At least 157 people were killed and 270 were injured last year in unintentional shootings by children, according to Everytown, an advocacy group for firearm safety.
This is what happens when everyone has easy access to children.
The real question is, how many did they intentionally shoot and kill?
I’ll see myself out
This but unironically. Parental licensing programs should be implemented worldwide.
The single most dangerous thing to the future of the planet is bad or incompetent people having children.
The issue is some of the most unsuitable people to have children are also rich.
Make sure your kids are carrying so they can protect themselves incase some kid is carrying. 🤡
No no, you got it wrong, give parents guns to defend against rioting children
We need more good kids with guns! /s
I really wish more gun owners would embrace the concept of safe storage. Unfortunately between the “Muh Rights” bozos, the ignorant, and the outright criminal there’s too many opportunities for kids to come into unsupervised contact with weapons.
Gun owner here in support of safe storage laws. I do think the argument of “the gun should be easily accessible” is valid, only if you don’t have kids or anyone that shouldn’t have access living with you. But at the same time, having the gun accessible doesn’t really matter unless it’s literally on you 24/7.
I am for safe storage laws because I don’t think the outcome would change much in favor of the gun owner, rather homes with firearms would be safer when they’re not accessible by kids or people that shouldn’t access them.
Yep. The likelihood of a gun accident happening is much higher than the likelihood that you’ll need and be near your firearm in a home invasion scenario. Houses are generally robbed when no one is home, and one of the most likely things stolen is your firearm. It’s much more likely to still be there if it’s secured properly.
Edit: Also, don’t use 1776 for the combination of your gun safe. It’s essentially useless if you do.
The problem here is they include 15+ year olds all the way to 19 in these stats. Which 15-19 year olds are like 80% of all gang violence. So no safe storage laws are going to stop this type of violence. It’s just bullshit propaganda stats from everytown.
That’s a normal tactic but in this case I went to the data source, Everytown, and reviewed it myself. The highest age included in their data set was 17 and there was a depressing number of children under 8 in there.
The other thing is that this data was specifically about unintentional shootings, meaning that this wasn’t gang violence.
It’s basically what’s on the tin. Negligent and Accidental Discharges. Something that Safe Storage can help to address, especially with the younger kids.
The highest number was 17 because at 18 you’re an adult.
That hasn’t stopped other studies from defining “kids” as people all the way up to age 21.
It’s a common tactic used to create scary headlines and twist the discourse.
While some of these are true, a large portion of these are gang related. They’re carrying without holsters in their pockets. It’s happens a lot and usually isn’t reported unless someone is injured. I totally agree firearms should be stored in safes but the data here is more about negligent gang members usually.
I’ve got some issues with safe storage laws, but they’re mostly about the inadequacy of the containers that they allow for.
The quick and dirty version is that, at best, safe storage laws require a residential security container (RSC), which is not very secure. It will stop curious kids, but will not stop an older kid that has time on their hands, or is determined and willing to use a destructive attack (e.g., a prybar). If you have a hammer and a long screwdriver, you can probably open most containers that are approved under safe storage laws. An actual gun safe is expensive as fuck, starting at about $5000 and going waaaaaaaaay up; a gun safe will stop pretty much everyone except a professional thief that is personally targeting you.
But the part that really chaps my ass is that RSCs are not only expensive for how little protection they offer, but it’s frustratingly hard to even figure out how to compare them against each other if they aren’t UL listed. Sometimes the lock on the RSC will be listed, but not the container. Sometimes they’ll have a fire rating, but won’t have anything for the lock or the resistance to destructive attacks. Unless you find an expert–and there aren’t many working at big box sporting goods stores–you won’t have any idea what kind of protection you’re paying a few thousand dollars for.
EDIT - even after all of that, a safe storage law needs to have some kind of financial incentive built in, like a $1000 tax credit for the the purchase of a container that meets state criteria. Otherwise they’re going to seem unreasonably expensive to many people.
