Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll

[billh58]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

The .45-caliber pistol that killed Lucas Heagren, 3, on Memorial Day last year at his Ohio home had been temporarily hidden under the couch by his father. But Lucas found it and shot himself through the right eye. “It’s bad,” his mother told the 911 dispatcher. “It’s really bad.”

A few days later in Georgia, Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth.

- Snip -

A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities. The killings of Lucas, Cassie and Alex, for instance, were not recorded as accidents. Nor were more than half of the 259 accidental firearm deaths of children under age 15 identified by The Times in eight states where records were available.

- Snip -

The National Rifle Association cited the lower official numbers this year in a fact sheet opposing “safe storage” laws, saying children were more likely to be killed by falls, poisoning or environmental factors — an incorrect assertion if the actual number of accidental firearm deaths is significantly higher.

The right-wing gun lobby, through its mouthpiece the NRA, excels at manipulating and distorting facts in order to sell more guns, while paying politicians to oppose sensible gun control legislation at all levels of government. They hide behind the Second Amendment and pose as "patriots" while aiding and abetting the slaughter of innocent Americans of all ages.

Please support a gun control organization of your choice today, and help curtail the menace of guns on our streets and the tragedy of the gun violence death and injury epidemic in our country.

[CrispyQ]

1. What a sad, sad read.

~kick

[Loudly]

2. If these children were being sexually exploited rather than shot and killed

society would go into full zero tolerance mode.

Instead, oh well. It's the "cost of freedom."

Carry on dying kids.

[3catwoman3]

3. Excellent point. Thank you.

These occurences are in no way "accidents." It is freaking outright damn neligence, and there is no excuse for it.

[flamin lib]

4. I don't undersand why anyone, including the NRA,

would oppose safe storage. What is the justification?

[billh58]

5. Because it might

lead to (gasp) registration, or so the right-wing gun lobby "slippery slope" argument goes. No one is supposed to know that Second Amendment absolutists own guns, or that they carry them in public -- it's a Constitutionally-protected secret according to the NRA/ALEC/Koch Brothers "guns for everyone" marketing cabal.