Gun deaths involving children are devastating. The NRA has no idea what to say about them.

[SecularMotion]

As the National Rifle Association’s annual conference hits Nashville this weekend with 70,000 expected attendees, the organization has good reason to be upbeat. For another year, it has succeeded in stalling legislative attempts at moderate gun controls, rolling back existing state regulations and winning media battles. But there’s a looming question that should be seriously concerning the NRA and its supporters: how to reconcile the organization’s agenda with new evidence on the prevalence of gun accidents involving children.

Over the past year, new studies and media reports have documented America’s extraordinary number of child-involved shootings. These occur when a child happens upon a gun, or is left alone with one, and ends up shooting themselves or another person. Such disasters result in hundreds of child fatalities and have made American children nine times more likely to die in gun accidents than children anywhere else in the developed world. These deaths pose a massive challenge for the NRA. They demonstrate fairly conclusively that guns cannot be both safe and ubiquitous; the inevitable consequence of widespread gun ownership is a never-ending series of tragedies involving children. But, desperate to insist there’s nothing wrong, the NRA has proved itself totally incapable of responding to the problem.

The stories are endless and gruesome. A toddler shoots an infant while they are left alone in a car. A five-year-old boy shoots a three-year-old girl. And so on, ad infinitum. In Texas last month, the sheriff of Houston pleaded despairingly with the public after three children were shot dead in four days. And in widely reported Idaho incident, a two-year-old shot his mother to death in a Walmart after finding a gun in her handbag.

These cases change the terms of the gun control debate. Ordinarily whenever America’s extraordinary level of gun violence is brought up, usually after a mass killing of newly shocking savagery, the NRA offers its well-honed reply: For every bad guy with a gun, there should be a good guy with a gun. It’s the people, not the guns. These slogans, with their emphasis on personal responsibility, have been tremendously effective. But the child-involved shootings are much harder to explain away, since they don’t allow for such facile moral narratives. Talk of good guys and bad guys loses all meaning when a toddler has shot his baby brother.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/09/deaths-of-children-are-the-most-devastating-effect-of-our-gun-culture-the-nra-has-no-idea-what-to-say-about-them/

[ileus]

1. Always properly store your PSD...that's all that needs said.

On your side or in a safe....your favorite sidearm (or longarm) can't protect/save lives if it's out of the operators reach.

[DonP]

2. 7 month old articles now?

Having trouble finding anything current, or just recycling old stuff?

[Eleanors38]

3. "..stories are endless and gruesome..." Sounds like a controller/banner "slogan"...

The number of gun-related childhood deaths (under 15 yoa) is well under a hundred/yr and falling. And unlike these controller/banner editorials in the WaPo, gun-owner EFFORTS, like Project Childsafe, are having a positive effect. Controller/banner fear-driven editorials are EZ to write, but others are making the EFFORT.

[Silicosys4]

4. "Devastating"?

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf

Guess Motor Vehicle accidents, Drowning, accidental poisonings, and death from a fall, are all acceptable.

[beevul]

6. What a stunning rebuttal.

Way to attack the substance of a post rather than the poster him/her self.


Oh, wait...

[Duckhunter935]

18. A little too stunning, lol

[beevul]

19. While the nra may or may not know what to say...

While the nra may or may not know what to say...the jury sure seemed to know the answer to the question they were posed.

I'd love to see the jury results, since it appears none of us were on it.

[Duckhunter935]

20. Here it is

On Wed Oct 28, 2015, 06:37 PM you sent an alert on the following post:

We have a new gun troll
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=179448

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

YOUR COMMENTS

Calling a new member a troll. That is a personal call out and is a violation of the DU TOS and should be hidden

Thank you for your time.

JURY RESULTS

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Wed Oct 28, 2015, 06:51 PM, and voted 4-3 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Totally disagree with the alleged "troll," but they have the right to be here (at least for the time being) without being called a "troll" all the same.

Thank you.

[Silicosys4]

7. Secular Motion

I was reading long before I joined, and I can tell you that after having read through your drive by postings, your off the cuff "gun troll" comment is par for the course.

Pretty sad, you decide to label me like that, given your complete lack of knowledge of anything I stand for.
Par for the course, though.

[Straw Man]

8. Stay classy.

We have a new gun troll

Welcome to DU, if you aren't a returning member who was previously banned.

Speaks for itself, really.

[branford]

9. Would you care to actually comment on the CDC data,

and the comparative number of childhood deaths resulting from firearms versus other seemingly preventable causes, rather than attack a DU member?

Once again, you typify the modus operandi of many gun control advocates, and explain why you accomplish nothing in either the electoral or judicial spheres (and why your DU "safe" forum is effectively inactive).

Nevertheless, feel free to continually attack the messenger of inconvenient facts and scholarship. It's great for gun rights fundraising...

[GGJohn]

12. Wow SecMo,

that was a really intellectual, incisive, well thought out reply................NOT.

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. Any comment aside from whingeing about the poster?

[ileus]

14. Naw it's not shares that's for sure.

[Duckhunter935]

15. Care to comment on the CDC link?

Name calling and insults to a member by you are all you have, shame on you sir, shame.

[Kang Colby]

11. Welcome to DU. Excellent post. n/t

[Duckhunter935]

16. Welcome to DU

[dairydog91]

10. No idea? How about "don't store dangerous stuff where children can play with it"?

That applies to guns, tractors, construction machinery, knife blades, power tools, dangerous chemicals, welding equipment, and all sorts of other things you might find at a home in my area.