This is why you should teach gun safety to kids in schools. In the US, kids are going to find guns, because some owners are going to be lazy, careless, or just tired and not thinking straight. Things like, if you find a gun, get an adult, a gun is always loaded, even if you think you unloaded it, or never, ever point a gun at something you don’t intend to shoot.
Parents should teach their kids this stuff, just like parents should be teaching their kids of sex and healthy relationships. But parents aren’t, and so schools need to step into the gap.
I never understood why firearms safety classes were done away with in schools. Nearly every middle and high school had a shooting club for most of the US’s history.
Because guns scary bad.
And I mean that seriously.
People in urban areas–which is most of the country’s population–almost exclusively experience firearms as being part of a criminal act. Most people that live in cities don’t know people that hunt, or compete in marksmanship, but they hear about murders and shootings in their city all the time. Why do you need training in firearms in schools when the only use–the only use they have consistent exposure to–is criminal?
You can look at electoral maps and see this; most of the geographical area is red/Republican/conservative (typically pro-2A), while most of the population centers where people actually live are blue/Democratic/more liberal. If you went back 50 or 100 years, you’d see more people living in rural areas, which ended up meaning that there were more people that were exposed to hunting, etc.
This is completely correct.
What’s funny is, banning guns is only going to take them away from responsible gun owners.
Gangbangers in cities are still going to have their guns. But now someone on a farm who needs it for their protection isn’t going to be allowed to have one? That’s a load of bullshit and why gun control legislation exists solely to distract useful idiots from the real problems they face.
I’m a firm believer in addressing and correcting the underlying causes of violence rather than removing the tools. For instance, Chicago had a violence intervention program a few years back, and it was having a noticeable impact on rates of violence. It was targeting at-risk kids, and helping them get their shit together. And so, predictably, the city cut the funding for it.
Roland Fryer has never been wrong it seems.
pro 2a is revisionist.
Historically the 2nd amendment was never a personal amendment like the 1st but a states rights amendment like the 10th amendment. Eg the feds cannot disarm lawful state militias.
This kind of oversimplification leaves out how corporate gun manufacturers have embarked on a decades long venture to reinterpret the 2nd amendment to basically be “you have a god given right to sell guns” and the republican policy here is simply the current pro-corporate policy. If corporations shift on this republican politicians will as well (and they have, people forget Ronald Reagan introduced gun control)
Incorrect. It was understood not only as a right, but a requirement. The people were expected to be in the militia, and they were expected to furnish their own arms. (Or course, the founders had very different ideas about who “people” were; the rules didn’t apply to women and black/indigenous people.)
slaves, immigrants, women were all barred from gun ownership legally within the life span of the founders and courts upheld these rulings. Guns rights were NEVER a personal right
Again: you’re simply wrong. Slaves, immigrants, and women were barred from all rights within the lifespan of the founders. If you extend your argument, you can say that the freedom of the press wasn’t a right either, since slaves, women, and immigrants didn’t have the right to read or publish what they wanted.
The problem with this view is that the body of the constitution already gives government the power to raise and arm and army, and to enact taxes to pay for it. There’s no need for an amendment to say that the gov’t has the right to be armed when that right was already stated. It’s redundant. You could, perhaps, argue that it’s a right that was being reserved for the states, but it doesn’t say that the states have the right to militias, it says the people. Moreover, the remaining nine amendments that form the bill of rights all concern individual rights, or individual and state rights (e.g. 10A). It would be very strange to see an amendment that not only says “people” but means “states”, and is the only amendment in the bill of rights that applies only to states.
Take, for instance, the National Firearms Act of 1934. It was originally going to be a ban on handguns, short-barreled rifles (because they were effectively handguns, and would circumvent the ban), and machine guns. It was turned into a tax because lawmakers were pretty sure that a ban couldn’t pass court review–while a tax could, since it was an enumerated power–which very strongly implies that it was recognized, even in the 1930s, as an individual right, rather than a right that existed for the gov’t.
I could probably come up with a list of references if you were interested in reading more. I would not suggest anything by Michael Bellesiles, because his historical “research” was found to be deeply flawed bordering on outright fraudulent.
