’s deputy. Wonder if that had anything to do with it?
What we need is some sort of generally accessible base that covers all these incidents, and the similar ones that you can’t get covered, and that other blogs miss. It would then be possible for someone — and I’d be glad to help to the extent I can — to do just the sort of tracking you want to see. Google is our friend, after all, and the follow-ups frequently make it to the local papers. Checking court records might also be valuable. Your point is a very important one, but unless we can chase down the actual facts, we can just guess if there has been any prosecution or not.
In fact, I don’t even know if anyone is collecting news artiocles about guns, or has some idea of what newspapers have taken what positions. For example, the NY DAILY NEWS has been extremely strong against guns, both in news stories and columns. The trouble is — as is often true — there’s all this information out there, but unless someone goes looking, or someone does the sort of thing you do, they only see 1% of the non-massacre gun stories. Even the most active, like you, needs some sort of general clearing house — of course this may exist and I may just be displaying my ignorance.
Yeah actually several people do. David Waldman started the #GunFAIL hashtag on Twitter, it’s a great resource. He also has a monthly summary over at DailyKos and a Pinterest and
InstagramTumblr component. Google “GunFAIL”There must be a few of them who have renounced their guns after incidents like SB reveals. A few must have disposed of their guns and now live in a gun-free household for safety reasons. Finding them and persuading them to make a series of public service ads explaining their gun accident and how they have now realized its more dangerous to have a gun than to not have a gun. We have ex-tobacco smoker making ads so why not ex-gun owners?
Have them state that the best way to protect your family is to make sure there are no guns in the house. A couple ads like that from real people, real ex-gun owners might be a thousand times more effective than just haranguing firearms advocates for being idiots.
SB: Thanks for the info, though as someone who has never been curious enough about Twitter to even know how to access it… And I don’t even know what Pinterest is, but at least it isn’t on FB. (I’ll tell the story of my battles with them sometime on a less important thread.)
‘
But I am going to withdraw my ‘tipping point’ comment, because (h/t Zandar) I saw the Gallup Poll that was recently released and it shows that, at best I can hope for a tide turning after some more leaching away at the beach. I won’t go as far as Zandar’s “The gun control debate is over — and gun control lost.” but these numbers on whether more concealed weapon permits — after background checks and training courses — would make people more or less safe are scary. 56% of all adults, 50% of women, majorities of all education levels except post-graduate (with the highest numbers, 65% among those with some college) and majorities even in cities. Only Democrats and post-graduate education are substantially in the less safe category, with non-gun owners almost evenly split. Even city dwellers are 50% for ‘safer,’ 47% for less safe.
‘
There’s a lot more work to be done than I had thought — but I still think it is doable.
Well speaking of FB, there is a GunFAIL group on Facebook, too. 😉
Tipping point is here, I can feel it.
I was in a local pawn shop last evening and heard a young guy telling the owner that his grandpa’s house got burgled last year and he is now short about 25 gunz (only handgunz require permits, so it is hard for gramps to a amember the right count ).
SWEET FUCKING JEESUŹŹ!
They were probably just left lying around, too.
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/31822/20151023/bigger-calls-smaller-balls-howler-monkeys-compensate-small-testes.htm