Militia service was for a long time a privelege (restricted to men of certain age) and the right to bear arms was always intended to be a give and take: you could own arms but you would be legally required to show up in an emergency to help and you would be trained to do so. That was always the intention.
People would call it communism or something today but for whatever reason the arms stuck around and the militia as a community resource disappeared. Realistically the idea of personal arms without any obligation to society is a completely new fiction and that is one defined by corporate intervention.
At its core the 2nd amendment was always an exchange: You get guns but if you fail to fulfill your obligations as a gun owner you lose this privelege: This is why to this day felons can be legally barred from gun ownership. Other amendments - due process etc aren’t lost when you commit a crime.
However today I can’t tell you how many gun owners complain like whiny children over the most basic obligations like licensure, training, etc. What those obligations are were up to the states but largely the second amendment was an exchange “everyone who can fulfill this basic obligation can have guns”
It’s almost like normalising access to guns from a young age is part of your country’s issue with shooting each other all the time.
The issue is people who feel like they have nothing to lose taking their frustration out on society.
It’s why there are other nations with comparable gun ownership rates as the US without comparable amounts of gun violence.
Congratulations, though. You’re doing what the ruling class wants: squabbling over bullshit to distract you from the real issues.
I’m not squabbling. You lot just need to stop pretending owning a gun is an inalienable right, the absence of which would see the sky fall. Absolute muppetry.
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The shootings kinda started when normalization stopped. Now they all still have access but the normalcy is gone, they’re a symbol of power not a tool.
The same people who got rid of Satan and WOKENESS from schools.
I think we should teach gun safety in schools because people have to rely on themselves for their own protection.
Fundamentally, yes.
I currently live in a fairly rural area. Best case scenario, cops take about 15 minutes to get to me. (Realistically, getting attacked by a bear is the most likely scenario that needs a police response.)
When I lived in Chicago–Austin, Humboldt Park, Little Village–I had to call the cops because someone was trying to kick down my front door. It took them about 30-45 minutes to show up, and then they just parked in the alley and didn’t even come check, or call me back. Literally nothing. (Come to think of it, they make have just coincidentally parked in the alley, and not been responding to the call at all.) My ex-wife called the police to report a “domestic disturbance”–implying that I was being violent towards her–and, again, it was about 30-45 minutes before they even showed up.
Cops can not protect you, and they have no legal duty to do so. If you are in a marginalized group, cops are more likely to victimize you when you need help rather than actually helping.
But of course the answer isn’t major police reforms, it’s just “buy a gun and start blasting”.
If you are in a marginalized group, cops are more likely to victimize you when you need help rather than actually helping.
If you’re part of a marginalized group and holding a gun, they’ll kill you where you stand and there won’t even be a trial.
This is why you should teach gun safety to kids in schools.
They do. Or at least they did in my daughter’s public elementary school. They get the teaching materials straight from the NRA too.
They have this whole ‘Eddie the Eagle’ thing about gun safety. And if the NRA wasn’t a thoroughly evil organization, that would be commendable.
The NRA isn’t a thoroughly evil organization. The NRA does lots of good things with education and training (albeit in a fudd-y way). What you’re thinking about it the NRA-ILA, the lobbying/legislative wing. Those are the people that are generally scum.
In the US, kids are going to find guns, because some owners are going to be lazy, careless, or just tired and not thinking straight.
Then the conditions for being a gun owner are vastly too permissive and the punishments for negligence are vastly too light.
The fact that you just skipped straight over this to blame schools and parents shows that your opinions are already hopelessly compromised by pro-gun rhetoric.
Yes. That’s the only answer. Accommodate the gun fetish. Of course.
Must be hard to downvote me with one hand stroking a gun and the other down your pants.
So…don’t teach children about gun safety?
Toddlers are shooting themselves and others. So maybe education needs to start in the maternity ward?
How about, and I know, it’s crazy, but you could try not having guns in residential homes. It’s insane, I know, but there’s this really weird thing where the rest of the world manages it and their children (so bizarrely) aren’t blowing their faces off on a regular basis
Nuts, hey…
Gun control would be nice but…we are talking about in the here and now. Right now…guns are in homes. We are suggesting we should at least do everything we can to teach children those guns are dangerous. You do get that right?
Someone set that building over there on fire! Lets put the fire out!!
NO! WE MUST MAKE STRONGER LAWS AGAINST ARSON!
Thats…basically how this comment chain is going dude.
^see toddlers
So…just gonna gloss over everything else. Remove guns all together and, until we can get to that point, we must do absolutely nothing else to at least hopefully prevent these deaths?
Totes what I said, mate, totes. A+
But yeah get rid of the guns.
A very small percentage of children.
There are more age groups of children than just toddlers.
I personally support laws requiring gun owners to properly store firearms.
What’re are the guns for though
Talking to one right now.
(You can’t set me up like that this is entrapment.)
I agree, throw the toddlers in the fire.
Abstinence only gun safety
That drives me crazy too. You can look at the numbers, and see that abstinence only simply doesn’t work, that kids in abstinence-only schools have sex earlier, have riskier sexual habits, are more likely to catch and spread STIs, and have higher rates of teen pregnancy. From a simple harm reduction standpoint, you’d think people would say, wow, we can actually achieve what we say our goals are by giving kids accurate advice.
I don’t get why people want to treat issues like this instead of being pragmatic and looking at the outcomes.
Just don’t let them know guns exist till they are 18, duh.
Exactly…i was looking for a clever way to say that
Yes, because that’s what’s happening. Accommodating a gun fetish. That’s 100% not an intentionally inaccurate misrepresentation of what they said.
Must be hard to argue against something that demonstrably works. You sound like the kind of person that would also argue that abstinence is the only thing to teach kids in school, since that’s the only way to prevent pregnancy and STIs.
No other country has this problem. Is it because they teach gun safety to literal toddlers?
Yep, totally. People against guns are notorious for their backwards viewpoints. Venn diagram is so overlayed and round. Totally. Such stereotype, so common.
And yet, here you are, make the same kind of ass-backwards argument against something that has been demonstrated to work without attempting to undermine civil rights.
We often teach kids things directly as a cheaper solution to bad parenting.
I can remember lots of little songs about not eating things you find on the ground or staying away from needles/drugs. And every Canadian’s favourite:
I remember on a show (I forget what it was, but its related to court cam but with active police answering calls), and a baby (Im pretty sure it was a 3 year old) somehow got ahold of a gun, got outside of the apartment, and was aiming it a doors.
I found the incident. https://youtu.be/NAFcm7I7PBc?si=31fyiNf5eZs-UE9w
How many did those murderous little snots kill intentionally, though?
With guns that were unsecured because their owners lacked the minimum mental capacity that should be a basic requirement to own a gun in the first place.
This organization has proven time and time again to be an unreliable source of information.
Do you happen to have any sources on the subject? I’m not familiar with the organization
It’s obvious who “The Organization” is. 👀
Is that from skyrim…? Lol
Bit further south.
Oh, oblivion. I knew something about it didn’t quite feel right for skyrim, I’m surprised that didn’t click sooner 😅
It’s that smudgy oblivion look to it that Skyrim doesn’t have lol
Yeah, it’s in the title
According to the pro-gun community, themselves a notorious source of unreliable information. Their opinions on Everytown are about as reliable as anti-vax groups opinions on the WHO (and for exactly the same reasons)
The solution is obviously to try kids as adults.
Don’t listen to Everytown. She cheated on her husband.
I’ll bring this up next time someone asks me why I don’t have kids.
Anymore?
Too soon!
This article is so bad it doesn’t state what location this statistic is for. We all know it but the journalist doesn’t even fucking clarify.
Awful
US new corporation, and it says it at the top
I wonder if NBC news is active only in one country on earth.
That implies people know what NBC news is
I’m British even I know who NBC is.
It’s for the US, the only location Everytown is active in.
Not in normal countries.
I think more guns, and easier access to them would solve the problem…
